The Beast in Me Ending Explained: Is Nile Dead?

In Netflix’s ‘The Beast in Me,’ a writer’s imagination runs tenfold when she discovers that her new neighbour is a real estate mogul whose first wife disappeared under mysterious circumstances. The protagonist is Aggie Wiggs, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer who is struggling to start her second book, which is already overdue by two years. Inspiration strikes when she meets Nile Jarvis, whom she initially despises, but the more she gets to know him, the more she realizes that his story is more complex than she had previously imagined. By the end, however, truth comes to the fore, and as Nile’s secrets come out spilling, so do Aggie’s, and she must confront the truth, no matter how painful it is. SPOILERS AHEAD.

The Beast in Me Plot Synopsis

Aggie Wiggs is caught in writer’s block. It has been years since she published her first book, which won her accolades as well as notoriety. But now, she has no idea what to do with her second book. At the same time, her marriage has fallen apart in the wake of her son’s death. Things change when a new neighbour, Nile Jarvis, moves in. He and Aggie clash when he proposes creating a well-defined path for running and jogging in the woods. While she is vehemently against it, he seems hell-bent on making her change her mind. Interestingly, while Aggie deals with the trauma of losing her son, Nile is haunted by the death of his wife, Madison. She died a few years back, but her mysterious disappearance has been the cause of a scandal that Nile cannot seem to shake off, no matter how hard he tries.

When Aggie proposes the idea of writing a book about him, which he’d floated to her as a joke, a new relationship is formed between them. A major reason Aggie becomes involved with Nile is because she suspects that he is behind the mysterious disappearance of Teddy, the young man whom Aggie holds responsible for the death of her son. She believes Nile did something to the boy in an attempt to impress her and change her mind about the pathway. This leads her to look into his wife’s death, which opens another Pandora’s box of trouble. She is joined in her mission by an FBI agent named Brian, who has been pursuing Nile for a long time and is just as eager to uncover the truth as Aggie.

Is Aggie Let Out of Prison?

After a lot of back and forth, where Aggie’s views about Nile are challenged, she finally discovers the truth. It turns out that Nile did, after all, kill Madison, and he was also behind Teddy’s sudden disappearance. The problem is that the moment she figures it out, she texts Brian, who she doesn’t realise has already been killed by Nile. This gives the villain a chance to clean up and find a way to silence Aggie, lest she reveal the truth to everyone. With Nicky’s help, he gets Teddy out of the secret hiding place and puts him inside Cooper’s room. The scene is staged such that it looks like Aggie abducted Teddy and then killed him. It wouldn’t be too difficult for people to believe she actually did it because she’d made her disdain for him public to the point that he had to get a restraining order against her.

With Teddy’s dead body in her house, the evidence is overwhelming, which forces her to run. To make matters worse, she gave the evidence she’d found against Nile to Erika, whom Nick threatens to step back. This leaves Aggie with nothing, which means that she will have to go to prison. In a last-ditch effort, Aggie reaches out to Nina, telling her about Nile’s true nature and how she found evidence to prove it. She beseeches Nina to face the truth, which she, somewhere deep down, was already aware of, and help her. Aggie does this because Nina is the only one close enough to Nile to extract a confession from him, and considering that he hasn’t exactly been the best husband to Nina, the writer believes that the wife will turn against her husband. At the same time, she also surrenders to the cops because she knows she cannot be on the run for the rest of her life.

How is Nile Caught?

Fortunately, Nina’s conscience leads her to confront Nile. She tells him everything that Aggie told her, and at first, he tries to assure her that all of those things are nothing but lies. But eventually, he sheds the mask, and the truth comes out. He confesses that he killed Madison, but he also points out that it was Nina who outed his ex-wife, and she knew what she was doing when she snitched. He also confesses to abducting and killing Teddy, claiming that that’s what Aggie wanted, but she could not accept it. Shockingly, Nina seems to accept him despite all this, and for a moment, Nile thinks that he has gotten away with murder again. However, the next morning, it turned out that his wife had been recording the entire conversation.

She sent it to the cops, which cleared up Aggie’s name, since Nile clearly stated that he was the one who killed Teddy and framed Aggie for it. He is arrested shortly after he gives a speech with Olivia Benitez, who was also forced to agree to a deal with him. Fortunately, she is now free of the constraints and can return to fighting against the likes of the Jarvis family. Meanwhile, Nile initially tries to fight the charges, but then, his uncle, who had helped him bury all the bodies all these years, decides to speak out, and that puts an end to Nile’s defense. He is found guilty and sent to prison for a very long time. Still, this does nothing to change him, and interestingly, Aggie shows up to meet him in prison. It seems that she still doesn’t know how to end the book, but Nile points out that this is because he is a reflection of her darkest parts, which is why she is still eager to talk to him.

Is Marty Dead? Why Does Nick Kill Him?

One of the major revelations about Nile is that Madison and Teddy aren’t the only people he has killed. In the flashback scene, where Madison is revealed to have been working with Brian to bring down Nile, she reveals that people have been disappearing around him his entire life. She gives an example of a young artist she’d started working with, but who got stabbed shortly after Nile got jealous of him. She points out that the pattern goes back to the time when he was a teenager. While she is never able to prove it, the audience knows that her allegations are real because of Marty’s reaction to his son’s actions. It seems that he and Nick have been cleaning up after him his entire life. After Nile killed Madison, Marty tried to change things by sending his son into exile. However, the events with Teddy then occurred, throwing him into such a shock that he collapsed.

Right before this, he wonders why his son is like that, and it’s clear that Nile’s bloodlust is why Marty has been so distant from him all this time. This is why he got married again and had more kids, because he didn’t want his murderer son to be the legacy he left behind. After Madison, he really thought Nile would stop, but when Aggie is arrested, Nick comes clean, and it unravels Marty’s state of mind. At the hospital, it is revealed that Marty’s health has worsened to the point that he will not recover. He slips into a coma, and he will never come out of it. With Nile’s arrest, Nick sees his brother’s coma as a relief. At least, he won’t have to see his good name and legacy being trashed as all of Nile’s secrets and lies come to the fore.

But that’s not all he does. When Nile pleads not guilty and seems poised to fight the charges against him, Nick realises that he will never change. So, he decides to come clean and tell the authorities everything. He becomes their witness, which would also help ease his conscience. However, before everything falls apart for good, he decides to relieve his brother. He kills Marty because he doesn’t want his brother to be alive to see all that is about to go down, and how the Jarvis name will forever be blemished because of Nile and his actions. In his mind, this is an act of mercy, even though it breaks his heart to do it. So, before the cops come for him, he smothers Marty with a pillow, ending his life before turning his ire towards Nile.

Is Nile Dead? Who Kills Him?

When Nick kills Marty, it is out of love. At the same time, he knows he wouldn’t have had to do it had Nile not done all the bad things he did. Nick loved his brother, and it was because of him that he helped Nile through all the bloodshed and whatnot. So, when Marty dies, Nick blames it on Nile. Over the years, he had tried to convince Marty to let Nile face the consequences of his actions rather than helping him cover it all up. But Marty was blinded by his love for his son, which is why Nick had to comply. But now, everything has changed, so he turns towards the cops. His testimony leads to his nephew being sent to prison for the foreseeable future, but that’s not enough. Nick wants him to be punished because he knows that even prison will not dull the ego and self-aggrandisation that Nile has deluded himself with.

He is proven right by Aggie’s visit, which gives the murderer a sense of self-importance that makes him feel like there is nothing wrong with him. Nick knows that all the media attention on the case will inflate all these feelings for his nephew, and he will never learn a lesson. He will never change. And it wouldn’t have been such a problem had Marty survived, but with him gone, Nick cannot accept the fact that Nile should get to live too. So, he calls one of his old contacts, which leads him to make a deal with some prisoners, and they kill Nick inside the prison. He is stabbed one day, and the hits are so bad that it’s clear he is not going to recover from it. The last we see of Nile is him on the floor, with blood pooling around him, as his last breaths leave his body. He dies, and with that, Nick gets to end the chapter that he wishes his brother had put a stop to a long time ago.

Why does Nina Betray Nile? Is Her Baby Like Nile?

One of the reasons that Nile had gotten away with murder for so long is because of the people around him. His father and his uncle were always at his beck and call whenever he needed someone to clean up his mess. At the same time, he wished to present his dark side to someone who would understand him, which is why he was drawn to Aggie, believing that her bloodlust was akin to his own. He kept his murders a secret from his new wife, Nina, as well, because he knew she would never be able to accept him that way. At the same time, he knew that she wasn’t entirely innocent either. When Aggie says that she helped in his arrest because she has a conscience, he says that it’s simply because she is an opportunist. And Nile is right, to some extent. Nina’s desire to have Nile put away in prison for good wasn’t simply motivated by her desire for justice.

It’s not that she didn’t care about Madison or any other victim at all. It’s just that under different circumstances, she might have chosen to turn a blind eye to his actions, and she actually did that for a long time. Nile points out that while he never came clean to her about his actions, it doesn’t mean that she never suspected anything untoward in him. In some ways, she knew exactly who he was, but she stayed with him because it profited her. And then, she got pregnant. With everything unfolding around her, Nina had to consider the fact that she now had a baby to think about, and she needed to do what was best for the child and her. So, her decision to betray Nile and send the cops the recording of his confession was a way to ensure that his dark shadow never fell on her son. She didn’t want the child to end up anything like its father.

However, there is the question of nature vs nurture, and, in the last shot, as she looks at her baby, she wonders how much of Nile is already inside the child. It’s not that Marty was a serial killer, which led Nile to become one. The darkness inside her husband had been inherent, running through his veins like blood, which could mean that his child may have inherited some of that darkness. Does the child also have that darkness inherent, running through its blood? If so, does this mean that Nina has somehow landed herself another version of Nile and must now find herself in the same position as Marty, forced to choose between letting the child suffer the consequences of their actions or to clean up after them for the rest of her life? Only time will tell.

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