Abhiroop Das
Helmed by Barbara Topsøe-Rothenborg, Netflix’s ‘The Secret Woman,’ or ‘Den Hemmelige Kvinde,’ adapts the eponymous co-authors Anders Rønnow Klarlund and Jacob Weinreich, charting the life of a cafe owner with amnesia named Louise Andersen, who discovers that her real name is Helene Söderberg, and that she has an entire family in Denmark, where she is the heir to a major shipping business. Having been declared missing years ago and presumed dead by many, Helene has been leading a completely new life under an identity borrowed from an ID card she was found carrying. However, this revelation kickstarts an even greater mystery, one connecting the reason for Helene’s amnesia to the true identity of Louise Andersen, and how these threads might be connected. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Helene Took On Louise’s Identity as a Subconscious Defense Mechanism
While we know the truth about Helene Söderber’s life by the end of ‘The Secret Woman,’ the whys behind her amnesia remain somewhat ambiguous even then. On a technical level, it’s clear that she loses her memories after a traumatic brain injury that she got after landing on a ship from a great height. While she ultimately survives her injuries in a hospital in Norway, virtually all of her memories from before the accident are suppressed. However, the move from there to completely taking on the persona of Louise Andersen still doesn’t make sense. From the ID cards, it’s evident that the two women do not look alike, as at no point does Helene truly question who the real Louise may have been or what her own identity is.
Ultimately, Helene’s decision to become Louise is as psychologically motivated as it is by her post-injury amnesia. The last thing she does as Helene is jump off a bridge in mortal fear of Edmund, and that feeling likely carries over on a subconscious level. It is likely that a part of her understands that she is on the run, even with her memories gone, and it makes sense for her to latch on to a new identity, one relieved of the trauma from what is essentially her past life. However, in doing so, she still manages to be connected to Louise’s cause. The cracked compact mirror, for instance, keeps triggering flashbacks to the past, and it is only after breaking the mirror open and recovering its secrets that Helene truly reunites with her complete self, winning over the identity crisis and learning the truth about Louise Andersen.
Louise Andersen Was a Whistlebower Killed by Edmund to Protect Company Secrets
The real Louise Andersen was a survivor of the human trafficking network that had been operating within Söderberg Shipping for decades. While we don’t know much about who she was and where she came from, the sheer volume of information she had about the network suggests that she was likely trafficked years ago and forced to be a sex worker at the Gentlemen’s Club. Over time, however, she gathered enough material to build up a solid case against Edmund and the other masterminds behind this operation and decided to become a whistleblower. She first found help in the form of Elisabeth Fauerskov, an employee at Söderberg Shipping’s longtime collaborator, J.M. Shipping, but it wasn’t until Helene got involved that things started to look hopeful.
Despite Louise having all the evidence needed to bring Edmund behind bars, she also knew of just how much power he wielded, enough to ruin her life. Accordingly, on that fateful day, she had decided to hand over all the proof to Helene and escape to Norway via a ship. However, Edmund had already caught up to the plan and managed to ambush the two women by the bridge. As her last action, Louise entrusted Helene with her bag and the evidence before trying to run for the ship, only to be killed by Edmund, who ran her over with his car. Right after, Helene leaped onto the ship carrying Louise’s bag, and it is how the story catches up to the present. All along, Louise was a heroic figure who prioritized getting the truth out over her own life, and, fittingly, it is Louise who, quite literally, inherits her role in this story, seeing it through to the end.
Read More: The Secret Woman Ending Explained: Does Helene Get Her Memories Back? Will Edmund Go to Prison?
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