This feature contains major spoilers for the Bad Sisters Season 1 finale. Read our spoiler-free Bad Sisters series review if you're not current!
Bad Sisters is not your typical murder mystery featuring a detective hunting down the culprit. The police don’t even think anything needs investigating. Instead, creator and star Sharon Horgan’s adaptation of the Belgian series Clan pits two families against each other in a battle to reveal what happened — or keep it buried. Rather than a Poirot moment in the finale, in which the sleuth gathers the suspects at a chic location to spill the killer's identity, the culprit in John Paul’s (Claes Bang) confesses to their crime without coercion.
Across ten episodes, the Apple TV+ dark comedy has depicted two timelines: before and after JP’s (aka The Prick) demise. The five Garvey sisters experienced a lot of tragedy, including the death of their parents in a car crash when two of the siblings were still minors. Grace’s (Anne-Marie Duff) marriage to the emotionally — and later physically —abusive JP is a fracture point the series expertly pivots off. Humor, heart, and horror are woven together in another offering that further boosts the streamers growing library.
In the present, the Claffin brothers are motivated to prove JP was unlawfully killed to save Thomas (Brian Gleeson) from also going to prison for fraud their deceased father committed. This battle between insurance agents and the Garveys works because everyone is fueled by trying to save their families. The only truly nefarious figure is now lying six feet under, dressed in his pajamas.
The finale, “Saving Grace,” brings the two threads together and addresses the big question, but some of the answers have been in plain sight since the series began. Let's take a look at the clues hidden in the credits and the killer's identity. Plus, the biggest twists in the finale.
The Credit Clues
The streaming era has allowed viewers to skip the opening credits with a simple button click. In some cases, title cards have replaced theme songs, but thankfully shows like Game of Thrones (and now House of the Dragon) offer a reminder of title sequences that are part of the story fabric. Apple TV+ embraces this storytelling element as well, whether weaving historical images with joyful dancing in the Pachinko intro or setting the tone with Severance’s off-kilter animation. Bad Sisters opts for a Rube Goldberg machine created by Peter Anderson Studio, and the playful name given to this sequence reveals its message: “The Prick Trap.”
Some objects are props from the show, while others are “handmaid contraptions inspired by the drama, to create a darkly comic chain reaction.” Many of the nods are to JP and the ways the sisters have tried (and failed) to kill him. Bibi’s (Sarah Greene) archery skills were utilized in “Eye for an Eye” when she used arrows for target practice and the watermelon to prove a frozen paintball would penetrate a scalp. Candles representing the botched first attempt at the cabin and a book about wild mushrooms similar to Bibi stole from the library to give poisoning tips also feature.
The opening bars of PJ Harvey’s cover of Leonard Cohen’s evocative “Who By Fire” not only sets the mood via the titles but points to the plot. The lyrics are steeped in death, and the reference to barbituates is the most pointed regarding what happens to JP — or rather, another botched attempt.
The taxidermy eye kickstarting the mechanism points to the revelation in Episode 8 that JP’s dad choked to death on a similar eyeball years earlier before he stashed the body in the freezer. His cruelty is in the lie he told his mother, and JP's villainy is precise without veering into caricature.
Photos of the Garveys in happier times adorn the walls, but JP’s poisonous presence is felt in every inch of the room. A model of his boat, “True Grace,” a house of cards with his face all over them, and the Virgin Mary figurine similar to the one that blinded Bibi are reminders. A book called “Insurance Law and You” ensures the Claffins aren’t left out. By the end of the credits, The Prick’s photograph is on fire, and the red string tying it all together remains intact. While the latter might typically represent the thread found on a murder investigation board (or the Always Sunny in Philadelphia meme), here it points to the garment used to make it look like JP’s death is accidental.
Bad Sisters Ending Explained
After Eva (Sharon Horgan), Ursula (Eva Birthistle), Bibi, and Becka (Eve Hewson) have tried and failed to kill The Prick; there is one sister left. “We wanted to save you,” Becka explains in the finale when the four siblings confess to what they did. By the time Grace sits down to tell them, viewers might have guessed it was his abused wife who did it, but there are still some surprises.
One of the biggest mysteries is that whoever did it managed to make it look like an accident. JP has done his share of misdeeds beyond the mental anguish he has recently caused. Not only did he watch his father choke to death, but a decade earlier, on Grace’s birthday, he raped Eva. She was drunk, so her memories are blurry, but it happened. He claims his impotence is because Grace’s sister forced herself on him, and this vile accusation snaps Grace out of his spell. He can no longer gaslight her or use her sisters as a weapon.
There is no low he won’t stoop to or room he doesn’t suck the oxygen out of, and it is a harrowing scene to watch with both Bang and Duff doing some of their best work in the series. Grace uses his pajamas to strangle him after he punches her hard in the gut. But how does she turn this into a scenario that doesn’t look like she killed him?
The foundation is subtly laid in the fifth episode when Grace knits a red scarf while watching the 1968 movie Isadora starring Vanessa Redgrave. At the time, it represented her love of dance, but it also laid a perfect crime seed. For those unfamiliar, Isadora Duncan was an American dancer who became famous in the 1920s for her innovative dance, bohemian attitude toward love, and the manner of her untimely death. A long silk scarf she wore became entangled in the wheel of the car she was a passenger in and broke her neck. As they are out at the cabin, Grace redresses him and makes it look like he was driving the quad bike back from the pub when the red scarf got caught in the wheel, instantly breaking his neck—and covering the strangulation marks. In a smart move, she also buried JP in the murder weapon, which explains her choice of pajamas for his burial attire.
Biggest Bad Sisters WTF Moment
JP didn’t just ruin the lives of his family; he also destroyed his neighbor Roger (Michael Smiley). First, he pretended to be a young boy to coerce a sexual response. When this failed, he called the police to report Roger as a predator who used his position in the local church to abuse children. It doesn’t matter that the police found nothing to corroborate this accusation, as he is branded a pedophile in the court of public opinion.
Roger stopped by the cabin to tell JP he forgives him and had this gesture thrown back in his face. So when Grace needed a hand to move the body, Roger was more than willing to provide that support. Revealing this twist toward the end of the finale is the last piece of the puzzle. Though the biggest kicker is that Grace doesn’t make it public that JP was the one who fabricated the charge against Roger. Not everything can be a happily ever after, but his still tarnished name cuts to the emotional core.
Biggest Bad Sisters Shock
Undoubtedly, the biggest shock of the series is when Becka accidentally kills JP’s mother, Minna (Nina Norén), by locking her in the freezer room at the end of Episode 8. JP was the intended target, but as with every other plan enacted by the Garveys, it goes awry. From dead dogs to blinding a paintball instructor, the list of innocent bystanders is long. This alone could make you dislike the Garveys, but everything JP has done means you empathize with the women even when it goes wrong. Yes, they have done bad things, but their motivation keeps the audience on their side.
It would also be easy to hate Tom and Matt (Daryl McCormack) for trying to prove someone killed JP. Still, the half-brothers are also motivated by family. In a perfect world, Grace would drop the claim, and everyone would be free to live their life. It takes a beat to get to this conclusion, and Becka almost murders the man she has fallen for to save her sister.
Ah yes, the youngest Garvey takes the pentobarbital Ursula acquired to kill JP so she can stop Matt from spilling the truth to save his brother from prison. Is there one last victim? Okay, so it isn’t entirely surprising that Becka doesn’t give him the drink with the poison, but there is a moment it seems possible. Everything does work out, and Bad Sisters remains biting and brilliant to its conclusion. One unanswered question is whether Becka and Matt are still together, but if anyone can get over this moment of madness, it is them. A Garvey/Claffin wedding would be quite the bash.
Emma Fraser is a contributing freelancer for IGN, covering everything from TV reviews to asking burning questions about Yellowjackets and Stranger Things. They have a decade of experience as a culture writer with bylines at publications including The Daily Beast, Elle, Little White Lies, and Thrillist. They also have a MA in Film and Television from the University of East Anglia.
source https://www.ign.com/articles/bad-sisters-ending-explained