The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window is streaming now on Netflix, and sees Anna (played by Kristen Bell) try to get to the bottom of the murder of Lisa (Shelley Hennig)—even when that murder may not have happened.
By the end of Episode 8, we know exactly who committed that murder and Anna seems free to live her life of painting, reading trashy thrillers and somehow getting an entire bottle of wine into one glass. All while getting over her fear of rain.
The final episode of the show (which from now we are going to call The Woman in the House for brevity's sake), however, seems to find Anna at the center of another mystery. But has an A-list actress and multiple Oscar nominee really died, or has Anna's unfortunate new habit of mixing Xanax with neat vodka caused her to imagine things?
Here's the ending of the show explained, as well as what it could mean for a potential Season 2.
What Happens at the End of 'The Woman in the House'?
At the end of Episode 8, we cut to a scene in an airport one year later. Anna is on the way to a girls' weekend in New York, while her ex-husband-turned-therapist-turned-husband-again Douglas (Michael Ealy) cares for their newborn baby.
On the plane, it seems that Anna has turned a corner in her life. When the flight attendant (Jim Rash) asks if she wants any wine, she says she no longer drinks it—but that she would love a vodka. Mix that with the Xanax that Douglas has given her, and that is a pretty potent mix.
Before she falls into her booze-and-pills stupor, however, Anna meets a mysterious woman in sunglasses who sits next to her in seat 2A. Why is this woman going to New York? "Business," she tells Anna, in a steely tone that suggests that she may not be talking about contracts and deals.
Who is playing Anna's fellow passenger? None other than eight-time Oscar nominee Glenn Close, playing a character somewhere between Norma Desmond from Sunset Boulevard (which she played on Broadway) and Alex Forrest, her role in Fatal Attraction.
After waking up after at least three vodkas, Anna heads to the toilets, where she sees this woman seemingly dead, bleeding from one ear. She brings the flight attendant to the bathroom to show him, but the woman has disappeared. "There was no one in seat 2A."
But, of course, it seems there was. Anna finds the mirror that the woman had used earlier to check her make-up under the seat. Looks like she has another mystery to solve—and no knife-wielding child anywhere to be seen who could have committed the murder.
After a season gently mocking films like The Woman in the Window and The Girl on the Train, it seems that for Season 2 The Woman in the House has a new target. That would be Flightplan, the 2005 Jodie Foster film in which her daughter goes missing on a flight —except no one believes her.
Netflix has not confirmed whether The Woman in the House is set to get a Season 2 (and, of course, it will depend on how well the show does in the weeks after it drops on Netflix). But with Close cameoing in the final episode, it seems like the show may have plans for more.
That is, if this is not just one last joke on the audience, making fun of the outlandish sequel set-ups that some thriller have. Close, after all, has a busy year ahead of her, with projects including Season 2 of Apple TV+'s Tehran and Peter Dinklage film Brothers coming up in the next 12 months.
As her appearance is meant as a final surprise for viewers, neither she nor the show's creators have spoken about what her cameo in the show's ending means. We may learn more once the show has been out and the cast and crew feel safer to discuss it without spoiling things for anyone.
The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window is streaming now on Netflix.