The finale of Apple TV’s The Last Thing He Told Me dropped today, and it brings a somewhat satisfying end to a mystery that’s kept the stepmother-stepdaughter duo of Hannah and Bailey on their toes for a while. The penultimate episode saw Hannah returning to Charles Smith’s bar and asking to be taken to his father, Nicholas Bell, who is Bailey’s grandfather. What happens when Hannah goes to Nicholas, and what does she want to tell the dangerous man? So, without further ado, let’s go through the detailed recap of the season finale of The Last Thing He Told Me.
Spoilers Ahead
Visiting Nicholas
How far does a stepmother really go to protect the daughter of the man who has lied about his entire life and disappeared off the face of the earth completely? That’s the question Hannah Hall was asking herself throughout the last few episodes of “The Last Thing He Told Me” as she struggled to find an answer to the mystery her husband Owen had left behind. Hannah convinces Charlie to take her to his father, Nicholas Bell, the mob lawyer for the Campano family, and they arrive at a lake house. Teeming with security and exuding exuberance, this lake house is where Hannah has to convince Nicholas Bell of something crucial. Nicholas is aware of every detail about Hannah’s life, and he asks her to stay, sending his son Charlie away. There’s no love lost between Nicholas and Ethan—Owen’s real name—and the lawyer tells Habbah how Ethan ripped Nicholas’s granddaughter from her family after burning bridges. In the heat of the moment, Nicholas ends up cutting his hand on glass and refuses to accept any help from Hannah to prove that he’s self-sufficient.
The Call From A Private Number
At the US Marshal’s Office, Bailey looks around but doesn’t find Hannah, and upon breaking the bathroom door down, Grady and the rest realize she’s gone. While speaking to Jules about her stepmother going missing, Bailey gets a call from a private number, and it’s none other than Owen: her father has called her. Grady gets a call from Charlie, who informs him of Hannah’s location at Lake Travis and that she needs to be rescued. At the lake house, Hannah proposes a solution: Nicholas can have a relationship with his granddaughter, one where he’s a part of her life, instead of having her become a part of WITSEC and be gone again. After much deliberation, Nicholas agrees that he’d like a situation where he could be involved in the life of Kristin, Bailey’s real name. However, as part of this agreement, Nicholas can’t and won’t protect Ethan from the Campano family that’s hunting him for sending them to jail all those years ago. Nicholas clarifies that Ethan shall never be able to see his daughter again, and Hannah says that since her husband had put Hannah under her care, she knows exactly what Owen had wanted for Bailey—that is, to protect her. What better way, then, than to be protected by mob lawyer Nicholas Bell and also have a healthy relationship with her uncle, aunt, and cousins?
The Decision
The conversation is cut short because SWAT and the US Marshals arrive to take Hannah back. In the car, Grady repeatedly insists that it’s a bad idea to let Nicholas into Bailey’s life and that Hannah has no idea how dangerous the lawyer can be. She retorts that she knows exactly what Owen wanted Hannah to do if such a situation ever arose and clarifies that this is the right choice for Bailey. She adds that Hannah could fathom her husband’s thoughts even before he gave agency to them, just like she knew he’d personally made their wedding rings out of wood. When Grady brings Hannah back to the Marshal’s Office, the teenager informs them that Owen has called and apologized for the mess he got his family into. He then said that he’d not be able to call or return for a very long time. Grady interjects and gets on Bailey’s face, adamant to let him protect them. Taken aback, Bailey says that Owen wanted her to listen to Hannah and requests that she take the teen back home to Sausalito, despite Grady’s repeated protests. As their flight takes off for San Francisco, Hannah tells Bailey that Nicholas will be coming to visit them with Charlie, Andrea, and Bailey’s cousins. Contrary to what she thinks, they want to begin small by sharing a few meals together and go from there.
Is Owen Alive?
Five years later, Hannah has her own gallery where her creations are put on display, and she directs someone gleefully to the location as a man in a cap walks in from the door behind her. The first thing she notices about the man is the ring—the same wooden ring that Owen had made for them—and the man looks at her, making her drop the papers she was holding. It’s Owen, with a long salt-and-pepper beard, and he briefly touches her hand and whispers that her could-have-been (or old) boyfriends are still in love with her, before walking out. As Hannah breathes heavily following the sudden encounter, Bailey walks in, now a young adult, and addresses her as “Mom,” making Hannah’s face light up.
Owen was alive, and he remained loyal to his wife even after having to disappear from his family. He visited her suddenly and left in less than a minute, just enough time to let her look at his face and know that he wants her to move on with her life. The could-have-been boys was a phrase Owen used to describe Hannah’s previous boyfriends. He told her to be with someone who loves her, so that she can experience love once more. The beard was a lot longer, but it was the same Owen underneath. Also, Bailey finally accepted Hannah as her mother, and she became a healthy adult who could spend her later teens with a loving family and a mother who really loved her. It looks like Owen did plan it thoroughly until the end.
