Fool Me Once ending explained
NetflixIn true Harlan Coben style, Fool Me Once is an absolute head-scratcher so, if you’re wondering how the series ends, here’s your full explainer.
Adapted from the 2016 novel of the same name, Fool Me Once is the first limited series to be released from Netflix‘s 2024 slate.
Starring the likes of Michelle Keegan, Richard Armitage, and Joanna Lumley, the show’s eight episodes reveal a murder mystery case that case kept fans guessing until its final moments.
Now that Fool Me Once is officially available to stream, here’s everything you need to know about its ending explained in full. Warning – spoilers ahead!
Fool Me Once ending explained: Who killed Joe?
Fool Me Once ends with a jaw-dropping reveal: it was Maya who killed Joe.
Maya Stern (Michelle Keegan) begins Fool Me Once by grieving the sudden death of her husband Joe (Richard Armitage). A former military captain, Maya now works as a private helicopter instructor while caring for the pair’s young daughter, Lily. Maya attends Joe’s funeral along with the rest of Joe’s family, including his stern mother Judith Burkett (Joanna Lumley). Later that day, Maya’s friend gifts her a “nanny-cam” in the form of a picture frame, stating that Maya can keep an extra eye on how Lily is being looked after by the Burkett’s nanny.
Instead, what Maya finds is a recording of Joe, seemingly taken after his death. Questioning the nanny, Maya is maced, leading her to believe that the Burketts are hiding something. Through flashbacks, viewers see that Joe was actually murdered, with Maya now on the hunt to try and find his true killer. At the same time, Detective Sami Kierce (Adeel Akhtar) is assigned Joe’s case while dealing with a flurry of unknown periods of blackout.
As she begins her questioning, not only is Maya on frosty terms with Judith, but she’s not too hot with her brother-in-law Eddie (Marcus Garvey) either. Maya’s sister Claire (Natalie Anderson) had also died shortly before Joe in an apparent robbery gone wrong. Just as much as she distrusts the Burketts, Maya finds that her sister was also hiding things, including a burner phone.
Maya’s world unravels
NetflixFrom here, multiple storylines begin to splinter off. The main narrative is still Maya tracking down Joe’s killer, taking on the role of amateur detective. Having watched him die in front of her, Maya is desperate for answers, with limited information to go off of. Joe’s sister Caroline (Hattie Morahan) also says that Joe’s death is strange, having not been allowed to see the body or successfully obtain a death certificate. Judith says that Caroline is mentally unwell, stating that Maya is on the brink of bringing harm into the family. Death, it seems, follows Maya around.
On top of that, Maya also digs into the death of Joe’s brother Andrew, who apparently committed suicide when they were younger. This is where Maya’s sister Claire ties into the story, who got into hot water by trying to out the Burkett family’s home truths. She tracked down Corey the Whistle (Laurie Kynaston) who reported on Maya’s actions in the military, exchanging information on the Burkett family in order to remove audio files of Maya from his site. Claire’s kids discover she also had another child by a former boyfriend, who she used to try and gain more intel from a local school.
Visiting the school, Maya learns that both Joe and Andrew were friends with a boy called Theo, with the latter two dying before Joe became an adult. As well as the potential death scandal, Corey found that the Burketts were also falsifying big pharma data for companies they owned, not disclosing side effects of ineffective medication. This ends up accounting for Sami’s blackouts, finally beginning to turn suspicion away from Maya herself.
Death is all around the Burketts
Vishal Sharma/NetflixIn the Fool Me Once ending, Maya also finds the body of the yacht captain present when Andrew was murdered, who was being hushed up by the Burketts. Maya’s friend Shane (Emmett J. Scanlan) has remained a confidante throughout her findings, but is also the key to revealing Maya’s true backstory. During a conversation between the pair, viewers learn that the compromising military tapes Corey had show Maya directly going against orders, killing civilians in the process. Shane helped her to test the bullet that killed Claire, proving that the same gun also killed Joe. After finding out that the nanny-cam clip of Joe was deepfaked, Shane finds out that it was in fact Maya who killed Joe after all.
Not only was Joe responsible for the deaths of Theo, his brother Andrew, and the yacht captain, but he also killed Claire too. After finding out that Claire was on the cusp of giving Corey compromising information, Joe felt he had no choice but to keep her quiet once and for all. Maya found out and told Joe that she wanted to talk to him alone, with the two meeting in a park at night. Both were suspicious of what the other knew, but it was Maya who got to Joe first, killing him in three blows.
Viewers see Sami arresting Maya, but she then turns up at Judith’s house, where she, Caroline, and other son Neil have all finished having dinner. Maya waits for them in the dark, confronting them about the multiple deaths and the falsified pharma data. Judith denies everything, claiming that she had always known Maya killed Joe. The more Maya pushes Judith, the more she starts to relent, trying to get Maya to agree to a deal that pins everything on Joe without tarnishing either party. Maya declines, and is promptly shot dead by Neil. Before she dies, Maya points to the shelf, holding the nanny-cam frame. Sami and Corey have teamed up to create a livestream, showing the family kill Maya alongside admitting to all of the tragedy beforehand. The three are arrested and sent to prison. 18 years later, Lily – who was taken in my Eddie – gives birth to a baby girl, with Sami, Eddie, and Shane all going to visit. Lily says that she wants to call the baby Maya after her mother.
Fool Me Once is streaming on Netflix now. You can check out our other coverage below:
