Lupin Season 3 Ending, Explained: Who Sends the Letter to Assane?

Netflix’s ‘Lupin’ returns with a third season, featuring Assane Diop on yet another adventure where he goes up against some old enemies while concocting new plans to rob the things that seem out of reach to a normal person. With the thread of Assane’s father’s story tied up, this season turns our attention towards his mother, who has been missing in action since the beginning. Her return leads Assane down memory lane, which is also where he finds the identity of his new enemy. Here’s a look at everything that happens in the final episode of the season and what it means for the road ahead. SPOILERS AHEAD

Lupin Season 3 Plot Synopsis

Having disappeared after exposing Hubert Pellegrini, Assane lives in Marseille. He is hiding from the world, but Claire and Raoul’s lives have been upturned since Assane’s identity as the master thief came to light. He doesn’t want his family to suffer anymore, so he returns to Paris, steals the coveted Black Pearl, and then fakes his death. But then, some ghosts return from the past. They kidnap his mother, Mariama, and ask him to rob several places for them.

The list of tasks gets bolder and riskier, and at one point, Assane has to sacrifice Benjamin as well. Eventually, however, he figures out the true identity of the kidnapper and comes up with a plan to save his mother, protect his family, and do away with the enemies for good. In the end, however, he has to make a tough decision, which changes the course of his life.

Lupin Season 3 Ending: What Happens to Keller?

Jean-Luc Keller wanted revenge on Assane ever since the boy put the gun in his hand, which led to his conviction as a murder. Keller waited a long time to get back at Assane and used his mother, whom he tracked down in Senegal, to make Assane’s life difficult. In the end, however, Keller’s own people turn against him. One of them tells the cops about him after Keller tries to kill him by throwing him off a window. The other one, Manon, gets an offer from Assane and finds it better to leave her boss after she discovers what really happened all those years ago.

Keller tries to kill Assane’s family but fails, mainly due to Claire’s quick thinking. To settle matters between them, Assane sets up a meeting with him at Arc de Triomphe under the impression that he’d give Keller the Black Pearl. However, it turns out to be a trap when the cops show up and arrest Keller, who might have assumed that Assane would never go to the cops because they’d arrest him, too. In the end, Keller is arrested for several crimes, which means he is going back to prison.

What Happens to the Black Pearl?

While the cops are busy arresting Keller, Assane finds a way to get the Black Pearl out of their reach. He hides it inside a flower and gives it to a woman, claiming that he bought it for his date, who never showed up. When the cops arrive, the tourists are told to leave. The girl leaves with the flower, which is how Bruno identifies her. He says that he is the date who was supposed to show up, but he reached there late. He asks the girl for a flower, claiming that with it, maybe he could still salvage what remains of his date. The girl gives him the flower and the pearl with it.

As Keller goes to prison and Assane, too, faces the music, Bruno does away with the pearl. Seeing the bag of cash on his desk in the final scene, we can assume that he sold the pearl to the highest bidder on the black market and made a lot of money, some of which he shared with Manon. He might also be holding on to Assane’s share of the loot until he comes out of prison. Considering the final scene of the season, it might happen sooner rather than later.

Does Assane Go to Prison? Will He Escape?

As good a thief as Assane might have been, he could never rob a place alone. He needed accomplices, and his biggest ally was Benjamin. But when he is arrested, Assane looks towards unconventional choices, and that’s where Guédira comes in. Assame tells him about his situation and asks for his help. He also promises that when all this is done, and they cross paths again, he will surrender. Guédira keeps his word. He helps Assane and, as a result, retrieves a stolen painting and arrests Manon, who was working with Keller.

In the end, when Assane gets Keller in his clutches, and the cops surround them, he doesn’t run away. As promised, he turns himself in. He could have run away and left Paris with his family. The plan was already set, but Assane knew that by doing this, he would be plunging his family into an uncertain future. They would have to be on the run, too, and what kind of life would that be for his family, especially his son?

At the beginning of the season, when Assane asks Claire to run away with him, she tells him to take responsibility for his actions and surrender to the cops. He didn’t agree with her at the time, but now, he understands why it’s the best course of action. He knows now that while he might run away, his actions will always haunt his family, bringing one or the other danger to them, and he cannot afford that. So, when Guédira finds him, Assane voluntarily goes with him.

Assane uses his arrest as an opportunity to clear Benjamin’s name, who’d been in prison ever since the botched robbery of the bracelet. Getting his friend out of jail had been one of his priorities for Assane. Had he run away, Benjamin might have never been free, and that’s not something Assane could have lived with. So, he owns up to his crimes and is sent to prison. Luckily, he has Arsene Lupin novels to keep him company.

A twist arrives when Assane receives a message from the prisoner in the neighboring cell. The message is clear: the sender wants revenge on Assane, and for that, they have already turned one of his close people against him. While Assane is left to wonder who it could be, he knows that, once again, Claire and Raoul are in danger. He cannot save them or find out who’s against him from the prison cell. This means that he will have to escape at the beginning of the next season. Knowing him, it won’t be that difficult a task for him. The more important thing is to figure out what’s the plot against him and who’s a part of it.

Who Sends the Letter to Assane? Who is His Neighbour in Prison?

In the final scene of ‘Lupin’ Part 3, a guard gives Assane an envelope, saying it’s from his neighbor in the other cell. The envelope contains Assane’s picture holding an Arsene Lupin novel, ‘The Cagliostro’s Revenge.’ As the title states, the book is about an old enemy using someone close to Lupin to exact revenge on him. The sender of the message plans to do the same, and it turns out they have been planning and might already have set the plan in motion. When the camera turns to the next cell and the sender is notified of the message’s delivery, it is revealed that the neighbor is none other than Hubert Pellegrini.

Hubert and Assane have been enemies since the beginning of his story. Hubert framed Assane’s father for stealing a necklace and later had him killed in prison. Assane exacts his revenge years later when he publicly exposes Hubert for all his wrongdoings, which include his criminal activities. As a result, Hubert goes to prison. Assane also used Hubert’s daughter, Juliette, against him. So, it makes sense that Hubert would want to use someone close to Assane to get revenge on him this time.

It remains to be seen whom Hubert has turned against Assane, but whoever it is must have a good reason to betray Assane. When he thinks about it, three images flash into his mind: his mother, Mariama; his best friend, Benjamin; and Juliette. While one would think that a mother wouldn’t betray her son, we don’t really know Mariama. She’s a thief, too, and while she might love her son, we don’t know if her greed has any bounds. Perhaps she used the ploy of kidnapping to gain sympathy with her son and get in his good graces.

Or perhaps it’s Benjamin. He’d been betrayed by Assane and had to go to jail because of it. While he still doesn’t rat out his best friend, who’s to say prison hasn’t changed him? He did have a hard time there, as is evident from minor injuries on his face. Perhaps Hubert got to him during their time together in prison. Or maybe it’s Juliette. She betrayed her father to have a future with Assane. When he ran away, she might have felt like a jilted lover and now wants revenge. Whoever it is, Hubert has already made things hard for Assane by making him doubt everyone around him. His plan seems to be working so far.