There are twists and turns galore in Netflix’s new thriller, Pieces of Her.

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Based on Karin Slaughter's novel of the same name, the eight-parter follows Laura (Toni Colette), a speech therapist living in a sleepy American town – which was actually filmed in Australia – whose dark past begins to resurface after she prevents a mass shooting.

Bella Heathcote, who plays Laura’s daughter Andy, recently teased the tense plot during an interview with Collider.

"Those reveals, they’re relentless," she said. "Every moment, there’s some massive reveal, some massive betrayal, or some massive truth that she unfolds. Ultimately, the truth sets everyone free. There’s catharsis in that.”

With a potential Pieces of Her season 2 on the horizon, it's time to unpack the various twists and turns we're treated to in the final episodes of season 1 and what they could mean for the characters going forward.

Read on for everything you need to know about the ending of Pieces of Her, including what Andy's mysterious recurring dream means – we've got you covered. But be warned: major plot spoilers follow.

Pieces of Her ending explained

Pieces of Her Netflix Laura
Toni Collette in Pieces of Her (Netflix)

In the last episode of Netflix's Pieces of Her, the show ties up a number of loose ends regarding the shooting of Martin Queller (Terry O'Quinn), what happened to Charlie (Gil Birmingham) and what exactly cult leader and Andy's father Nick (Joe Dempsie) wanted from Laura/Jane (Toni Collette/Jessica Barden) after all these years.

Episode eight begins with Jane receiving a phone call with Nick, asking him to leave her alone and in return she'll "give him what he wants" and agree to never testify. While they agree to meet, Nick then sends Jane a picture of Andy (Bella Heathcote) asleep in his house with the message: "You should take better care of your daughter." She then drives off to find her.

Meanwhile at the house, Nick explains that he found Andy after she'd gotten into a car accident (but refrains from mentioning that he was the one who caused it) and that Charlie was taken to hospital. Andy berates Nick for beating up her mother before she was born and he says that he didn't know she was pregnant at the time.

Jane arrives and hands over a briefcase with the money in it and he starts looking for something in particular. We learn that Nick was interested in an audio tape that came along with the money, which recorded a conversation between Nick and Jasper (David Wenham/Calum Worthy) where they organise the stunt at the Oslo conference in the hopes that Martin has to resign and Jasper takes over as CEO. He plans to use the audio tape as leverage against Jasper, who is currently running to be Vice President of the United States, and blackmail his way to a pardon.

Nick then asks Jane what happened at the conference in Oslo, adding that he didn't give Grace – Martin's assassin and the wife of a man driven mad by Queller medication – the gun. (We learned in an earlier episode that she was originally meant to throw a dye pack at Martin, which would explode and cover him in red).

Pieces of Her Netflix
Bella Heathcote and Toni Collette in Pieces of Her (Netflix)

As Andy slowly realises that Nick was responsible for the car accident she got into, she swipes a lantern off of the table and tries to grab Nick's gun, however he shoots her in the arm and a fire begins to engulf the cabin they are currently in. While Nick tries to grab the tape, Jane tackles him and his gun slides underneath a cabinet. Jane manages to retrieve it before carrying Andy out of the fire and chasing down Nick with a plan to kill him. Just before she shoots him, Andy stops her and the police arrive.

At the police station, Andy is sat talking to Gordon (Omari Hardwick) and confirms that Charlie is dead. Meanwhile, Jane goes to give her testimony against Nick, who is being interrogated by officers. Jasper turns up and Jane tells him that the tape burned in the fire but asks him to find out what Nick is saying in his interview.

Andy returns home and places flowers by the diner where Betsy and Shelly were killed in the mass diner shooting in episode one, before meeting up with Mike (Jacob Scipio), who is fine after being injected with a respiratory paralytic. He says that he's travelling up to Washington DC to speak to Internal Affairs about his conduct in Andy's case, but says that he'd like to see her when he passes back through.

Back at home, Jane clears out her closet and admits that when she was frustrated, she would go to the beach and think, 'what would Laura do?'. Andy says that she's struggling to come to terms with knowing the truth around her life and is glad that she knows who her father is. Jane lashes out and says that she wishes Andy had never met him, while Andy says that she can tell Jane's angry for stopping her from killing him in the woods, and that she needs to start living her own life.

Later in the day, Jane visits a piano shop and becoming emotional after playing again for the first time in decades, while Andy returns to art, sketching her mother with her two brothers from a picture of them together. Whilst doing so, she recognises the bag that her mother is holding and begins watching back the tapes from the Oslo assassination – realising that Grace and Jane had switched bags before Grace went on stage.

In a flashback, we learn that Jane walked up to Grace at the conference before the debate and told her that her father was a controlling man who always got what he wanted and had tried to abort her baby by secretly drugging her. She said that she wanted to stop her father to allow her daughter to live whilst switching the handbags. While Grace's handbag had the dye pack in, it was Jane's handbag that had a gun in it and Grace used it to kill Martin Queller.

Andy realises whilst on the phone to Mike, who said that security had checked Grace's bag when she walked in, while Jane had entered with her father and their bags hadn't been checked. We then see that Jasper Queller's team is still listening in on Andy's conversations.

Soon afterwards, Jasper calls Jane and tells her that there will be an announcement that he'll be the running mate for a presidential candidate and that he did listen into Nick's interview with the police. He says that he talked a lot about her, Oslo and "what [she] did", adding: "I've never understood you Jane, but we're family. I can keep it quiet." When she asks what he wants, he replies: "I'll be in touch."

The next morning, Andy wakes to find her mother has gone and while initially believing she's left, she finds her down at the beach and the two walk along the shore together.

What was the meaning behind Andy's recurring dream?

Pieces of Her Andy Mike

Throughout the series, Andy has a recurring dream where she's hiding in a wooden crate and it's snowing outside while she can hear voices calling for her.

In the penultimate episode, we learn that Andy had spent the first few years of her life living with friends of her mother's – Eli and Clara – while Jane spent time in prison.

When the Army of the Changing World – led by Jane's boyfriend Nick – kidnapped Professor Maplecroft and held her for ransom after disguising Grace Juno (the widow of a man driven by Queller medication to kill his own children) as the academic so she could get access to a panel involving Martin Queller, an altercation ultimately led to Nick slitting the professor's throat before the police arrived. While they managed to flee the scene, Jane's brother Andrew was shot and Nick refused to take him to hospital as it would alert the police to their whereabouts.

When Jane tried to take him himself, Nick attacked her. Later in the evening, Jane knocked Nick out with the end of a gun and with Clara and Eli's help, took her brother to hospital, where he ultimately died. She then surrendered to police and said she would testify against Nick, giving her a reduced sentence.

While Jane served her sentence in prison, Andy was raised by Eli and Clara and would often play in the woods near their home. It's there that she would hide in a den made of sticks and wood while Clara would try to find her – and this is what she remembers in her recurring dream.

Pieces of Her is streaming on Netflix now. Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide to see what's on tonight.

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Authors

Lauren Morris
Lauren MorrisEntertainment and Factual Writer
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