Scarpetta season 1 ending explained: Who was the killer? And who appears at the end?
Safe to say, we have questions.
**Warning: contains full spoilers for Scarpetta season 1.**
Long awaited by fans of Patricia Cornwell's writing, the first season of Scarpetta adapts not one but two of her books for screen.
While the modern-day story draws from 2021’s Autopsy, the flashback timeline is inspired by Postmortem, the first book that introduced us to Dr Kay Scarpetta back in 1990.
Season 1 jumps back and forth between the two, exploring how an early investigation ties into new murders that the titular lead has been tasked to solve.
But the team behind Scarpetta are already looking to the future, too.
Season 1 ends with a wild cliffhanger, the kind that would infuriate you no end if the show was suddenly cancelled there and then. Luckily, Prime Video renewed Scarpetta for a second season before the first one even came out, and with good reason too.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter ahead of release, star and executive producer Nicole Kidman teased: "When you see all eight, you’ll see why you couldn’t end it there."
And she was absolutely right to say it. So let's start a little investigation of our own and look closer at what exactly happens at the end of Scarpetta season 1.
Scarpetta season 1 ending explained: Who was the killer?
So it turns out there were two killers, one operating in each timeline.
The 90s killer was already revealed to be a 911 operator one chapter earlier in the penultimate episode. Using emergency call records (and soap?), Scarpetta figured out that Roy McCorkle was choosing his victims based on their voices.
After she tracked him down, Scarpetta ended up killing him by stabbing him in the neck. And with no mobile phones to hand back then, McCorkle wasn't exactly in a position to call 911 for himself now, was he?
Kay's brother-in-law, detective Pete Marino, arrived straight after and finished the guy off. He then covered for Scarpetta by telling the authorities that he and he alone was the one who figured everything out and confronted McCockle.
For reasons that aren't especially clear, Scarpetta kept the truth of what happened that day from her husband. Only now in the final episode does the truth come out, and it's safe to say he's not a big fan of what went down.
Scarpetta's hubbie, Benton Wesley, asks Kay for a divorce, which is kind of wild, because why would you want to divorce Nicole Kidman?
Left alone in the house, Scarpetta is suddenly forced to fend off the present-day copycat killer when Officer August Ryan shows up and attacks.
The pair first met at the murder scene of Lori Peterson in 1998. Seeing the original murders unfold in real time ignited something in August. Plus it turns out that the original killer was actually his uncle too.
Via flashback, we discover that Ryan saw one of the murders as a kid, which obviously messed him up no end. At one point, he mentions how hard it was to replicate his uncle's murders exactly. Gwen Hainey’s death and mutilation were "perfection", he tells Scarpetta.
Kay's not really on board with this, unsurprisingly, prompting Officer Ryan to strangle Scarpetta in her own home (much like McCorkle tried before).
You don't easily get to kill Scarpetta in a show named Scarpetta though, so it should come as no surprise that Kay survives. And she does so in a rather grisly way.
Using a conveniently placed baseball bat, Scarpetta beats Ryan and knocks him down the stairs before bashing his skull in. The copycat killer should have scarpered out of Scarpetta's house when he had the chance.
While that goes down, Kay's daughter Lucy is also struggling in her own way. After the death of her wife Janet, and then the subsequent deletion of the AI program posing as Janet, she turns to former actor Matt Petersen to try and find a way to bring both of their spouses back from the dead.
Yes, that really is a sentence I just typed out in full.
Lucy takes part in one of Petersen’s weirdo cult ceremonies during the finale's closing montage, confirming their alliance moving into season 2. There is also some science involved as one of the victims, Gwen Hainey, was involved in research that could potentially reanimate dead tissue, and therefore people, somewhere down the line.
It's giving Resident Evil at this point, especially when we watch Scarpetta repeatedly bash Ryan's brains in with that baseball bat.
The season then ends with someone arriving at the door, someone who sees everything...
Who arrives at the end of Scarpetta season 1?
Is this someone a zombie or a member of the Umbrella Corporation?
Probably not given that this is not actually Resident Evil. However, the look of pure shock on Scarpetta's face at the end suggests that this visitor has come as a surprise to her regardless.
Could it be Lucy coming home? Or Kay's sister Dorothy? Or perhaps even someone new who we haven't met?
We won't know the answer to this until season 2 arrives, but our money's on it being Maggie.
Not only has she got more involved with Kay's life recently, Maggie also handed Scarpetta some key evidence just a few minutes prior. Maybe she's shown up to bring Kay some more in the closing scene?
It could also be Pete or Benton of course. And without Scarpetta's investigative skills, it's impossible to know for sure.
Whatever the case, you can see why Kidman said they "couldn't end it there".
All episodes of Scarpetta are available from Wednesday 11 March on Amazon Prime Video. Sign up for a 30-day free trial of Prime Video and pay £8.99 a month after that.
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Authors
David Opie is a freelance entertainment journalist who writes about TV and film across a range of sites including Radio Times, Indiewire, Empire, Yahoo, Paste, and more. He's spoken on numerous LGBTQ+ panels to discuss queer representation and strives to champion LGBTQ+ storytelling as much as possible. Other passions include comics, animation, and horror, which is why David longs to see a Buffy-themed Rusical on RuPaul's Drag Race. He previously worked at Digital Spy as a Deputy TV Editor and has a degree in Psychology.
