Diksha Sundriyal
Netflix’s ‘No Good Deed’ begins with the sale of a highly coveted house in a posh suburb of LA. However, it soon turns into a murder mystery as the secrets buried for three years come to light when the prospective buyers start to dig into the past of the owners of the house. For Paul and Lydia Morgan, selling their house, which has been in the family for a very long time, is already a difficult decision. But as the things they didn’t want to revisit come back to haunt them, they decide to acknowledge all the things they’d tried to hide away and ignore. This is when the whole truth comes to light. SPOILERS AHEAD
The Truth About Jacob’s Death Remains Buried for Three Years
The reason that Lydia and Paul Morgan decide to sell their house when they do is connected to the death of their son. He was murdered inside the house, and while the couple had wanted to leave the house for a long time, they eventually decided to do it three years after Jacob’s death because then, they wouldn’t have to declare it to the prospective buyers. Paul and Lydia hide the truth about Jacob because they think that he was shot dead by his own sister, Emily. She shot at him because he confused him with an intruder. He was masked when he opened the door, and at the time, Emily was alone in the house. Her parents had left to attend her mother’s concert that night, and there had already been stories floating around about robberies in the neighborhood. Due to this, the Morgans kept a gun in the house, which is why Emily ended up using it.
What disconcerted the Morgans even more was the realization that their son was coming back home after robbing their neighbors, JD Campbell and his wife, Margo. If they went to the cops, they wouldn’t just have to explain why Emily shot at her own brother, but they would also have to accept their son’s crimes, and that would permanently blot his memory. To spare their daughter and themselves the trauma, they decide to bury the whole thing. They hide all the evidence, making it seem like the robber was someone else and Jacob was the victim of the robbery. But they don’t realize that there is more to the story until much later.
Why Did Margo Kill Jacob?
When Jacob was alive, he would go to the Campbell’s house to give piano lessons to JD’s daughter and Margo’s stepdaughter, Harper. When they mention Jacob to her, she reveals that she had only one class with Jacob. The rest of the time, he would come to their house to hang around with Margo. This proves that Margo had been having an affair with Jacob, which puts the case in a whole new light. From Jacob’s autopsy, it is also revealed that the bullet that killed him was not fired from Emily’s gun. Interestingly, that kind of gun belongs to JD, which means that Margo would have had access to it.
Putting two and two together, it is all but confirmed that it was Margo who shot Jacob that night. What happened was that Jacob wanted Margo to be with him. Over the time they’d seen each other, he gifted her all sorts of trinkets as a token of his love. But when she refused to leave her husband to be with him, he decided to end things once and for all. That night, he went into the Campbell house to get back the things he had given to Margo because she wouldn’t give them back voluntarily. He wasn’t trying to rob them. He was only trying to get back what was his. But in the middle of it, Margo finds him and tries to stop him.
Margo didn’t want to part with the things she had, but Jacob was insistent on taking it all back. Moreover, he also threatened Margo that he would expose their affair to everyone, and that would certainly end things with her husband. When Jacob left the house, Margo followed him with the gun. Just as he opened the back door, his sister heard him coming in. Scared and nervous, she found her father’s gun and shot at who she thought was a robber. At the same time, Margo shot at Jacob from behind. Because the shots were fired at the same time, Emily didn’t hear the second shot go, and she thought she shot Jacob. Taking advantage of the situation, Margo fled the scene, but the shell of the bullet was left behind, which was later picked up by Mikey when he tried to hide the evidence. Meanwhile, Paul found the shell of the bullet fired by Emily, and he hid it while hiding evidence. It isn’t until three years later that they realize there are two different bullets, and the whole situation becomes much clearer.
What Happens to Margo? Does She Die?
When Lydia discovers the entire truth, she confronts Margo. It isn’t simply about the fact that she had shot Jacob but also that she had been having an affair with him when he was just a child. If Margo hadn’t worked her manipulations on Jacob, things would have turned out differently, and Jacob would still be alive. The confrontation doesn’t end with bloodshed but does give Lydia a sense of satisfaction. Despite discovering that she has been caught, Margo knows that there is no way to prove her crime. Even if it can be proved that the bullet was fired from JD’s gun, it would only mean that he was the one to shoot Jacob, not Margo, because no one was there to witness it.
Margo thinks she has gotten away with it, but that is not the only victory she celebrates that night. Earlier in the evening, she forced JD to put the house under her name because not only was he going to leave her, but he had also lost everything he had and didn’t have much to offer her. However, Margo wasn’t going just to let it be, and getting the house from him felt like a victory. By then, JD had become so hateful towards her that he was ready to do whatever it took to make her pay. She conned him into marrying her, she dried up all of his money, she constantly lied to him and cheated on him, and then she kidnapped his daughter to get his house. On top of that, JD discovers that she had an affair with Jacob and later killed him. This convinces him that she deserves the worst. So, he gives her a taste of her own medicine.
Margo had told JD about the time when she accidentally set her house on fire, which led Bobby to die of the massive burns he got. Later, it turns out that Bobby, while burned, was not dead and had been camping at JD’s boat without his knowledge. When he leaves her in the house, JD starts a fire that consumes the whole house. At the time, Margo is in the bath. No one comes to her rescue, and for a minute, it looks like she is going to die. Later, however, it is revealed that she survived the fire but didn’t come out of it unscathed.
Margo sustained serious burns, with one part of her house completely disfigured because of it. Now, she has lost the house and her beauty. There is no one she can go to, and anyone who knows her knows better than to help her anymore. But that’s not the end of her troubles. When she survives, JD tips off the cops about her cons. At the same time, the Morgans also want her to pay for killing Jacob. While they can’t prove this crime, there is a lot of other stuff that she can be caught for. In the end, we see Jacob’s cousin and Mikey’s son, Nate, arresting Margo. He calls her Luann, her real name, suggesting that her cons have come to light and she must pay for her crimes now, at least the ones that can be proven in a court of law.
Do Paul and Lydia Sell Their House? Who Gets It?
The story begins with Paul and Lydia putting the house on sale, but they also struggle with the idea of letting go of the place they have called home for so many years. It is the place where Paul grew up, and all his childhood memories are there. Then, his children also grew up in the same house, which adds another layer of sentimentality to it. Despite this, Paul is determined to sell the place, and it has more to do with their financial struggles. A lot of debt has piled up on them, and they cannot afford to live in that place anymore. Paul believes that selling it would give them the financial boost they need to start over, which they are in desperate need of.
Another reason Paul is so adamant about selling the house is that he knows that as long as they are there, they will never be able to move on from Jacob’s death, especially Lydia, who keeps finding reasons not to sell the house. By the end, however, they both decide that it’s best to move on. The truth about Jacob’s death has come out, and they have found a vague sense of closure, which has improved the relations within the family. So, they pack their bags and leave the place. They decide to sell it to Leslie and Sarah, who are the only ones left of the prospective buyers. Carla and Dennis almost bought it, but when Sarah told them about the murder that happened in the house, they rescinded their offer. Meanwhile, JD was completely sidetracked with his own problems caused by Margo and left the game early on. This left Leslie and Sarah, and with no one to compete for it, they got the house.
Does Dennis Cash the Cheque? Which House Do He and Carla Buy?
While Dennis and Carla refuse to buy Paul and Lydia’s house, they end up buying another right across the street. When JD leaves the house in Margo’s name, after being forced to do so, he decides to burn the entire place down. This left Margo with no other option but to sell the place and get whatever money she could from it. Dennis and Carla had already made up their minds to live in the Los Feliz neighborhood, and after losing the Morgan house, getting JD’s place sounded like a great opportunity. What made it even better was that they could build their own home on the place now that the original house was burned down. This is what Carla wanted all along. Moreover, due to the fire, they got the place at a much cheaper rate, which was another reason why they couldn’t refuse the offer.
Money had been a huge factor for Dennis and Carla when considering buying the house, especially with the baby coming in. Dennis was yet to start his novel with the deadline inching closer, and Carla didn’t want to spend all their savings to buy a house without having a proper financial cover for the future. What she didn’t tell Dennis is that her father was a billionaire. They were estranged, which is why she didn’t want to take money from him. But when her father sends five million as a gift for his grandson, Dennis decides to cash it. He doesn’t tell Carla about it because he knows that she will never accept the money. So, he lies and tells her that he has received a huge advance for his book. But the cashing of the check also means that his father-in-law knows about the money, and now, he wants to meet his daughter and grandson, which means that eventually, the truth will come out, and Dennis can only imagine what Carla will do then.
What Does the Flickering Lamp Mean?
One of the reasons that Lydia didn’t want to sell the house was because she thought her son was still there. She would ask him to send her signs, and the light in his room would flicker. Paul dismissed it as a result of faulty wiring, which he himself had installed. He also believed that this was Lydia’s way of holding on to the house. At the same time, his refusal to even consider the possibility that his son’s spirit might still be there is because of his own inability to tap into his feelings, which he tends to keep bottled up.
By the end, everything has resolved, and Paul has learned to be more expressive of what he feels. This has improved things between him and Lydia, as well as their daughter, Emily. Things are so good, in fact, that Lydia has now gone back to playing the piano, and she performs a song by Jacob with Emily. During their performance, the light on Paul’s table flickers, but this time, he doesn’t dismiss it. He sees it as a sign of his son finally talking to him, something he wishes they’d done more when Jacob was still alive. The flickering doesn’t prove that it really is Jacob’s spirit, but Paul’s acceptance of it shows that he has decided to change his ways and be more expressive of his feelings rather than bottling them up and risking losing his loved ones.
