Diksha Sundriyal
Netflix’s ‘The Last Night at Tremore Beach’ follows the story of a man named Alex whose life takes quite a turn when he is hit by lightning. Having secluded himself in the small town of Tremore after experiencing a steep fall in his personal and professional life, Alex, a pianist and a composer, settles in a small seaside town with the hopes of getting back in form and getting his life back together. On the night of dinner with his neighbors, Leo and Maria, he has a strange vision where his girlfriend, Judy, asks him not to leave. He does leave, but through the entire dinner he has a weird feeling.
On his way back home, his path is hindered by a broken tree. When he gets out of the car to get the tree out of the way, lightning strikes him. This is when the visions get more real. While Alex thinks that his visions are a peek into the future, which tragic as it is, seems more and more inevitable by the minute, the people around him believe that he is losing his mind, just like his mother did. The truth is more complicated than that. SPOILERS AHEAD
Did Alex See the Future, or Did He Have a Mental Illness?
Throughout its eight-episode run, ‘The Last Night at Tremore Beach’ keeps the audience wondering about the credibility of Alex’s visions. At times, it seems that he may have inherited the mental illness that his mother had, which he has probably passed on to his son, Bruno. But as time passes and things from Alex’s vision start to come into the picture, it seems that he may be right about seeing the future. The tragedy is that no one listens to him, and it is all bound to turn out in blood and death, exactly as he had envisioned. In the end, it is clear, beyond doubt, that Alex does have the ability to see the future. He does not have schizophrenia or dissociative identity disorder, which means that everything he has seen is bound to come to pass. Or that’s what he thinks in the beginning.
In one scene, Alex talks about the two times he has had near-death experiences. The first time was when he sneaked out of his house to drink and party with his friends. He was on a bike with a friend when he was struck by a car. At the time, Alex thought he was going to die, and as he lay on the road, bleeding and in pain, he saw his whole life pass in front of his eyes. This wasn’t the life he had lived, but the life he was going to live. He saw himself dedicatedly practicing piano, winning the scholarship that would take him to London, becoming an award-winning composer, meeting his wife Paula, and having kids, Bea and Bruno. The vision was so clear that Alex had no doubt he had seen the future. Sure enough, things turned out exactly as he had seen, even if a bit differently than he had expected.
The second time Alex has a near-death experience is when he is hit by lightning. This time, as well, he sees the rest of his life play out in front of his eyes, and it is this vision that we see in the eighth episode of the series. This means that his being discharged from the hospital, going back home, having visions, meeting his kids, going to the doctor, playing at the carnival, and watching every person he loves die in front of his eyes before he is killed as well happened in his mind. It was the rest of his life passing by in what he thought were his final moments. Just like the vision he had when he was a teenager and got in an accident, this vision felt so real that it seemed as if he had already lived it. But in reality, none of it has happened yet.
In the final episode, when Alex wakes up from his vision, he realizes that he is back to the night he was struck by lightning, and none of the bad things have happened yet. Still, considering how everything vision he and his mom had so far had come true, he becomes worried about the vision he has had now. He knows that he must do something, or it will come to pass exactly as he has seen. He tried to do such a thing once before when he played the wrong note to lose the scholarship in London and have Estrella get it instead. He’d hoped to change the future which he had seen without Estrella. But despite all his efforts, it all came to pass exactly as he had seen it before.
For a moment, Alex thinks that history might repeat itself. However, he is older now, and he has learned his lesson. He knows how his mother was caught up in her obsession with seeing the future. When she saw a vision, she would convince herself that it was the only way forward. This is why she forces her son to play the piano to the point that he starts hating her for it. This is why, when Alex tries to change the future, she kills Estrella to bring things back on track. From all this, Alex learns that just because a vision has occurred doesn’t mean it must be accepted and followed. He sees the vision as a warning, an opportunity to do things differently, which is what he decides to do in the end.
Does Alex Change the Future?
With all the pieces of the puzzle in front of him, Alex knows that there are two things that need to be taken care of. The first thing he needs to do is tell Estrella’s father the truth about her death, about how his mother killed the girl the night she won the scholarship. This gives closure not just to Estrella’s father but also to Alex, who had been haunted by Estrella’s death and blamed himself for it. By doing this, he breaks out of his mother’s influence on him. The second thing he needs to do is to get Leo and Maria out of the picture because it is because of them that Alex and his loved ones die. So, he takes his mother’s advice, which she’d given to him long ago when he was still a teenager, and decides to leave the house when he still can. He may know the truth about Leo and Maria, but it is not on him to deal with their situation.
With this, Alex stops the tragedy from his vision to become a reality. No one dies, not even Maria and Leo. Does this mean Alex has changed the future? Interestingly, the answer is more complicated than a simple yes or no. In the seventh episode, we see Alex deteriorate as he is bombarded by visions while no one around him seems to believe him. By now, he is convinced that if he doesn’t stop the people in the red van, everyone he loves is going to die. However, he handles things rather poorly and lands himself in a hospital. Here, he has another vision that feels extremely real to him. He sees Estrella’s father visiting him in the hospital, talking to him, and finding out the truth about his daughter’s death.
Before this, Alex also had a vision of watching the news where it is revealed that Estrella’s accident case has been solved, and it has come to light that there was another driver in the car that night. In this vision, Alex sees Judy on the toilet while the news plays in his room. However, when he talks to Judy about it, she says that there is no such news on the TV and she is not on the toilet. Rather, she was locking up the hostel, and when she came to the room, she found Alex staring at the TV. For a moment, this shows that Alex may have been losing his mind in reality. However, to him, the news, as well as the meeting with Estrella’s death, feels extremely real. In the end, both of these things come to pass, which means that a part of Alex’s vision comes true after all.
At the end of the day, we could say that Alex saw two possible futures. One led him down the road where he and his loved ones would die. The other led him down another path where he would make peace with his demons, accept his past, and move on rather than clinging to it indefinitely and ruining his life. At first, he is unable to separate these two paths, seeing both of them inseparably intermingled. It is after he decides to take the second path that he realizes that the visions weren’t about the inevitability of the future but the matter of choice. No matter what he saw in his visions, it wouldn’t come true unless he did something about it.
So yes, when he played the wrong chord during his audition, he did take a step to change the future. So, Estrella’s death wasn’t on him, but his mother, who couldn’t accept that the future was not set in stone. It is she who made the choice to keep the future in alignment with her visions. Later, when Alex accepts the scholarship, he also makes a conscious choice to stay in line with the visions. This is where he gave up on the influence of his mother’s beliefs. Had he refused the scholarship, he would have changed the future, but the grief of losing Estrella blinded him to the very possibility he had entertained the previous day. The second time, however, he decides not to go down that road, and he chooses a different future than the bleak one his visions had painted for him.
Is Leo Souza? What Happens to Him and Maria? Do They Die?
The first prominent vision Alex has is about Leo and Maria being killed by the intruders in their home. He becomes worried about the safety of his friends, especially after he discovers that they have been running from a mob boss named Souza. While he is still gathering all the pieces of the puzzle, he is focused on saving his friends from a gruesome death. When he discovers that the fate of his own family is tied up with Leo and Maria’s, he becomes more desperate to save them and change the course of events.
In the end, however, it turns out that he didn’t have the full picture yet and what he saw in Leo and Maria’s house happened very differently than what he had expected. He thought Leo and Maria were in danger, but they were the danger. He thought they were running from Souza, but he later discovers that Leo is, in fact, Souza, and he and Maria escaped his criminal world in Brazil to start anew in Tremore. This means that the people in the red van were actually good guys. They were from the Interpol, tracking down Souza to bring him to justice. But due to his tunnel vision, Alex saw them as the threat and Leo and Maria as the victims.
The vision clarifies a lot of things for Alex, the most important of which is how dangerous and unforgiving Leo can be. He knows that if he allows things to happen as they did in his vision, he will be condemning his children, his ex-wife, Judy, and two police officers to death. So, when he wakes up from the vision after he is struck by lightning in the hospital, he knows that he must do things differently. The biggest mistake he made in his vision was to get in the way of Interpol. If he hadn’t intervened, things would work normally. It was his intervention that turned Leo’s wrath on him, so he decided to walk away from the whole thing. Instead, he gives a tip to Interpol, telling them exactly where to find Souza. Before their raid, he throws away Leo’s shotgun and handgun. Later when the cops come, things go smoothly, Leo and Maria are arrested and not a single drop of blood is spilled.
What Happens to Alex’s Family? Do They Die?
If the deaths of his beloved friends weren’t enough, Alex is particularly disturbed by his vision when he discovers that his children, Judy and Paula, are also going to die in it. It is his desire to save them that makes him even more desperate to change the future and save his family. Otherwise, they would all be killed at the hands of Leo, whose identity as Souza puts the whole thing in perspective. The vision ends with everyone, including Alex, dying, but fortunately, it turns out to be just that: a vision. When Alex wakes up in the hospital, he discovers that none of it has happened yet. In consideration of keeping his family safe, he decides to change the course of his future by leaving Tremore.
Years ago, his mother had warned him to get out of the house while he still had the chance. At the time, he hadn’t understood the meaning of her words. It is only after his own vision that he realizes that his mother had seen his death years ago. According to his mother, the visions would lead to an inevitable future. He had tried to change it one time and failed. This time, however, he decides to take his shot. He listens to his mother and heeds his own vision. He decides to pack things up in Tremore and leave for Amsterdam, where he can be with his children.
He knows that Paula is planning a trip with her partner, Niels, which means she will be sending the kids his way. If they come to Tremore, they will be in danger, so Alex finds it best that they stay away from this place and stay safe and alive. He talks with Paula, who is pleasantly surprised to discover that he is coming to Amsterdam to be with his kids, whom he had ignored for a long time, especially since he and Paula separated. At the end of the day, he is reunited with them, and they remain blissfully unaware of the bullet they dodged.
Do Alex and Judy End Up Together?
One of the many things that Alex clearly sees in his vision is his feelings for Judy. He has a disturbing vision of her tied up, which later turns out to be from the past, not the future. She tells him about her life before she came to Tremore, the tragedy that she survived, and how she went on a journey to rediscover herself. She also expresses the depth of her feelings for him, which she felt since their first meeting but kept to herself because she wasn’t sure what their relationship meant so far. When Alex wakes up from his vision, he is convinced of his love for Judy and vice versa and wants her to be in his life.
When Alex decides to leave Tremore, he makes an offer to Judy. He asks her to come with him to Amsterdam, though he understands how difficult a decision it could be for her, especially considering that they have only been dating for a few months. At this time, Judy hasn’t told Alex about her past, and she is scared that he might think differently of her when the truth comes to light. However, Alex tells her that he already knows everything and that she told him all of it. He assures her that moving to Amsterdam with him could be the beginning of something new, which is what she had been searching for all this while. The final decision, however, rests with her.
For Judy, the offer of moving with him comes as a complete surprise as she thinks that their relationship hasn’t reached that stage. Still, she knows that her feelings for Alex are much different than her previous ones. Moreover, she is also surprised by the sudden change in his behavior, as if he knows exactly what is going to happen next. While it doesn’t happen on-screen, there is a chance that Alex talks about his vision, or at least part of it, with Judy, especially to curb her questions about how he knows about what happened to her in Toulouse. Moreover, when he talks to Paula about coming to Amsterdam, he asks her if he can bring his friend, Judy. This confirms that Judy is going with him. Whether or not she stays with him is a question for the future, but considering everything, she and Alex certainly have a future together.
Why Does Alex See His Mother? Does She Die?
A curious thing happens in the final shot of ‘The Last Night at Tremore Beach.’ As Alex finishes playing a melody on the piano, knowing exactly what he is going to do next, he sees his mother, the older version of her, standing a few feet from him. They smile at each other, and then she disappears. Does this mean she is dead? Considering that his mother was still alive in his vision when he visited her in the hospital, we can say that she hasn’t died yet. A lot of good and bad things happened to Alex over the course of his life, but what really influenced the path he took was his mother. She hammered his life into the shape she had seen in her vision. The moment he seemed to take a different path, she would intervene and turn the events such that he would back on the path that led to the future she had seen for him.
While Alex hated his mother for this, he also subconsciously imbibed her way and approached things as she did. In the end, it is going against her ways, it is believing that the future is not set in stone that allows him to break out of the vicious cycle he seems to have been caught up in. When he succeeds in changing the future, he sees his mother in her old age, which shows that he is free of her influence now. Previously, he had always seen her as she was when he was young, and she had full control over his life. But her older version has no say whatsoever in how she chooses to live, and that’s why he sees her. Another reason that he sees his mother might be due to the connection between them. Despite being old, his mother hasn’t stopped having visions. It is clear that she, too, had a vision of Alex in Tremore with Judy and his eventual death years before. She thought that it couldn’t be changed, but then Alex changed it.
It is possible that his mother may have felt that change, just like he felt it after his meeting with Estrella’s father. In the vision, Alex had headaches after being struck by lightning. However, in the real timeline, he notices that his headaches are gone. This is confirmation for him that he has changed the future and saved himself and his loved ones. It is possible that his mother may have experienced a similar change within herself. Then, she has a vision of her son playing piano at his house in Tremore while she has a vision of her. As their visions collide, they see each other and smile at one another. She is happy because her son is safe. His smile, on the other hand, also indicates that he has a better understanding of his mother now, and he has, in a way, forgiven her.
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