The most honest true crime on Netflix ends without an answer — because real life didn't either

Netflix doesn’t lack for terrific true crime shows, with Mindhunter being maybe the best such show on any streaming service. In 2022, Netflix dropped all seven episodes of The Watcher, which quickly blew up.

But to this day, people are still frustrated over the ending to the show, or rather, the lack of an ending. But the way the show ends is actually true to life, at least in the broad strokes.

What is The Watcher about?

Everyone’s a suspect

Credit: Netflix

The Watcher follows a couple named Dean and Nora Brannock (Bobby Cannavale and Naomi Watts) as they buy their dream house in the affluent New York City suburb of Westfield, New Jersey. They move in with their two kids, 16-year-old Ellie (Isabel Gravitt) and her younger brother Carter (Luke David Blumm), and get ready to start living the American dream.

But they can’t, because everything is too weird. Their nosy neighbors Mitch (Richard Kind) and Mo (Margo Martindale) have no compunction about taking arugula straight from their garden. Another neighbor, Pearl (Mia Farrow), is the president of the local preservation society and seems to take personal offense at their choices of decor. Worst of all, they start getting cryptic letters from someone known only as “the Watcher.”

The letters include unsettlingly specific details about the Brannock family, and Dean becomes obsessed with finding out who’s sending them. This seems like the setup for a mystery drama where everybody’s a suspect; Netflix has a few of those already. But The Watcher takes a different route, for better or worse.

How does The Watcher end, and why is it a problem?

Beware SPOILERS below

To make a long story short, The Watcher ends without us ever finding out who is sending the letters, although there are a couple of red herrings along the way. For a minute, it seems like Theodora Birch, a private investigator the Brannocks hire to look into the matter (Noma Dumezweni, could be the culprit, but the ending throws hot water on that theory. Real estate agent Karen (Jennifer Coolidge), eager for another commission, pushes the Brannocks to sell, suggesting she could be behind it all. But again, the ending casts doubt on that theory.

We never find out who’s sending the letters, and that’s the point. The Watcher is based on a real-life couple named Derek and Maria Broaddus who actually did buy a house only to receive cryptic, vaguely threatening letters from someone who appeared to know way too much about them and their family. They never did find out who sent those letters, and neither do the Brannocks.

The Watcher isn’t a show about finding answers; it’s more about the toll that being observed takes on the observed. Dean, in particular, becomes fixated on the mystery, to the point where he loses his job. Every time Dean and Nora follow a promising lead, they end up in a dead end. The mystery is a hole with no bottom, and the show seems to suggest that the best option is to just walk away, whether or not the Brannocks actually take that advice.

Literally, it’s completely insane

That said, we may be giving The Watcher a bit too much credit when it comes to the message. The show was created by Ian Brennan and Ryan Murphy, and if you’re at all familiar with Murphy’s work, you may know that he often prioritizes drama above realism or accuracy. The Watcher is a fun binge, but some of the plot twists are so outlandish that you wonder if you’re supposed to find them funny. For instance, at one point, the Brannocks start looking into the possibility that there is a baby-eating, blood-drinking cult in the neighborhood.

It should go without saying that most of this is made up for TV. There are some elements that are pulled from real life; for instance, Mitch and Mo position deck chairs on their lawn so they’re looking directly at the Brannocks’ house, something that neighbors actually did in the real-life version of the story. But in reality, Derek and Maria Broaddus never even moved into the house they bought, much less stayed there long enough to find a secret network of tunnels underneath it.

Everything in The Watcher is a little heightened, a little absurd, a little over-the-top. It makes for a weird watching experience, but it also might capture something of what it feels like to move about a world where there are cameras everywhere, where people willingly document their lives for public consumption, and where everyone can observe everyone else if they just know where to look. There’s something honest about that, even if the actual events of The Watcher can get a bit preposterous.

Netflix’s best sci-fi show is ending, and nobody seems ready for it

After lying dormant for years, 3 Body Problem is ready to go out with a bang.

Keeping watching

The Watcher was a big hit for Netflix when it debuted, so it was only natural that the streamer would order a second season. However, it’s been four years and we’ve heard little about Season 2, which sounds like it’s stalled.

Maybe a second season would answer some of the questions fans have about the Season 1 finale, but that might undercut the point of the first season. Until this situation resolves itself, there are always other, less stressful shows to stream.