Sunny ending explained: Did [SPOILER] really die?

Together, they investigate the truth behind the mysterious plane crash that took Masa (Hidetoshi Nishijima) and her son Zen (Fares Belkheir), encountering yakuza, secret affairs and even a bizarrely brilliant game show along the way.

But with the finale now upon us, what's the truth behind Sunny's big tragedy? Did Masa really die on that fateful day or did he actually make it out alive along with Zen? And how does Sunny figure into Himé's (You) evil plans? While we're at it, why is Mixxy (annie the clumsy) so intent on helping Suzie? And why is Masa's mother, Noriko Sakamoto (Judy Ongg), such an absolute badass?

The questions to all of this and more await in what we hope is just a season finale and not a series finale, because we're not ready for the sun to go down on Sunny just yet.

Sunny ending explained: Did Masa really die?

Masa's narration pulls us into the final episode with talk of Setsuban, a Japanese festival where people throw soybeans at oni, "The evil demons who would destroy us, rob us of our dreams, our family".

His wife has had to face plenty of demons since Masa's apparent death, including personal ones and a real physical threat to her safety, too. But Masa hints that there's more to come as he recites an old Japanese expression, "Oni ni Kanabou," which means that "If you give a demon a metal club, it becomes stronger, invincible". And so the demons must be stopped before they find that club, aka the "killer" code Sunny contains within her circuitry..

An ominous trail of blood trickles along the gravel floor then, hinting that death is on its way. But who will snuff it? Did someone get hit too hard in the head by a soybean?

After the gorgeous, '60s-style credits roll one last time (for now), we cut back to where the eighth episode ended before the game show cutaway, with Suzie and Zen reunited. The pair hug for the first time in months after Suzie had long believed her son to be dead. It's lovely. Sunny, meanwhile, stands over the body of the man she's just killed to protect Suzie, something no bot should be capable of doing. Also lovely in its own way.

Himé and a henchman interrupt the reunion then, which is just rude. But before the gang are taken to a holding call at gunpoint, Suzie asks Himé where her husband is. Zen is alive, so it stands to reason that Masa might be too. But Himé takes great delight in telling Suzie that she's "sorry" for her loss, confirming that Masa did die for real. The smirk she pulls at that moment is chilling and borderline evil, quite frankly, but her blonde bob continues to serve nonetheless.

With Sunny now in their grasp, Himé and her tech guy work to retrieve the secret component they need from her programming. A complete purge had been in progress, but said purge began by deleting the oldest files first, and the mystery "killer" code they need to unlock is brand new, a recent addition to Sunny's so-called "mind".

Down in their makeshift prison, Yuki Tanaka (Jun Kunimura), Masa's former co-worker, explains to Suzie, Zen and Mixxy that bots shouldn't be able to kill. However, it's possible to push AI outside of its programming in gradual increments if you can trick it into believing one thing is another. For example, if the broom Mixxy and Zen play with is actually a gun.

Meanwhile, Himé and her tech goon are still struggling to extract the code they need from Sunny. Masa deliberately messed with it before he died, so the only option left is to pull it manually, but then the system fries when they realise Masa also sabotaged the ports they need. Himé gets impatient, so she pulls out a knife and threatens to cut the poor tech guy's tongue off if he doesn't hurry up. Cruel, yes. But still serving with that bob? Undoubtedly.

Back in their cell, the gang plan how to escape, which doesn't go well until they realise Zen still has Suzie's phone device. Noriko calls from prison then and finds out that her grandson Zen is alive (but also that her son Masa is still dead). As if that wasn't overwhelming enough, she then hears a familiar laugh because it turns out the henchman keeping the gang locked up is actually on a call to his mother in the same prison. In fact, this mother is just a few short metres away from Noriko.

Is this wildly improbable in every possible way, like the kind of absurd scenario only a terrible AI writer could come up with? Sure, but what happens next more than makes up for that when Noriko tears the oxygen tank away from the goon's mum and threatens to kill her if he doesn't release Suzie's group at once.

"You have my family? Now I have yours."

When the plan works and everyone's released, Noriko warns her fellow prisoner that if she breathes one word about this, "I’ll make sure everyone knows you cheat at shogi".

Quick side note, Judy Ongg is an absolute icon in Japan, working across film, music, art and literature since the early '60s. But even if you didn't know any of that, her role as Noriko throughout Sunny and this scene in particular would grant Ongg instant legend status, regardless.

Mixxy holds the guard at gunpoint while Suzie, Zen and Yuki wear demon masks and escape above ground to where the Setsuban festival glimpsed at the start of the episode has begun.

Himé meets the mob boss above her for a drink at the same festival, but it's not a friendly chat. Talk of needing a stronger leader is punctuated by a bottle smashing, a bottle she deliberately dropped it seems, because then she picks up a shard of glass that she may or may not use to stab the guy. We wouldn't put it past her.

While that's going on, Himé's tech guy syncs Sunny up to another bot with a plan to upload her "killer" code, so they can use it to make weapons out of the bots. But knowing that Sunny will protect her if a special keyword is used, Suzie runs up to the festival stage and starts telling everyone to "suck a dick". It's her favourite catchphrase, and Masa knew that, which is why he programmed Sunny's defence mechanism to kick in upon hearing those three charming words.

This ain't your mama's Setsuban.

With everyone distracted by the "loud inebriated American woman" on stage, Himé suddenly stabs her boss, creating that blood trickle we saw before the credits began at the start of the episode.

That doesn't bode well, but who cares right? Sunny is now free and the nefarious plan involving her code has been stopped. Yuki knows a guy in Tokyo who can help ensure that the code won't be replicated, but they need to get Sunny there first. Mixxy offers to drive the bot up to Japan's capital while Suzie and Zen go into hiding. But before they all part ways, the besties share a touching exchange where Suzie lovingly calls Sunny a "dumbass", because that's their love language now.

When they say goodbye, Suzie blows Sunny a kiss with the signature two-handed wave Masa once gave her before taking that fateful flight. Knowing this, Sunny lovingly shares a middle finger back and then tears well up in her eyes. Yes, Sunny's eyes well up, even though she has no tear ducts to speak of, which in turn speaks to the humanity she brings to Suzie's life and the show as a whole.

Masa's narration returns to cap the episode off, bringing back talk of the demons Suzie must still face, hinting that there's more trauma to come:

"I don’t know if the oni will win. I don’t know if they’ll get the metal club. Worse, I don’t know what you’ll think of me, but I pray you’ll understand, I did this for you. I pray it will have all been worth it. And then again, if you’re reading this, maybe it’s not too late. Maybe there is hope. Maybe I’ll get a chance to tell you how much I love you."

Let's get the obvious stuff out of the way first. Now that Himé has taken over the gang as leader, there's still plenty of scope for "the oni" to "get the metal club" they need in a potential second season. The threat is not over, not by any means...

Yet, what's even more intriguing is the way Masa suggests that there's still hope they can be reunited. Yes, these words come from a letter that he seemingly wrote before the plane crash, but the writers wouldn't include that if they weren't keen to hint at his survival. Zen turned out to be alive, so we suspect the same will be true of Masa in season 2 (assuming that Apple renews Sunny for a second season, of course).

But honestly, it would be a crime if Sunny isn't renewed, given how the finale ends with Mixxy betraying everyone. Because just as Sunny suspected a few episodes back, it turns out Mixxy was working for Himé's gang all along, which we discover when she and the tech guy meet in the van they're driving to Tokyo with Sunny completely unaware in the back.

"You did so well," the guy says to Mixxy. "They’re all going to be so proud of you."

But Mixxy doesn't look proud. In fact, she's holding back tears as Queen's The Great Pretender starts playing in the background. Mixxy is a great pretender for tricking Suzie, Sunny, and us alike, but that's not all. She's also pretending in the van now too, unsure of where her allegiance might shift moving forward.

And that's why we need a second season, to see what will become of Sunny, to see what Mixxy decides, to see if Masa really is alive, and most importantly of all, to pit Noriko and Himé in the mother-off to end all mother-offs.

Sunny is available to stream now on Apple TV+.

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