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Just 7 subtle clues that explain that wild Behind Her Eyes ending.

Warning: This post contains MANY spoilers for Netflix's Behind Her Eyes. 

It's no secret that Netflix's Behind Her Eyes has one of the most unexpected endings of all time.

Since its release in February, the six-part psychological thriller has been leaving viewers looking like this as they attempt to decipher *THAT* ending:

Based on Sarah Pinborough's novel of the same name, the bizarre series first kicks off when Louise (Simona Brown), a single mother to seven-year-old Adam (Tyler Howitt), meets David (Tom Bateman), a Scottish psychiatrist who has just moved to London for a new job.

As the night progresses, the pair hit it off and they later kiss outside the pub.

The next day, Louise heads to her part-time job at a psychiatrist's office. When she arrives, she discovers that her new boss is none other than – you guessed it – David.

As Louise hides from sight in the toilet, David and his wife Adele (Eve Hewson) are given a tour of his new office.

The next day, Louise and David finally cross paths again and they decide to forget about their kiss and pretend that nothing ever happened between them.

But as time goes on, David and Louise struggle to keep their attraction for each other at bay.

While Louise and David have an ongoing affair, things get even more complicated when Louise forms an unlikely secret friendship with David's wife, Adele.

Watch the trailer for Netflix's Behind Her Eyes below. Post continues after video.

What was the Behind Her Eyes ending?

Okay, final warning. It's time for spoilers.

As Louise and Adele become closer, Adele helps Louise with her night terrors by introducing her to a journal written by her friend from rehab, Rob (Robert Aramayo).

By using the journal, Louise learns how to use astral projection to escape her nightmares. (Astral projection is the process of separating your soul from your body while you're asleep so you can revisit places you've already been to. It's weird, we know.)

As the series continues, we slowly learn more about astral projection.

In fact, in the final episode, we discover Adele was Rob.

In a bizarre twist, it turns out that Adele and Rob actually swapped bodies while astral projecting. Once Rob was inside Adele's body, he killed his old body and Adele's soul, gaining him access to Adele's immense wealth as well as her fiance David.

Years later, when Louise becomes a threat to her marriage to David, Adele/Rob devises a plan to steal Louise's body.

After Adele "finds out" about David and Louise's affair, she takes an overdose and sets her house on fire, knowing Louise will astral project to get into the house to try to save her. That's when Adele astral projects into Louise's body, forcing Louise's soul into her body. Then she administers an overdose to Adele's body, supposedly killing Louise's soul. 

Adele and David in Behind Her Eyes. Image: Netflix.

Afterwards, the new Louise, who is actually Rob, marries David.

It's... a lot to take in.

While the twist came as a complete surprise to viewers, it seems there were some subtle clues about the ending along the way.

Here's just a few of them:

The pigeon is Louise.

At the end of the series, Louise, who is actually Rob, returns to her apartment.

While there, a lone pigeon is seen sitting on the table, leading some viewers to question whether Louise managed to astral project into the bird at the last minute.

"After Adele [Rob] flees the scene in Louise’s body, she enters the apartment and there’s a pigeon sitting on the counter. She coolly stares at it for a few moments until it flies out the balcony door. I believe Louise last-minute swapped bodies with the bird," one Reddit user suggested.

The pigeon is Adele.

While some believe the pigeon is Louise, others have suggested that Adele's soul could be in the bird.

As viewers have pointed out, the pigeon appears in multiple scenes throughout the series, including Louise and David's first night together.

"I think the pigeon is Adele but not Louise. Here is why, as mentioned previously a pigeon showed up earlier and there was a lot of emphasis on it sort of keeping an eye on what has been going on since Rob killed Adele (or thought he did)," one viewer claimed.

Honestly, anything seems possible in this series. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

Adele's secret drug use was a sign.

During the series, viewers saw Adele secretly injecting heroin. As one Reddit user pointed out, Rob was addicted to heroin before the pair swapped bodies, suggesting that Adele wasn't who she seemed.

"I guessed the ending when Adele turned down the heroin in the flashback, because then it didn’t make sense that she’d be hooked to heroin in the present but would make sense if Adele in the present was actually Rob," they wrote.

Adele's behaviour completely changed.

When comparing Adele in the present day and Adele in flashbacks, it's clear that her behaviour completely changed after the incident with Rob.

In flashbacks, Adele appeared carefree and bubbly. But in the present day, she was far more polished and put together.

Similarly, Adele cooks a lot of meals for David. As we saw in flashbacks, cooking was one of Rob's best skills.

In one scene, David even asks his wife: "When is the act going to end?"

We never saw any flashbacks without Rob.

Throughout the series, we saw a number of flashbacks to Adele's time in rehab as well as her time spent at her family home with David and Rob.

However, we never seen any flashbacks without Rob, or any flashbacks from Adele's life before she met him, subtly indicating that the flashbacks are linked to Rob's own memories.

Listen to Mamamia's daily entertainment podcast, The Spill, below. Post continues after podcast.

David gave a subtle clue to Louise.

During one of their first nights together, Louise asked David about what happened to the girl he saved in a fire. 

Interestingly, David doesn't tell her it was Adele that he saved.

"The bit where Louise asks David what happened to the girl that he saved from the fire and he said he wasn’t sure, it’s passed off as he’s keeping it from Louise that it was his wife he saved, but I’m thinking now it was alluding to that the woman he saved is a different person to the one whom his wife is now," one Reddit user suggested.

Adele scoped out Louise's apartment.

When Adele first visited Louise's apartment, she quietly examined each and every room behind Louise's back.

While her behaviour came across as strange, it later becomes clear that Adele was scoping out Louise's apartment so that she could astral project there and watch Louise's interactions with David.

Behind Her Eyes is available to watch on Netflix now.

For more on this topic:

Feature Image: Netflix.

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Top Comments

belindaseitis65 4 years ago
I really enjoyed the series - and the ending. I only found one plot hole... when Rob’s spirit took over Adele’s body, he wouldn’t have been addicted to heroin anymore, as she had never used and physically wouldn’t have felt the need to use it.  

kelloneill 4 years ago
I understand this story demands a fair amount of suspension of disbelief but I think the director should have insisted that the character's accents should have changed when the astral projected souls swapped bodies. Sure, it makes sense that Scottish sounding Rob would put on an English accent as to not blow his cover whilst being Adele and Louise but why would he have bothered that first time they swapped bodies? As soon as he 'awoke' in Adele's body he instantly lost his Scottish accent. And as Adele woke up in Rob's body beside the well, she was disoriented and unsure about the experience - surely, although using Rob's voice box,  she still would have retained her posh sounding English accent, no? Instead, whilst Rob is injecting his own body with heroin, Adele (trapped inside his body) is expressing her fear...in...a...scottish...accent. Felt like a mistake to me.