Netflix’s Fool Me Once, starring Michelle Keegan and Joanna Lumley, has gripped audiences with its twists and turns since its release on New Year’s Day.
The eight-part drama is the latest of the streaming platform’s successful adaptations of novels by American mystery-thriller writer Harlan Coben.
Its synopsis reads: ‘When ex-soldier Maya (Michelle Keegan) sees her murdered husband on a secret nanny cam, she uncovers a deadly conspiracy that stretches deep into the past.’
But as the series develops, we are presented with more and more questions about who really killed her husband Joe (Richard Armitage), and why.
Find out all the answers below – with a warning of spoilers for those who are yet to finish the hit show.
As the plot to Netflix’s Fool Me Once unfolds, questions keep seeming to arise about Joe’s (played by Richard Armitage, right) death
Michelle Keegan plays Maya (pictured with her confidante Shane) who becomes shocked an concerned by footage of her husband on their ‘nanny cam’ days after his funeral
The biggest twist is answered at the end of the show when viewers find out who killed Joe once and for all
Who killed Joe in Fool Me Once and why?
The biggest twist of all in Fool Me Once comes as it is revealed that Maya herself killed her husband, despite spending the series purporting to be trying to get to the bottom of his murder – or survival.
After Maya finds out from her confidante Shane that it was her and Joe’s handgun which was used in the killing of her sister, Claire, she sets out to find the truth behind that event.
Michelle’s character agreed to meet her husband away from their home, and daughter Lily, to confront him.
She took the weapon for herself, but replaced it with a deactivated one to see if Joe would attempt to use it on her, which he did – only to find out that it would not fire.
Threatened by the intention and seeing that Joe was not only willing to kill his sister-in-law but his wife too, Maya pulled the trigger of the working pistol and killed her partner.
But that was not the end of the act, as she used his blood to make it seem like she had embraced her husband after a robbery which got out of hand.
Seeing some motorcyclists in the park nearby, Maya decided that she would frame them – however, one of them saw the shooting, and told DS Sami Kierce (Adeel Akhtar).
Why did Joe kill Claire?
Joe killed Maya’s sister, and his colleague, Claire (Natalie Anderson) because she had caught on to his company Burkett Pharmaceuticals’ crimes, and leaked about them to a whistleblower.
The family business was falsifying drug trials and putting bad drugs on the market that made people sick, with fatal consequences.
She reached out to Corey the Whistle, who had reported on Maya’s war crimes in her previous life as a pilot.
Claire persuaded the whistleblower not to release audio from an incident where Maya killed innocent civilians in an attempt to protect her comrades.
Maya’s sister also discovered that Joe had killed before covering up another dark tale from his past.
Joe killed his brother Andrew in 1996, after the pair had goaded their classmate Theo Mora into drinking a fatal amount of alcohol during a football initiation on a yacht.
When Andrew suggested confessing to what had happened, Joe decided he would rather push his brother into the sea and to his death than go to jail, and went on to insist that Andrew had killed himself.
It turns out that Judith Burkett (Joanna Lumley) doctored the home camera’s footage to deepfake the appearance of her son, as she suspected Maya was lying about the nature of Joe’s death
Adeel Akhtar plays Detective Sergeant Sami Kierce, who is investigating Maya while his health deteriorates as a result of Joe’s family business’ dodgy pharmaceuticals
Who is Tommy Dark in Fool Me Once?
One man who knew the truth about Theo and Andrew was the boat’s captain Tommy Dark.
The former marine was paid each month by the Burketts for the following 26 years, before going missing.
Maya and Corey track Tommy down to a storage unit where they find him dead and stashed away in a cooler.
Joe had murdered him, and used his wife’s car to transport the body – making her also caught up in that crime.
How did Joe appear on the nanny cam?
Knowing that Maya was actually the one who killed Joe makes her surprise at seeing him on the couple’s ‘nanny cam’ even more logical.
The truth was that Joe’s mother, Judith Burkett (Joanna Lumley), arranged for a deepfake of her son to be created by her nanny, Izabelle, and her partner, Luka, to try and catch Maya out.
They used a video from Maya and Joe’s wedding, and superimposed the dead man’s image onto seperate footage of Luka.
Judith handled much of the aftermath of Joe’s death, as Maya discusses in the show’s trailer, and suspected that Maya was not being honest about the nature of the event.
Maya eventually confronts her partner’s family, hoping to hear a confession to Burkett Pharmaceuticals’ corporate wrongdoing
However, when she goes to the family’s manor, she is killed by the company CEO, Joe’s brother Neil
Why was Maya killed?
The two parties who are trying to outwit each other eventually meet after Maya has confessed her murder to DS Kierce.
However, rather than arrest the former pilot, the policeman convinces Maya to first try and get a confession out of the Burketts in relation to their business’ pervasive corporate wrongdoing.
Maya goes to meet Judith, her son Neil (James Northcote) and daughter Caroline (Hattie Morahan) at their family home – filmed at country mansion Arley Hall, in Cheshire.
There, she delivers the fateful nanny cam hidden in a digital photo.
After both sides have admitted to their end of the devastating saga, Judith suggests she and Maya cover up Joe’s murder in exchange for the family secrets remaining that way.
However, Maya declines, and moments later, Neil, the Burkett CEO, takes her gun and shoots her while the subversive camera had been streaming it all live.
How does Fool Me Once end?
With the remaining Burkett family members looking on as Maya dies, Michelle’s character takes a last look at the nanny cam.
It becomes apparent soon after that the Burketts are all imprisoned for their various offences before another flash-forward.
We see that 18 years on, DS Kierce has recovered from the health issues of his own which were caused by the family’s dodgy medication.
He visits Claire’s husband Eddie (Marcus Garvey) – who Maya had requested take custody of her daughter should she die.
Eddie reveals that Lily is ‘just like her mum’ and has a daughter of her own – who she named Maya.
The show ends with the revelation that Maya’s daughter has had a child of her own 18 years on, and named her Maya too
Netflix have said that a second series of Fool Me Once is ‘not likely’ as this one spans the entirety of Harlan Coben’s 2016 book. Pictured: American author Harlan Coben, who has written eight books which have been made into Netflix original series
Will there be a second season of Fool Me Once?
Netflix have said that a second series of Fool Me Once is ‘not likely’ as this one spans the entirety of Coben’s 2016 book, and seems to tie up all loose ends.
Fans of Fool Me Once might be better served trying out some of the platform’s other adaptations from the same author, such as The Stranger and Stay Close.
The Harlan Coben Collection is now an eight-strong set of original series.