Lady in the Lake ending explained: What happened to Maddie and Cleo?

We can't quite talk about the final episode without referencing the penultimate sixth one, which ended on quite the cliffhanger as Maddie (Natalie Portman) was visited in hospital by a supposed nurse.

Actually, she turned out to be none other than Cleo (Moses Ingram). Was it a hallucination like she'd been having throughout the episode? Or is Cleo actually alive?

Well, the finale seeks to answer all those burning questions and more as the series unpicks what really happened to Cleo, who was assumed missing and then was later found dead.

Read on for a full breakdown of the finale of Apple TV+'s Lady in the Lake.

Lady in the Lake ending explained: What happened to Cleo?

So, rather than pick right back up from that hazy hospital room where Natalie was visited by Cleo, the finale starts off with a flashback to Cleo's younger years as she took to the clubs with best friend Dora (Jennifer Mogbock).

Despite their age, the pair manage to get into the Pharoah club and enjoy much of the night. That is, until they're accosted by security, who bring the duo into a back room with Shell (Wood Harris).

Annoyed at how many people have been snuck into his club and not paid an entry fee, Cleo quickly uses her mental maths to calculate just how many girls the colleagues have been letting in for free.

Impressed by her skills, Shell offers Cleo her father's old job, and even says she can help him with his books. In return, he'll put her and Dora on the stage.

Being a man of his word, he allows Dora to perform that very night, and it's in the heartfelt montage of Dora's singing that we then flash forward to her dead body lying on her bed.

Reggie (Josiah Cross) informs Cleo that "she's gone", but says that "if you still breathing tomorrow morning, I'll be gone too". He wants Cleo to shoot him, but she refuses, and she admits that she doesn't want to run away from Shell like her father had to.

So instead, Cleo and Reggie carry out a plan to swap identities with Dora and make it seem as though Cleo has died.

Dressing Dora up in her clothes and jewellery, Cleo and Reggie carry out the plan so that Cleo can live without fear of being chased by Shell. Later in the hospital, Cleo explains to Maddie that she has to stop trying to write about her because it's making her life difficult.

Cleo explains that Dora had plans to move town but died on Christmas Eve of a drug overdose. Reggie found Dora's body when he had been sent by Shell to kill Cleo and, of course, he helped her carry out their eventual plan.

Cleo knows that Maddie doesn't want to give up the story about her, but Cleo says if she does, Maddie can instead expose Shell for being the man who ordered the assassination of Myrtle Summer. They agree to meet by the lake that Friday night and Cleo leaves Maddie in her hospital room.

In the basement where she's hiding out with Reggie, Cleo undergoes quite the makeover as she dresses up in a men's suit. She tells Reggie that she's going to turn herself in so that Slappy doesn't go down for her murder and tearfully continues to get ready for whatever she's about to do.

Elsewhere, we see that Cleo's son Teddy has shown up at the Gordian hotel looking for Shell. But in the same hotel, Cleo and Reggie arrive with Reggie, telling the hotel worker that the mystery man by his side is actually the new bookkeeper.

Reggie beats up the hotel worker, and that allows Cleo to go through into the money-counting room, where she sees Vernon (Teren Carter) and reveals that it's actually her.

Vernon lets her in, and in the office, Cleo starts burning the books and hands Vernon a large chunk of cash for his retirement.

Cleo then sets off the fire alarm, which forces everyone to vacate the building. But on their way out, Reggie tells Cleo to take his car and that he's going to stay to ensure people think that Cleo is actually dead.

At the bar, Reggie greets Shell with a gun in his hand and Shell tells Reggie he thinks he saw a ghost, referring to Cleo being alive.

Reggie tells him that Dora went to Paris and that Cleo was the lady in the lake. He then instructs Shell to pick up the phone and call the police, so Shell can confess to orchestrating Myrtle Summer's assassination and Reggie can turn himself in as Cleo's murderer.

We then see Cleo driving away from the hotel, which is engulfed by flames, and she picks up Teddy on the way, with the pair promising to not keep secrets any longer.

What happened to Maddie?

After being discharged from hospital, Maddie goes to visit Ferdie (Y'lan Noel) at the diner and tells him about her plans to speak to Slappy (Byron Bowers) in prison.

Ferdie tells her that he's been forced to resign after his boss found out about their affair, and Maddie says she can fix it. But Ferdie stops her in her tracks as she'll be imprisoned for cohabitating with him.

Ferdie still wants to be with Maddie and says they can move to Virginia, especially since there's been a landmark case of an interracial relationship (Loving v Virginia), and therefore they could live together legally.

But Maddie tells him she can't as she's still in the middle of this big case against Shell. Even so, Ferdie gives her his address in case she does want to see him in the future.

Back at work, Maddie informs Bob (Pruitt Taylor Vince) that she wants to continue investigating Cleo, and that she's going to talk to Slappy in prison.

Once there, Maddie tells Slappy that Cleo is actually alive. Although Maddie feels as though Slappy deserves justice - as he's serving time for Cleo's murder - Slappy knows that Cleo's hiding out for the sake of their sons and accepts that.

After the fire at the hotel and the arrests of Reggie and Shell, Maddie is told off by her boss for not being one of the first to break the story. But she sees her son Seth (Noah Jupe) tearing up her notes in the bathroom. He explains that he knows she thinks every story is her story, meaning that he doesn't want Milton (Brett Gelman) to find out that he's not actually his father.

Although Maddie admits she has never told anyone any different, Seth thinks that she wouldn't mind tearing apart his life for a story.

It's later time for Maddie and Cleo's meeting at the lake, where Cleo hands Maddie a pile of evidence proving Shell's tax evasions, pay-offs to politicians and the police, as well as her own involvement in Myrtle Summer's attempted assassination.

Maddie says that publishing it all will back up Reggie's confession, and even though Cleo is alive and well, Cleo admits that Reggie did choose for this to happen and that he sees it as atonement for the crimes he did commit.

After their meeting, we see that Maddie is moving out of Baltimore and pays one last visit to Ferdie, who takes her visit to mean that she wants to be together. Actually, she admits she doesn't want to be anyone's wife another time round, but says that Ferdie can come and spend the night with her sometime, a sentiment that doesn't land well with Ferdie at all.

Elsewhere, we see that Cleo has also moved out of Baltimore, but more further afield. After a montage of real-life clips of the Ku Klux Clan swarming America and Martin Luther King Jr's assassination news, we see that Cleo has actually moved to Paris under the name of Dora Carter, and works as a singer in a luxury club. Slappy, who is now free from prison, goes to see her perform in person.

We then flash forward to 1976, where Maddie is doing a talk about her new book, Lady in the Lake, and she's now an award-winning writer. The final shot is of Maddie remembering the Christmas parade from her childhood, but this time with Cleo as the main performer, who sings a cover of Nina Simone's Feeling Good.

Lady in the Lake is available to stream on Apple TV+. Sign up to Apple TV+ now.

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