Triptych ending explained: How were the sisters separated?

The series is loosely inspired by the extraordinary real-life case of brothers Eddy Galland, David Kellman and Bobby Shafran, who were the subjects of 2018 documentary Three Identical Strangers which chronicled how they had been separated at birth as part of a scientific study.

Triptych takes a more sinister and fictional approach to the story, with Rebecca discovering a woman dead at a crime scene who looks exactly like her and shares her birthday.

With its multiple flashbacks, dream sequences and the fact that all three main characters are played by the same person, chances are you were left slightly bewildered when the credits for the eighth and final episode rolled.

From body swapping and unethical experiments to car crashes and Molotov cocktails, here's a look at what went down.

What happened at the end of Triptych?

Cop Rebecca (Who Killed Sara?’s Maite Perroni) spent much of the series trying to determine why she and her siblings were separated at birth. Although she dismissed the outlandish theory presented by stripper Tamara (also Perroni) – they were cloned from a Nazi – the truth was equally shocking.

Several decades previously, a prominent doctor abandoned his highly unethical experiments on twins and triplets after being exposed by the press. His assistant Batiz (Nuria Bages), however, took it upon herself to continue the project – a nature versus nurture study in which three identical twins are each placed with a different socio-economic family and subsequently monitored throughout their lives.

CEO Aleida (again, the impressively versatile Perroni) was adopted by the privileged Bernardo, the doctor who hired Batiz as his hospital's psychiatric research unit, and his wife. A middle-class couple who couldn't have children of their own illegally adopted Rebecca, while Tamara was placed in the care of a working-class single mother.
Batiz wasn't just a passive observer though.

Not only did she kill Bernardo once he discovered he'd become an unwitting participant in her project, she also ruthlessly murdered Rebecca's father and Tamara's mother soon after to make sure all three sisters experienced the same trials and tribulations. Batiz even served as Aleida's counsellor, convincing her she had multiple personality disorder after she started to experience visions from her sisters' lives.

Having already noted the coincidences in their lives, Rebecca and Tamara have their suspicions confirmed while trapped in Batiz's underground lair. And the evil mastermind also makes another big confession: she is their biological mother!

What happened to the sisters in Triptych?

In Triptych's dramatic opening scene, a clearly troubled Aleida went on a gun-toting rampage at Batiz's workplace in a bid to get revenge on her counsellor. After taking her hostage on the rooftop, she was shot by a police sniper and a TV news bulletin reported the shot was fatal. But was it?

In another of the finale's major reveals, we learned Aleida actually survived her injuries. Her body was swapped with a lookalike criminal Jane Doe for the funeral, with Batiz keeping her confined ever since.

Luckily, thanks to some form of telepathic bond, Aleida realised her sisters were in trouble. Just before Batiz could move on to the ominous-sounding next stage of her research, Aleida summoned up the strength to break free from her quarters and turned the power off, causing mass confusion in the process.

Rebecca, a recovering alcoholic, then used the drinks Batiz callously tried to ply her with to create several Molotov cocktails and alongside Tamara, managed to scramble to another part of the hideaway house.

There, they found Batiz cradling a weak Aleida and, following a brief Mexican standoff, all three siblings were shown leaving the compound in Batiz's car. In the closing shot, we saw they'd essentially left their maker for dead by locking her in the basement with no means of escape.

Who else was in on it?

Despite looking incredibly guilty every time he appeared on screen – and trying to pass Tamara off as Aleida for shady business purposes – the latter's husband Eugenio (Flavio Medina) had nothing to do with the conspiracy. In fact, he nearly lost his life for his ignorance after willingly getting in the car with the deceitful cop Humberto (David Chocarro) to find the missing Rebecca and Tamara.

Yes Humberto, the married man whose lengthy bedroom scenes with Rebecca often made Triptych resemble soft porn, wasn't just an adulterer. He was also one of Batiz's minions employed to watch over the woman he repeatedly gets naked with. While Humberto managed to trick his unassuming lover and Tamara into Batiz's den, he had no such luck with Eugenio who, after realising he was being abducted, tried to stop the car in a fight.

Humberto died in the spectacular crash that followed, but Eugenio managed to walk away. After a near-miss with the girls' getaway car, he discovered Aleida was alive and the pair embraced.

Is Triptych based on a true story?

Well, kinda. The show is inspired by the aforementioned Three Identical Strangers (it even references its story several times), a documentary about three separated brothers who discover each other by chance and learn that they were part of an experiment similar to the one conducted by Batiz.

Creator Leticia López Margalli simply flipped the gender and threw a whole load of car chases, explosions and sex scenes into the mix.

All eight episodes of Triptych are now available to stream on Netflix – check out our Drama hub for all the latest news. Sign up for Netflix from £4.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream.

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