56 Days Ending Explained: Who is the Victim?

Prime Video’s ’56 Days’ is an erotic crime thriller that follows the twisted romance of two people who are not what they seem. Over the course of eight episodes, we follow Oliver and Ciara, both of whom are hiding some dark secrets, as their chance meeting at the supermarket quickly escalates into a romance that tests them in unexpected ways. 56 days after their first meeting, a dead body is found in Oliver’s apartment. It has been melted to the point that it is impossible to figure out whether it was a man or a woman. As detectives Karl and Lee try to get to the bottom of the truth, they stumble upon a string of secrets that paint a convoluted picture of what really happened in Oliver’s apartment. SPOILERS AHEAD.

56 Days Plot Synopsis

Ciara and Oliver meet at a supermarket and instantly hit it off. Their meeting appears to be a meetcute that paves the path for a whirlwind romance. But then, it turns out that it wasn’t a chance meeting after all. Oliver turns out to be a murderer who got away with his crime thanks to his family, who covered everything up. But that has also left him tetherless, so he is constantly changing identities and starting anew, unable to form any attachments because his secret threatens to undo everything. So, when he falls in love with Ciara, he tries his best to keep his secret buried. What he doesn’t know is that Ciara not only knows about his secret, but she has targeted him because of it. Her main mission is to con him, to get money out of him, which she can send to her mother to save her house from being confiscated by the bank.

Soon, however, it turns out that the connection between Oliver and Ciara runs deeper. The murder that Oliver is held responsible for ruined Ciara and her family, and revenge is what truly drew her to him. As their story unfolds, a timeline from 56 days in the future runs parallel. A highly decomposed dead body is found in Oliver’s apartment, and detectives Lee and Karl are put on the case. What makes this case more challenging is that they have to first figure out the identity of the victim before catching the culprit. So, every person that comes into the picture becomes a possible victim as well as a suspect, twisting the investigation so much that, for a while, it seems impossible to figure out what actually happened to whom in that apartment. The truth eventually comes to light, but justice doesn’t necessarily take the right course.

Whose Dead Body Is It? Who is the Murderer?

After snaking around the question of the victim’s identity for seven episodes, we finally get the answer in the finale, where it turns out that the dead body is neither Oliver nor Ciara. Due to the extreme deterioration of the body, the cops were unable to ascertain whether it was a man or a woman, but a preliminary examination suggested that it had to be a man. So, for a minute, it seemed that Ciara had had her revenge on Oliver, that she killed him and then disappeared for good. However, that doesn’t turn out to be the case. Ciara had hated Oliver in the beginning because she blamed him for her brother Shane’s death. She wanted to punish him, but after meeting him, she realised that he had been punishing himself enough. So, even as she stole $100,000 from him, she reconsidered the idea of simply disappearing from his life.

Now that she knew him, she had fallen in love with him, and so, when all the secrets were out, it seemed redundant to them to run away from one another. Both of them had seen and now knew the worst parts of one another and were still in love with each other, so there didn’t seem to be a point in breaking up. But then, Oliver’s therapist, Dan Troxler, shows up at his apartment. Flashbacks reveal that he had been manipulating Oliver since Paul’s death. A guilt-gripped Oliver had tried to come clean about the whole thing in a letter he wrote to Shane, but Troxler prevented him from sharing it with anyone because he thought that if Oliver went to prison, so would the money that comes from therapising him. For years, Troxler kept running circles around Oliver, preventing him from forming any meaningful connection and worsening his mental state to the point that he couldn’t sleep anymore.

But that changes with Ciara’s arrival, and once Troxler realizes that Oliver is going to leave him for her, he shows his true colors. He asks for money in exchange for all the evidence he has collected against Oliver over the years, including the confession letter he wrote to Shane all those years ago. Through their conversation, Ciara realises that Troxler is the one truly responsible for Shane’s death. Had it not been for him, Oliver would have taken responsibility for his actions, and Shane would still be alive. Moreover, Troxler also ruined Oliver’s life, and he will continue to do so if not stopped at once. So, Ciara hits him so hard in the head with a heavy object that he bleeds out and convulses to death in front of her and Oliver.

Why do Karl and Lee Frame Linus?

As Detectives Karl Connolly and Lee Reardon try to unravel the case, a picture of Oliver and Ciara’s relationship begins to emerge. Eventually, it is confirmed that the victim is Dan Troxler, and it becomes clear that Oliver and Ciara were complicit in whatever happened to him. While Karl is not sure who killed Troxler, Lee believes that it must have been Ciara because she wouldn’t have wanted to lose Oliver. Still, they both believe that the couple worked together to dispose of Troxler’s corpse. In an ideal situation, they would have continued to look for the couple and would probably even have found them, or at least, they would have found enough evidence to issue an arrest warrant against the couple, who were far, far away from Boston by that time. But things take quite a turn.

During the investigation, it turns out that Lee has been in a relationship with Linus. He was arrested months ago for drug dealing, and initially, Lee reveals that he sent gifts to her, which is construed as bribes by Karl. Later, it turns out that the gifts were actually gifts because Lee has been in a secret relationship with Linus, which is pretty bad, considering he is still a criminal. After she is found out, she tries to break things off with him amicably. But he gets angry, not just because of the break-up but also because he knows that it would mean that Lee will not protect him anymore. He tries to terrorise her into submitting to his demands, wishing for her to claim him as a CI, which would prevent any other law enforcement officer from arresting him.

But, of course, this is taking things too far, and Lee doesn’t agree to it. So, he attacks her, but Karl intervenes in time. In the tussle, the cop also steals Linus’ necklace. This would have been the end of the story, but Linus doesn’t take the rejection very well. Later that night, he tries to kill Karl and Lee by shooting at them. While the detectives are unharmed, it becomes clear that Linus is out for blood and needs to be stopped. So, they come up with a plan. Because Linus is known to have sold drugs, including propofol, which was found in Oliver’s apartment, they have a way to connect him to Troxler, who was arrested for practicing medicine without a license and for smuggling propofol over state lines.

With the building manager’s help, they find CCTV footage that links Linus to the building, if not Oliver’s apartment, during the timeline of the murder. To seal the deal, Karl plants Linus’ necklace in the evidence. Then, Lee goes to their boss, comes clean about her dealings with Linus, and the subsequent shootout. She also asks to be taken off the case because of her connection to Linus, who is now a major suspect. The case is transferred to another detective, who Lee and Karl know is not the most competent of people, which is what makes him the man for the task. The new detective takes one look at the evidence in front of him and concludes that Linus is the culprit, which is what Lee and Karl had planned for all along. So, Linus is arrested for the murder, which means Lee doesn’t have to fear for her life anymore.

Do Oliver and Ciara End Up Together? Are They Caught?

While the story unfolds over the course of 56 days, Oliver knows that it all started 16 years ago, when he killed Paul, and Shane was blamed for it. Eventually, when he discovers that Ciara is Shane’s sister, Megan, he doesn’t blame her for deceiving him and wanting revenge. He had been punishing himself all these years, and perhaps, being punished by Megan would have brought him some sense of justice being served. But then, she declared his love for him, and they decided to move on. If it hadn’t been for Troxler, they would have looked forward to a good future, but the therapist threatened to mess things up, and Ciara killed him. Even as they dispose of the body and make plans to escape, Oliver is overwhelmed by guilt.

He’d already destroyed their family once when he blamed Shane for Paul’s death, and now, he was responsible for destroying them all over again by having Ciara kill Troxler for him. So, when he watches her cry over killing someone, becoming a fugitive, and not being able to be with her family, he decides to rectify the situation. If he didn’t go to prison for Paul’s murder, he could do it for Troxler’s. By saving Ciara, he could balance the scales of justice and finally find some sense of peace. Of course, he doesn’t share this plan with her. He gives her the cash and the means to run away. He tells her to meet her sister to say goodbye, while he goes to say goodbye to Elliot. She believes that the plan is to meet at the airport, where Oliver’s private plane is waiting for them.

However, when Oliver meets Elliot, he reveals his true plan. Even as Elliot drives him to the police station, he points out that there is no point in losing a future with Ciara over trying to make up for things that happened 16 years ago. It makes Oliver pause. Still, he walks up to the station’s door. Meanwhile, Ciara waits for him, and when he doesn’t show up, she starts to wonder if he has ditched her. But he shows up at the last moment, confirming that he took Elliot’s advice after all.

He chose to have a future with Ciara rather than continuing to punish himself for something he had been repenting for all these years. The original plan was for them to fly to Reykjavik, but Ciara suggests they go somewhere more tropical. Later, Linus’ arrest means that they don’t have to be on the run, which means Ciara can stay in touch with her family, whom she and Oliver continue to send money to, so they are provided for. The last scene takes a time jump, where we find Oliver and Ciara living their happy tropical dream, with a child by their side, confirming that they have successfully gotten away with murder.

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