The Artful Dodger Season 2 Ending Explained: Is Fagin Dead?

‘The Artful Dodger’ season 2 finds the protagonist, Dr. Jack Dawkins, in a perpetual state of danger from the get-go. In the aftermath of the last finale, the surgeon, accused of murder, begins this season on a strict parole that forbids him from seeing his beloved and preferred surgery partner, Lady Belle Fox. Nonetheless, Jack, never one to turn away from courting danger, refuses to accept this outcome and partners up with Fagin for a lucrative scheme that might just bring him enough money to grease some palms and earn his freedom. On the other hand, Belle struggles against her mother’s penchant for control as Lady Jane tries to set up a marriage between her daughter and the new Police Captain in town, Inspector Henry Boxer. Yet, all the high-stakes interpersonal drama pales in comparison to the dangers lurking in the slums of Port Victory, in the form of murder and malady. SPOILERS AHEAD!

The Artful Dodger Season 2 Recap

Six months after Jack’s arrest for the death of Captain Gaines, the surgeon finds himself headed for the gallows. Meanwhile, Belle rushes around the city in search of an eyewitness who can save her lover from doom. Even though she ends up being too late in the end, the surgeon manages to escape from his planned hanging with the help of his scheming surrogate father, Fagin. Yet, his escape from the docks is interrupted by Inspector Boxer, the new Captain, freshly arriving in the colony. However, his imminent death sentence is ultimately nulled when Belle manages to bring up her eyewitness, and the local head surgeon in town, Sneed, argues against Jack’s deathly punishment on account of the dwindling medical talents in Port Victory.

In the end, Lady Jane, Belle’s mother and the Governor’s wife, agrees to an impossible compromise. Since Jack’s escape attempts still make him a criminal, she allows for his parole under the condition that he continues working at Sneed’s hospital for two years. She further insists that during this time, he breaks all contact with her daughter, who is also forbidden from practicing medicine. The breaking of these rules will directly result in the surgeon’s return to the gallows. Nonetheless, Jack disregards these rules as he continues to require Belle’s medical advice and consultation. Furthermore, once he realizes the latter didn’t abandon him during his imprisonment, and that her silence was actually a misunderstanding caused by Fagin, who kept her letters from him, his love for her also returns in full force.

Even though Belle is more cautious than he is, she also allows herself to occasionally get swept up in reckless encounters with him, of both the romantic and medical kind. Meanwhile, her uncle, Dickie, arrives in Port Victory to visit his brother, Edmund. However, he ends up falling for Fagin’s latest scheme, which involves land in central Australia that doesn’t actually exist. This isn’t the only shifty thing afoot in the colony as a serial killer, with a penchant for cutting open his victims and sewing them back up with blue thread, haunts the alleys of Devil’s Elbow. Boxer has a theory that Dawkins is the one behind the murders since he’s the only criminal surgeon around. For the same reason, he remains worried about Belle, who continues visiting the slums in the hopes of providing help to the colony’s poorer population.

Eventually, a woman’s adverse experience with an aortic aneurysm compels Belle to take matters into her own hands and attempt a life-saving surgery. Although the patient ends up dying, Sneed recognizes the young woman’s medical prowess, especially in the face of staff shortages in the hospital, and makes a case to Jane to allow her daughter to train under him. Thus, the aspirin female surgeon finally gets a foot in the door. However, disaster strikes soon enough as a cholera outbreak spreads through the slums of Devil’s Elbow, flooding the hospital with dying patients. Around the same time, retribution also catches up to Fagin as a dangerous agent of the East India Company, whose money Dickie used to make the lucrative investment, knocks on the conman’s doorstep. Initially, Fagin attempts to dupe the agent, Uriah, as well, with the help of his newest ally, Lady Fanny Fox, who has discovered a taste for shady ventures. Nevertheless, as the walls close in on him, this promises to be his last con.

The Artful Dodger Season 2 Ending: Does Fagin Survive?

Throughout season 2, Fagin continues digging himself into hot water in search of gold. After Jack is put on parole, under the swindler’s guardianship, the latter comes up with a great idea to ensure his son’s freedom. He realizes that the Privy Council in London can overturn the surgeon’s conviction as a criminal. In order to achieve this, all that they would have to do is grease the right palms with a high enough bribe. Therefore, Fagin devises the plan to dupe rich businessmen out of their money by selling land in the yet colonially unexplored Central Australia. Over time, this con grows and ends up roping in Dickie, the Governor’s brother, into its web. However, as the latter makes the investment, he forgets to mention one crucial detail: the money isn’t actually his but rather the East India Company’s.

Specifically, it was given to him to make saltpeter investments. After Fagin discerns the same with Fanny’s help, he decides to up the ante and extend his scheme by duping the EIC agent, Uriah, into thinking he is a reliable saltpeter supplier. One fake factory and a staged demonstration are all it takes to sell that lie. Yet, the conman doesn’t fully get away with the crime. Not long after the deal is struck, Darius, who has a lifelong bone to pick with Fagin, reveals all his secrets to Uriah. Inevitably, this results in an aggressive encounter between the swindler and his co-conspirators and Uriah, who has the law on his side. As such, the failed crook realizes there’s only one solution to his problems: death. Fortunately for him, he has someone who can help him fake his. Even though things are tense between him and Jack, on account of his attempts at sabotaging the latter’s relationship with Belle, he convinces the surgeon to extend his help to him one last time.

As such, Jack administers an injection into Fagin that would momentarily dull his pulse enough to pass him off as a dead body. Despite the statistical possibility of it leading to his death, the conman takes his chances, realizing it may be the only way to ensure as little bloodshed as possible. In the end, when Uriah and Dickie come looking for the man who essentially robbed them, they find nothing but a dead man. As a result, the EIC agent declares the matter resolved, satisfied to have one life in exchange for his loss. Afterward, Rotty, Aputi, and Flashy, who are oblivious to their friend’s daring scheme, take his body away and end up burying it in the colony’s cemetery. However, the injection works as intended and only feigns Fagin’s stopped pulse rather than causing it. Thus, the man eventually wakes, to his horror, inside a casket, six feet underground. Ultimately, even though Fagin survives, he’s strapped in for a long ride as he’ll have to claw his way out of his own literal grave.

Does Jack Leave Port Victory? Does He End Up With Belle?

While Fagin’s scheme is in motion, Jack finds himself preoccupied with his own troubles, which is probably why he doesn’t have the time to prevent his surrogate father’s burial. Ever since his parole, the surgeon has been struggling with reconciling his relationship with Belle. Regardless of Lady Jane’s threat of execution, he continues to steal moments away with his beloved once he realizes that her love for him is true. The female surgeon’s appointment as Sneed’s student in the hospital further helps the lovebirds in this matter. However, eventually, they get careless with their trysts. As a result, they end up spending the night together in the hospital’s cupboard, where Jane finds them sleeping under the same sheets.

It’s only in the morning that Belle learns about the same through Hetty, the nurse. What follows is a tense confrontation between the mother-daughter duo, wherein Jane presents her with an ultimatum. Belle can choose to stay with Jack without causing his hanging, but only if she renounces herself as Jane’s daughter and leaves her house. Even though this comes as a betrayal, the surgeon accepts her mother’s terms and earns her lover’s freedom. Nonetheless, her fantasies of living out her life with Jack are short-lived. Soon enough, Fagin pointedly mentions Fanny’s involvement in his schemes to the surgeon in an attempt to ignite a spat between the lovers.

Belle learns about Jack’s reckless criminal schemes and realizes that she can’t have a future with him. The fact that her father, Edmund, nulls his wife’s decree and comes to welcome his daughter back into his home shortly afterward further helps matters. Therefore, to Jack, it seems like he has all but lost the love of his life. Witnessing the other get closer to Boxer during their attempts to solve the Cholera outbreak cements this belief even more. For the same reason, once the ailment has been contained and cured, Jack decides to take his leave from Port Victory. He realizes that staying in the colony and potentially watching Belle fall in love with another would be too painful. As such, he decides to re-enlist in the Navy as a doctor and leave with the Rio De Janeiro shipment at the docks.

However, the surgeon has had the wrong idea about Belle’s interest in Boxer entirely. Although she had considered the Inspector’s proposal for a moment, she quickly came to realize her heart only truly belongs to her fellow surgeon. Therefore, she turns his offer down and continues to fight for Jack against her family. Yet, by the time she learns about Jack’s plan to leave the colony, she’s too late to stop the shipment. Initially, all hope seems lost, as she realizes that another ship won’t be leaving for Rio De Janeiro until next month, narrowing the chances of her catching up to her lover. Nonetheless, her worries are for nothing. On the port, Jack finds her again, apparently having never boarded the ship in the first place, once the realization hits that, despite their complications, he can’t live without Belle. Ultimately, the two lovers reunite, this time for good.

Does Sneed Die? What Happens to Him?

Shortly after Belle’s rejection, Boxer makes a breakthrough in his Blue Thread Serial Killer case. Initially, he had made the false assumption that Jack must be the killer. Nonetheless, one chase through the rain proves this theory incorrect, for which the Inspector remains apologetic. Nonetheless, during his time in the Devil’s Elbow, searching for the source of the Cholera, the officer stumbles upon something else: Professor Alistair McGregor’s brother. As it turns out, the latter is dying of stomach cancer, but believes that his brother will perform the surgery required to heal him. Thus, Boxer realizes that McGregor is the killer who has been piling up bodies in an attempt to practice his operations in secret. Inevitably, this brings him to the hospital to make his arrest.

Still, McGregor manages to slip through the grasp and attempts to escape through the hidden tunnels in the hospital. However, Sneed has the misfortune of running into him, which makes him his latest victim. McGregor has always held certain contempt for the surgeon, for his contribution to his eventual ban from practicing medicine. Therefore, when he stabs Sneed, it’s colored with personal vendetta. Fortunately, Boxer manages to arrive in time to save the surgeon and kill the professor in a feat of self-defence. Even so, they’re not out of the woods just yet. Once Boxer brings Sneed back into the hospital, it’s starkly lacking any surgeons who can save his life. With Jack and Belle both at the docks, and Sneed as the patient, the hospital is freshly out of surgeons. Thus, only a miracle or an ill-advised medical practice by a novice can save Sneed’s life.

Does Jane Survive? Can They Cure the Cholera Outbreak?

Where Sneed’s fate remains uncertain, the same fortunately isn’t true for the rest of the residents of Port Victory. The cholera outbreak starts out in the slums of Devil’s Elbow, leading to the deaths of many. Initially, Sneed and Edmund decide to announce a quarantine to keep the ailment contained within the slums. Yet, all this does is ensure that the most vulnerable of Port Victory can’t access any medical help. Jack and Belle both believe that the infection is not air-borne and thus does not require quarantining. As such, they decide to spend their time trying to find a solution, which begins by recognizing the source of the ailment.

Once the surgeons realize that infection is being caused by water, they have some semblance of a plan to tackle the problem. Things get even more tense, on a personal level, when Belle realizes that her own mother has contracted the illness as well. Despite everything, Jane agrees to get treated at the hospital, and Jack agrees to be her doctor without letting past feuds stand in the way. In the end, Jack does what he does best and takes a calculated risk. He floods Jane’s veins with hot water as a possible cure to rid the body of the infection. In the end, this ends up being the right call as it saves Jane’s life and introduces the hospital with an effective way to cure the ill. As a way to honor his contribution, Jane and Edmund also decide to dissolve Jack’s conviction and give Belle’s relationship with him their blessing.