A Man on the Inside Season 2 Ending Explained: Who is the Real Culprit?

Netflix’s ‘A Man on the Inside’ returns with a second season to send Charles Nieuwendyk to investigate another case of theft. In the first season, when he was hired to go undercover, he was a newbie to the profession, and it took him some time and learning to pick up the necessary skills. By the beginning of the second season, he has become quite experienced. However, in gaining that experience, he has had to solve a series of bland cases. He is thirsty for something like Pacific View again, and just when Julie starts to explain to him that Pacific View is a one-in-a-million type of case, another one like it comes knocking at their door. SPOILERS AHEAD.

A Man on the Inside Season 2 Recap

A laptop has been stolen. It’s not an ordinary laptop. It belongs to the President of Wheeler College, Jack Berenger, and it contains the details of a donation that the college is set to receive from a billionaire alumnus, Brad Vinick. The donation is a couple of hundred million dollars, and it will change the fate of the college. However, there is someone who doesn’t want the deal to go through. This is why they have stolen the laptop and are threatening to expose Berenger’s private emails, which could ruin him. Because the college authorities don’t want it to become a media issue, they have come to Julie’s PI firm rather than going to the cops.

Because the theft took place in college and concerns the college’s fate, it makes sense that someone on the faculty did it. To find that person, Charles has to go undercover again, this time as a visiting professor at Wheeler. He has to familiarise himself with the ins and outs of the place and its people. The only people who know about the true nature of his job are Berenger and the college provost, Holly. The investigation leads Charles to discover something interesting about the college. He makes new friends and even falls in love again. Meanwhile, Julie has an interesting encounter with Pacific View’s managing director, Didi. At the same time, her strained relationship with her mother, who used to be a conwoman, comes to light. By the end of the season, Charles and Julie learn some very valuable lessons about friendship and loyalty, and this is what leads them to the truth.

A Shocking Confession Changes the Course of the Investigation

As Charles and Julie investigate the case, they conclude that whoever wanted to blackmail Jack Berenger must have been aware of Project Aurora, the initiative Brad Vinick planned to implement once his donation was approved and he gained complete control of the college. However, someone found out about it, and because they didn’t want Vinick to destroy the college, they decided to do something about it. The thing is that there were only a few people who knew about Aurora, and Berenger was one of them. Charles and Julie come to the conclusion that perhaps, when Berenger found out about Aurora, he started having second thoughts. While he was ready to move on to another job in Texas, he didn’t want Wheeler to become a blot on his career.

So, he framed the whole thing to make it look like he was being blackmailed, because he wanted to buy more time. Berenger refuses these accusations, and sure enough, Dr. Ben Cole comes forward, confessing that he was the one who committed the crime. He says he overheard Berenger and Vinick talking about their plans, which is when he decided to save the college. As evidence, he gives back Berenger’s laptop and also presents the pen with the special nib that was used to write the notes. This leaves no shadow of doubt that Ben is the perpetrator. However, some time later, Charles comes to a startling conclusion.

Who is the Real Blackmailer?

When Emily starts working at Wheeler, she tells Charles about how passionate everyone in the faculty is about the college, and this leads him to realise that Ben wasn’t the only one who wanted to save the college. It was everyone. He puts two and two together and realises that the only person who could have accidentally found out about Aurora was Holly. Moreover, she was a lifer at Wheeler and wanted to save it at all costs. So, it makes sense that she stole the laptop, but she didn’t do the rest of the things by herself. Slowly and unintentionally, she started to find other faculty members who joined the resistance against Vinick. First, it was the painter Elizabeth Muki, who burned Vinick’s portrait after she discovered he was going to remove her department from college. Then, when they wanted the news about Berenger’s commission from Vinick’s deal to be published, they contacted the journalism professor.

Slowly, this chain expanded, and a whole group of people was working behind the scenes to stop the billionaire from destroying their college. It was Holly who told Berenger to hire a PI, because this would not only keep her from going to prison, but it would also allow her to keep a close eye on the investigation and save herself and the others from being found. She tried to keep Ben away from it, but when he found out about it from other means, she confessed to the whole thing. She even told him where she’d hidden the laptop, but didn’t realise that Ben would take it and then use it as evidence to implicate himself because he didn’t want Holly to lose her job and be forced to leave Wheeler. It was hard for her to let Ben take the fall, but she couldn’t come clean because it would mean implicating other faculty members as well, and that wouldn’t be fair for anyone. Charles understands this, so he promises her he won’t tell anyone else. The secret is safe with him.

Do Charles and Mona Break Up?

When we meet Charles at the beginning of ‘A Man on the Inside,’ he is grieving the loss of his wife. So, when he goes to Pacific View, he is able to form friendships but not romantic attachments. By the second season, however, a considerable amount of time has passed, and many things have changed. So, when he goes to Wheeler and crosses paths with Mona, he feels the butterflies that he last felt with his wife. It feels a little odd at first, but slowly, he falls for Mona more and more. She is fun and lively, and she leads him to be more adventurous. However, over time, Charles realises that they are too different. Mona’s fun nature can become a bit too much for Charles, who is used to his own ways. At times, she feels too wild and unpredictable. She embraces and welcomes chaos and thrives in it. While Charles loves it for her, he cannot imagine being the same as her.

Despite wanting to be with her, he cannot keep up with her pace, and this realization hits him when she tells him that she has accepted a job in Croatia, which means she will be leaving for a year. Because they are together and it is an adventure that neither of them has done before, she believes Charles will join her, and initially, he agrees. However, as he packs up his house, Emily notices that he is not as enthusiastic about it as he should be, which leads him to spill his feelings to her. She tells him to be honest about it with Mona, as there is no other option. So, Charles tells her the truth. He confesses that leaving the life that he has built in San Francisco is not easy for him, especially the part that he got after he became a PI. At the same time, he knows that he cannot hold back Mona, who believes that life is too short not to engage in adventures that come once in a lifetime. So, they mutually decide to end things there, even though it breaks both of their hearts.

Do Didi and Julie Get Together?

At the end of the first season of ‘A Man on the Inside,’ Didi and Julie were at odds with each other, particularly because Didi discovered that Julie and Charles were running a secret operation in the retirement home without her help. Eventually, however, she sees a different side of Julie when she and Charles convince her to keep her job as the manager of the retirement home. Eventually, Didi calls Julie for another job, but Julie suspects that there is an ulterior motive behind it. At first, she thinks that Didi is trying to get her revenge, but eventually, it turns out that her intentions have been more of a romantic nature. It seems that when Julie and Charles convinced Didi to take the job back, they showered her with compliments, which struck a chord with her.

She thought she could get to know Julie more, so she hired the PI for another job. The problem was that despite being a great PI, Julie isn’t so good at reading people romantically, so it isn’t until Didi says it in clear terms that she understands what’s happening. This happens at Charles’ party, where it is revealed that he has now put in enough hours on the field to become a licensed private investigator. Julie is surprised when Didi asks her out, but over the course of the Wheeler case, a lot of things have happened for her. Earlier, she might have flat-out refused, but now, Julie has become a slightly more open and welcoming person, and she has also grown to like Didi. So, she accepts the proposal of getting a drink together. This means that they are going to give each other and explore things. Whether or not it turns into a happily ever after remains to be seen.

What does Charles Give to Ben? What is in the Envelope?

When Charles first meets Ben, he becomes instantly suspicious of the man. Most of it has to do with the fact that Ben is not as friendly or welcoming to Charles. However, over the course of time, the two men come to understand and respect each other. When Ben talks about the possibility of leaving Wheeler after giving it four decades of his life, Charles understands why the English professor is not looking forward to the idea of retirement. Ideally, Ben would have liked to work at Wheeler for the rest of his life. However, when he takes the fall for Holly, there is no choice but for him to leave.

The decision cannot be reversed because it would mean that he’d have to take back his confession, and that would lead the truth to come out, and Holly and the others would lose their jobs. Still, Charles knows that Ben needs to do something that will give him a second chance at life, and what better than Pacific View? The place gave Charles a new purpose and perspective in life. It gave him new friends and a new passion, and he feels that the retirement home can do the same for Ben. However, he knows that Ben himself would never accept the idea of going to a retirement home. So, he makes a task out of it.

He gives him an envelope, which he asks to be delivered to Didi. He leaves a message for her, telling her to help Ben, and she instantly knows what he means. When she finds out he was an English professor, she asks for his help with the library. With nothing else to do and due to his love for books, Ben decides to help her, and unbeknownst to him, this becomes a new chapter of his life. The success of Charles’ plan is confirmed in the mid-credits scene, where we see the Pacific View book club gathering, which includes Charles and Ben. Despite showing distaste for the writing, he eventually ends up revealing that he enjoyed it immensely. Moreover, he also seems to bond with Elliot, which means that he is already making new friendships and turning over a new leaf.