Diksha Sundriyal
Netflix’s crime drama ‘Rough Diamonds’ follows the story of the Wolfsons, a family of diamond traders living in Antwerp. Their business had been struggling for a while. The death of a family member triggers everything that has already been hanging by a thread. When Noah returns, it is to pay respects to his younger brother, but then he discovers that his family is in a bind. Noah decides to stay long enough to help them, but things soon get out of his hands. Over the course of eight episodes, the show goes through many twists and turns, completely upturning any plans that Noah had for himself and his family. Here’s what happens to him in the end. SPOILERS AHEAD
Rough Diamonds Plot Synopsis
One day, Yanki Wolfson walks into his family’s office in the diamond district in Antwerp and shoots himself in the head. This tragedy brings back his estranged brother, Noah, who had left the family fifteen years ago and moved to London. Noah discovers that Yanki was into gambling and owed a lot of money to some dangerous people. Noah, who has become a part of a crime family in London, deals with the situation, but then he discovers that the mess is bigger than he’d imagined.
His family is in millions of dollars of debt, and no amount of threatening and haranguing from Noah can get them out of it. Their money is stuck in the pockets of an Albanian mob boss, which has obstructed the cash flow, creating problems for the Wolfson family. With the help of his mother-in-law, Kerra, Noah strikes a deal with the Albanians. He believes it is a one-time thing, but the Albanians make it clear that they will not let go of the cash cow so quickly.
Rough Diamonds Ending: Does Noah Stay in Antwerp?
Noah ran away from his family fifteen years ago because he didn’t want to live the life laid out for him. He felt suffocated there, so he moved to London to find his freedom. He returns to Antwerp to attend his younger brother’s funeral. If things had been fine in the family, Noah would have returned on the next flight back. However, he sticks around to help them. Whenever Noah thinks that he is done and that the problem has been solved, and he can go back to London, something new comes up, and he is forced to stay in Antwerp.
Ultimately, he comes up with a way to deal with their problems in one clean move. The greatest danger to the Wolfson family is the Albanians. They owed a million-and-a-half to Noah’s family, but the Wolfsons had to strike a new deal with them to get their money. They wanted to use diamonds to launder their money, and this task was delegated to the Wolfson family.
The second threat to the family comes from the prosecutor, Jo Smets. She was looking into the Albanians but then turned towards the corruption in the diamond district. She had Eli in her clutches and almost signed him on as a state witness. When he refused to do her bidding, she found another witness who held a grudge against the Wolfson siblings. Even when the powers in the diamond district tried to settle the case out of court, Smets held the settlement. If she prevented it from being signed, then the Wolfsons and other traders would have to appear in court, and no one wanted to be questioned on the stand about their secret dealings in the past.
Noah proposes a plan to give Smets what she wants and simultaneously get her and the Albanians off their back. With Kerra’s help, he robs the Canadian mining company next door to the Wolfson office. The loot is to be divided into three parts. One part goes to Kerra and Noah in London. The second part belongs to the Albanians, and the third is reserved for Noah’s family in Antwerp. Kerra gets her part in London, and Noah’s family won’t receive the diamonds until the whole thing with the prosecutor blows off.
Noah figures out the location where the Albanians are hiding the diamonds and shares it with Smets. He will give her the Albanians, in return for which he wants her to let the settlement pass and stop looking into the ongoings in the diamond district. Smets agrees to the plan, but when she reaches the location that Noah gave her, she finds it empty. There are no diamonds. Later, Noah discovers that someone inside the police force tipped the Albanians about the raid, allowing them to hide the diamonds somewhere else.
This means that Smets has nothing, so she can’t go after the Albanians, which implies that the primary threat still lingers on his family. However, he can get the prosecution off his back, so he gives Smets something else to work with. However, this means that he won’t be able to leave Antwerp anytime soon. His alternate life in London is gone, and he can’t go back there anymore. Moreover, he starts to feel increasingly at home in Antwerp and is eventually placed in the same seat as his father, making him the de facto leader of the Wolfson family.
What Happens to Kerra and the Albanians?
When Noah went to London for a fresh start, he ended up working for Kerra McCabe, a mob boss who controlled the drug scene of South London. He fell in love with her daughter, Joanne, and had a son, Tommy. Joanne died, but Noah kept working for Kerra. While handling his family’s problems in Antwerp, Noah collaborates with Kerra to handle the Albanians. He also clarifies several times that he will always choose his family over her. He reiterates this in the end.
Noah strikes a deal with Smets. She will drop the charges she’d accumulated on her family and the secret bank that handled their money. In return, he’d get her the stolen diamonds and the Albanians. When he fails to deliver both these things, Smets threatens to take him into custody and send him to jail for any charges she can easily slap on him. There is only one thing that Noah can do now. He doesn’t know where the Albanians relocated the diamonds, but he does know that part of it is already in London with Kerra.
Noah gives the details of Kerra’s operation to Smets. If he can’t give her all the diamonds, he will give her a part of it, enough for the news to make the headlines. He is allowed to go free, but hellfire rains on Kerra’s operation in London. When the diamonds are found in her possession, she is arrested. The seizure of the place from where she ran her operations also means that the prosecution will have enough to build a case against her and send her to prison for a very long time.
In return for some lenience in her sentence, Kerra gives up the name of the lawyer who had set her up with the Albanians. In Antwerp, the prosecution approaches the lawyer and is persuaded to come under witness protection in return for testifying against the Albanians. He signs the papers, indicating that he is ready to go through with it. However, in the next scene, he is shot dead, presumably by the Albanians, which means that Smets will have to wait a little longer to get her hands on them.
Do Noah and Gila End Up Together?
When Noah left Antwerp, he didn’t just leave behind his family and business. He also abandoned Gila, the girl he was supposed to marry. With him gone, the family tried to fix the situation, and Gila was married off to his younger brother, Yanki. Despite having two children with Yanki, Gila still loved Noah. However, she also knows that she will never have a future with him, even after he returns, and tries to convince her otherwise.
After Yanki’s death, Gila is advised by the women to find another husband as soon as possible. They force her into settling for older men, considering that no eligible bachelor would want to marry the widow of a man who killed himself. However, Gila ends up crossing paths with Yehuda, a young widower who lives in New York. Gila realizes they have a lot in common, and Yehuda is open-minded, which means she can do whatever she wants in New York. She can finally enjoy the freedom she didn’t have in Antwerp.
By this time, she and Noah had rekindled their romance. When he discovers she is marrying someone else, he tries to change her mind by offering her a future with him in London. Considering his past record, Gila is skeptical of his promises, but she still hopes to have that life with him. Noah decides to leave the life of crime once the Albanians are dealt with, and his family is safe. However, his plans go awry, and when he gives up Kerra to the cops, he shuts down the possibility of London.
Noah tells Gila about the complication, but she already knows that he wouldn’t leave Antwerp even if things had gone right. Ever since he returned and got involved in the family business, he’d started carving a place for himself in the family and had become more and more comfortable in the ways he’d run away from fifteen years ago. Even before he told her they couldn’t go to London, she knew they had no future together. So, she tells him that things are over between them. She is moving to New York and will marry Yehuda rather than waiting for Noah to come through on his promises.
Read More: Is Netflix’s Rough Diamonds Based on a True Story?
