Diksha Sundriyal
Netflix’s ‘How to Get to Heaven from Belfast’ follows the story of three friends- Saoirse, Dara, and Robyn- who get entangled in the mystery connected to Greta, their estranged friend from school. Over the course of eight episodes, the show weaves a complex tale of secrets that are unraveled in a compelling series of events that keep the audience on the edge of their seats. With each episode, the story raises more questions than answers, but by the end of the season, a clearer picture of events emerges, revealing that a lot of things are not what they initially seemed. For the main trio, these discoveries are a window into understanding who their friend really was and what truly happened to her. SPOILERS AHEAD.
How to Get to Heaven from Belfast Plot Synopsis
Dara, Robyn, and Saoirse receive an email from Greta’s sister-in-law, who invites them to Greta’s wake. It turns out that she fell from the stairs and died. As tragic as the situation is, Dara, Robyn, and Saoirse feel that something is off, especially after Saoirse becomes convinced that Greta is alive and someone else’s dead body is being passed off as hers. Being highly suspicious of Greta’s family, especially her husband, Owen, the trio decides to get to the bottom of the truth. This also means taking another look at a traumatic event from their past, where the four of them helped Greta bury a shocking secret.
Meanwhile, they also rope in Liam, a young Garda, who forms a romantic connection with Saoirse. Another person looking into Greta and her history is a young journalist named Andrew, who turns out to be the son of the man whose body the main trio helped bury. The more the women find out about Greta, the more they realise that they knew nothing about her. So, to make sense of the girl they knew when they were children and the woman who seems to have gone missing after faking her death, they decide to unravel the entire story and find out what really happened to Greta.
What Happens to Greta? Do Dara, Robyn, and Saoirse Find Her?
All roads lead to Heaven’s Veil in the final episode of ‘How to Get to Heaven from Belfast.’ By now, Saoirse, Dara, and Robyn have a rough idea of what happened to their friend, Greta. It turns out that she and another girl named Jodie were originally from Heaven’s Veil. There were all sorts of supernatural stories about the place, with people believing that this was where the veil between our world and the other world was the thinnest. Greta and Jodie were raised with the belief that someday God would lift this veil, and the girls desperately wanted God to show up because they wanted to be saved from their abusive households. But when God didn’t show up, they got angry and torched his abode: the church.
It wasn’t until the fire was already blazing that they saw the bicycles outside the place and realised that there were kids in the building. A horrified Jodie ran inside to save them, but she failed and got burned in the process. This incident led everyone to skip town, and Greta’s mother decided to get rid of her, believing her to be “rotten.” But as Robyn later points out, the woman never took responsibility for her own actions. From here, Greta and Jodie were given to Margo, a psychiatrist, who was working on a way to delete a person’s past trauma so they could move forward. She thought she’d succeeded with Greta, who went on to have a career and a family. But eventually, she had to accept that one cannot run from their past.
After Jodie showed up at her house and Greta accidentally killed her by throwing her down the stairs, it became clear to the latter that she couldn’t move forward without making peace with her past. So, she visits her mother in the nursing home, confronting her for the abuse and selling her and Jodie to Margo. Then, she goes to Heaven’s Veil, to the place where she and Jodie used to come as children, with the hopes of finding God. Dara, Robyn, and Saoirse find her there, and once reunited, Greta fills them in on the rest of the details about what really happened to her, to Jason Meadows aka Charles Sampson, and to Jodie. The women are happy to see their friend safe and sound, and stand beside her when Booker shows up.
What Happens to Rossa and the Metamorphosis? Why does Booker Kill Them?
In their quest to find Greta, her friends cross paths with a dangerous woman called Booker. Initially, she is presented as a villain whose mission is to clean Greta’s past, create a new identity for her, and send her on her way to a new life, while making sure that no one has any trails leading to her. Later, however, it turns out that Booker works for an organisation called the Metamorphosis, whose job is to help desperate women get out of tricky situations. Or at least, that’s what it was supposed to be. Booker laments that over the years, especially under Rossa’s leadership, the organisation has turned into a moneymaking endeavor that only helps those with money, while women who actually need them but are unable to pay for their services remain helpless.
If that wasn’t enough to make Booker’s blood boil, she also discovers that there is a mole in their organisation. The woman that they saved by getting her away from her abusive husband was found by her husband and killed. Considering how careful the members of the organisation are, the woman couldn’t have been found until someone ratted her out, which means that someone within the organisation fed the husband information in exchange for money. At first, Booker thinks it’s one of the couriers, whom she blows up at the beginning of the show. Later, however, a detail from the case makes her realise that the real problem is Rossa, their leader. What makes Booker flip on her is when she tells her to find Greta, kill her, and anyone else who is connected to her.
Booker doesn’t like the fact that she will have to kill innocent people, including Margo, who had helped young Feeney, whom Booker had saved, and who now works with her. It is a critical moment for her, and she decides to do what is right. She finds Greta and her family, but instead of killing them, she reunites them. She also gives them new passports, so that they can start fresh somewhere else and live their lives without the fear of their past catching up with them. Meanwhile, she kills Rossa and almost everyone else in the organisation who had made their whole system corrupt. Now, she intends to start from scratch, taking the Metamorphosis back to what it was supposed to be. She will need new soldiers for her cause, and she believes that people like Saoirse, Robyn, and Dara are made for it.
What’s in the Pink Bag?
After meeting her mother, when Greta headed to Heaven’s Veil, she found a man who gave her a lift. Initially, he seemed like a good Samaritan, but then he started talking about how dangerous it could be to get in a vehicle with a strange man. At first, Greta believes herself to be the dangerous one, but then, the man stops the vehicle in the middle of nowhere under the guise of getting Greta a jacket. He also hands her a pink bag, and at this point, it becomes clear that he is one of Rossa’s men. His job was to find her for Booker so that she could kill her and tie up all the loose ends of the case. Sure enough, a car is heard pulling up to them, but we don’t see who is in it and what happens next.
In the end, the man is found stabbed in his neck in his car, which suggests that while Booker and Feeney did show up, they let Greta leave and killed the man. At this point, Greta thought that perhaps they were giving her a chance to get closure about her mother and the fire before killing her, which is why, when they show up at Heaven’s Veil, she doesn’t run. Another possibility could be that when Greta saw the car, she killed the man and made a run for it, not realising that Booker and Feeney weren’t chasing after her. She thought that eventually they would catch up to her and kill her, but before that, she wanted to make peace with her past, which is why she doesn’t run when Booker and Feeney show up at Heaven’s Veil. Fortunately, Greta gets her happy ending, but she leaves behind the pink bag that the man from the vehicle had given her.
A curious Dara picks it up after Greta leaves it behind. Later, when she, Saoirse, and Robyn look into it, they are shocked by the contents. Robyn says they are definitely not getting involved with whatever is in the bag, but with all that has happened so far, we know that that’s not going to happen. The contents of the bag set up the mystery for the next season while also piquing the audience’s curiosity. Considering that the man was working for the Metamorphosis, it is possible that the bag contains contents related to it, which means the trio will get closer to figuring out what the organisation is and what it does. It could also include elements tied to Heaven’s Veil, shedding more light on what was actually happening in the town. Or, it could be something entirely new, leading the trio towards a fresh investigation.
Read More: Where is How to Get to Heaven From Belfast Filmed?
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