Jekyll and Hyde Ending Explained: Are Bella, Lily, and the Others Dead?

The 2015 fantasy series ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ transports viewers into a world of the supernatural, where bizarre entities lurk in the shadows. Dr. Robert Jekyll grew up in Ceylon under the care of his adoptive family, the Najarans. However, when an unexpected family matter calls him away to London, a whole new truth is revealed to him. As it turns out, there’s a reason behind his mercurial moods, and it’s the existence of an alter ego inside his body: Hyde. Consequently, as the young man, hailing from a family with much interest in the mystical world, resurfaces, it attracts the attention of an unsavory character. Namely, the Tenebrae, an underground community of other monsters like himself, and the MIO, a top-secret British Intelligence Service that protects the outside world from covert supernatural threats. With a plan to resurrect ancient godly forces afoot, Robert’s ability to keep the Jekyll and Hyde inside of him in balance becomes a matter of humanity’s safety. SPOILERS AHEAD!

Jekyll and Hyde Recap

In the 1930s, Ceylon, Robert Jekyll works on a vaccine clinic with his adoptive father, Vishal Najaran. In the middle of the day, an out-of-control lorry ends up driving into the clinic. However, the doctor manages to save a young girl from being run over by the truck by lifting it off her with superhuman strength. This news makes its way to the local newspaper and eventually, to a lawyer in London named Max Utterson. As it turns out, there’s an unresolved inheritance case in the attorney’s office that has been sitting around for ages. The case involves the estate matters of one Henry Jekyll. Despite his apprehension, Robert ends up making the trip to England in hopes of learning more about his biological family. In his meeting with Max, he learns that Henry Jekyll may be his elusive grandfather, who died by suicide, unmarried and without any legitimate heir. Yet, rumors connected him to one illegitimate son, Louis, whom Max believes to be Robert’s father.

Henry also had a close and controversial friendship with one Mr. Hyde, a man known for scandal and debauchery. Initially, Robert remains uninterested in the estate and thinks about simply returning home. Nonetheless, the same night, he receives the tragic news of a fire at his family’s house that has killed everyone. Although he doesn’t know it, there’s actually a man behind the fire: Captain Dance of the Tenebrae. The latter underground community has a vested interest in finding the Jekyll heir since he’s believed to be the only one who can open a specific Calyx. The Calyx contains the heart of Lord Trash, one of the old monster gods who has been trapped on a different plane of existence for decades. Inversely, a secret branch of British Intelligence, the MIO, headed by Sir Roger Bulstrode, is working to counteract the Tenebrae’s efforts. Therefore, once Bulstrode learns about learns about Robert’s resurfacing, he schemes to use the doctor as bait to find Dance.

As a result, Bulstrode sends in an agent to steal Robert’s pills, which, unbeknownst to the latter, have been keeping his transformative traits in check for years. Consequently, he ends up transforming into a brasher version of himself, who destroys hotel rooms and starts bar fights. Fortunately, on his wild night out, he runs into Garson, who seems to have some idea about controlling the other man. Soon afterward, Robert discovers that the older man was Henry Jekyll’s footman and actually has many of the answers the young doctor is looking for. As it turns out, his mercurial condition is genetic and something that his grandfather experimented on throughout his lifetime. He had passed the same condition down to his heirs, bestowing them with a “Hyde” personality of their own. The Tenebrae believe that Robert’s “Hyde” is the only one strong enough to open the Calyx and free Lord Trash. This eventually leads to a dangerous confrontation between Dance and Hyde, wherein the former ultimately dies thanks to Bulstrode and his agents.

This jumpstarts a secret plan helmed by Dance’s wife, Fedora, to fast-track her immortal husband’s resurrection. Meanwhile, in a quest to learn more about himself and his family, Robert pays his distant aunt, Renata Jezequiel, a visit. After many misadventures, including werewolves, aspiring vigilantes, a killer bug on the loose, and a secret blood sister, the doctor finds himself back in Renata’s house. During this visit, Robert, his adoptive brother Ravi, and his sister Olalla cross paths with an incubus. Although the monster puts up a fight, they manage to defeat the creature. However, on the drive back home, they realize the incubus has stowed away in their car. As a result, Fedora manages to get her hands on the godly being, giving her the perfect opportunity to cement Dance’s resurrection. In the end, this leads to a massive showdown between the immortal and the split-personality doctor.

Jekyll and Hyde Ending: Where Did Bella, Lily, and the Others Go? Are They Dead?

The final confrontation between Robert and Dance takes an unexpected turn. Throughout the story, the latter has been in search of the doctor because of his fated powers that are believed to be strong enough to crack open the treasured Calyx. Tenebrae are on a mission to resurrect the old gods and bring back the reign of the “monsters” over humanity. They can do this by opening the Calyx, which contains the heart of Lord Trash, a deity who is trapped on another plane of existence after his last defeat and imprisonment. Nonetheless, no one from the Tenebrae is strong enough themselves. For the same reason, they need Robert. Nonetheless, this changes when Fedora crosses a line in order to bring her lover back to life.

Captain Dance is an immortal with the ability to create Vetalas as a personal army for himself. He has been around for decades, and every time he dies, he can come back to life after a recovery period. However, Fedora, who isn’t an immortal, wasn’t ready to wait years, possibly decades, for her husband’s return. Therefore, she does the unthinkable and transfers the incubus’ essence into Dance to jolt his decaying body back to life. Any other host would have worked as fodder to make the injured incubus stronger. Yet, the immortal’s special powers give him the upper hand in the transaction, bringing him back to life with the incubus’ powers at his disposal. He’s initially displeased with the situation, considering it an ideological trespass to employ an other-worldly deity in that way.

Nevertheless, Fedora helps Dance realize that with the incubus’ powers, he can now open the Calyx all by himself. As such, the Captain arrives at Robert’s house to complete the ritual with the doctor as a petty witness to his feat. However, the latter had discovered some important information earlier. As it turns out, Hyde can destroy the heart once it’s outside of the Calyx. Yet, Olalla warns him that the longer the heart beats, the stronger it will get. As a result, there’s a very strong possibility that destroying it when it’s too strong will lead to a recoil explosion that might kill everyone in the vicinity. In the end, this is exactly what happens. Thus, after Robert attacks the heart, an explosion wipes out everyone except him and Dance from the room. However, around the same time, we see a flash go through the crypt at Renata’s house. The crypt is a secret gateway to the other side, where Lord Trash and the other gods reside. As such, it’s possible that instead of killing everyone, the heart simply transported them all to a different plane of existence. Nonetheless, given the show’s miniseries status, the resolution of this arc will likely forever remain a mystery.

Did Hyde Destroy the Heart Inside the Calyx?

Since ‘Jekyll and Hide’ ends on a cliffhanger, many aspects of the narrative end up remaining unresolved. During the protagonist’s confrontation with Dance, Hyde makes a play for the heart inside the Calyx, having made the decision to destroy it. Throughout the series, we see restraint being a notable area of distinction between Robert’s Jekyll and Hyde sides. While the former remains perpetually hesitant and confused over things, the latter takes a bolder and more direct approach. While Robert initially detests Hyde for the same reason, he grows to realize that the other man is as much a part of himself as his Jekyll self. In fact, he needs both versions of himself in order to be his true self.

Therefore, when Hyde makes the decision to destroy Lord Trash’s heart, he does so with the knowledge that it would likely lead to his own and his friends’ demise. Nonetheless, the act is simply a necessary evil that he believes he has to choose. Yet, the abrupt ending of the show prevents the narrative from ever confirming the fate of the characters or the all-important heart. Considering Lord Trash’s godly status, one has to wonder if the heart can even be destroyed in a true sense. Furthermore, the fact that the explosion presumably transports Lily, Bella, and the others to another plane of existence raises the question of whether it does the same thing for the heart. The only thing we know for certain is that Robert’s experiences have allowed him to build a resolve that lets him make self-sacrificial and complex choices. Ultimately, much like other aspects of the show, this also becomes an unsolved mystery.

Who Does Robert/Hyde End Up With: Lily or Bella?

Over the course of the season, Robert finds himself in a twisted love triangle. He meets Lily early in his arrival in London, seemingly by chance. As the two continue to meet up, the latter, a biochemistry student, helps him develop a potion to control his transformation. Yet, she remains in the dark about the reality of his condition. On the other hand, the doctor meets Bella for the first time when he fully transforms into Hyde. The pair’s dynamic remains charged and sensual from the beginning. Nonetheless, Robert himself doesn’t share any of the same chemistry with the Music Hall owner. Therefore, his two distinct personalities end up developing two different romances with two different women. While Bella remains aware of Lily, since she knows about the doctor’s condition, the latter remains oblivious to everything.

Or at least, that’s what Robert believes. In the end, Lily is revealed to have been an MIO spy all along who has been working with Bulstrode to earn the doctor’s trust and learn more about his alter-ego. Although she doesn’t succeed in her mission, she does end up retaining some real feelings for Robert. In a way, both of them had been lying and deceiving the other throughout their courtship. Yet, it’s hard to imagine Robert’s proposal stands unpertrubed after the revelation. If anything, it only opens up the possibility for a new dynamic to unravel between the two. On the other hand, although Hyde’s relationship with Bella remains rocky, mostly due to Robert’s interference, their story also ends on an ambiguous note. Overall, it’s evident that both Robert and Hyde truly love Lily and Bella, respectively. Therefore, the fact that they share a body and a life makes things infinitely complicated. The two women’s disappearance in the aftermath of the heart’s presumed destruction leaves things further up in the air.

What Happens to Olalla?

Olalla enters the narrative relatively late into the story. Even though we get a peek at her in the Tenebrae headquarters, her identity remains a secret. It isn’t until Dance dies the first time around that she finally enters the narrative as a full-fledged character. As it turns out, Olalla is actually Robert’s sister, and another individual who inherited Henry Jekyll’s mercurial, transformative abilities. However, unlike the protagonist, she has known about her condition her entire life. In fact, instead of staying in her “Jekyll” personality, Olalla has only ever been a “Hyde.” This is because she was kidnapped by Dance as a young child, a sacrifice Louis Jekyll made in order to keep Robert safe. Afterward, the Tenebrae raised her and manipulated her into giving in to her more baser instincts. Olalla stays in her Hyde form by constantly feeding on blood through a spiker device, which briefly makes others confuse her for a vampire.

In the end, when Robert and the others visit Renate, they’re all confronted with the Incubus. Disturbingly enough, for Olalla, the entity takes on the form of Dance, her adoptive father. She has a complicated relationship with the latter, wherein her close upbringing makes it impossible for her to put up an actual fight against him despite retaining the strength to overpower him. Therefore, she ends up leaving that destiny to her brother and finds a different one for herself. The Jezequiel family, who are a family of werewolves, have long been the guardians of the gateway to the other plane of existence. Nonetheless, after Renata’s encounter with the incubus, this tradition threatens to come to an end. As such, Olalla ends up offering her aging aunt a choice to peacefully accept her death, passing the torch of the guardianship to the young Hyde. This likely would have played into the story’s future, which could have found Lily and the others stuck on the other side of the getaway. Nonetheless, the show’s unresolved ending leaves Olalla’s narrative unfinished.