The Woman in the House ending: Who is the real killer?

The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window is one of Netflix‘s latest originals, starring Kristen Bell in the lead role as a troubled widow who finds solace in drinking wine and watching her neighbors from the comfort of her living room.

The series is a mix between murder-mystery and parody of the psychological thriller genre, specifically titles like The Girl on the Train and The Woman in the Window, but it still has several twists of its own throughout its short eight-episode debut season. Let’s recap what happened at the end.

We will be delving into heavy spoiler territory so if you haven’t finished watching The Woman in the House season 1, turn back now.

The Woman in the House ending: Who is Lisa and what happened to her?

Lisa (Shelley Hennig) is revealed to have been a con artist planning to swindle Neil out of his money with the assistance of her secret boyfriend/partner Rex, a male stripper. Her real name is Chastity she and Rex met at the strip club where she worked as a bartender. Someone did actually murder her and the mystery of the last few episodes is trying to figure out who.

The Woman in the House ending: Who murdered Lisa?

First, the cops arrest Rex but then it’s revealed he has an airtight alibi and they find one of Anna’s palette knives near Chastity’s body with Anna’s fingerprints on it so she’s arrested. Anna starts to think she might have killed Chastity after all because she’s always drunk and has a memory of stabbing something one night until she explores her attic and notices a painting she did of Lisa that she viciously stabbed.

While in the attic, Anna finds out that Buell has secretly been living up there, hence all the noises we’ve been hearing creaking overhead since the beginning. Douglas (Michael Ealy) reveals that Buell was actually his first patient and the first one he rehabbed because he murdered his entire family with a claw hammer! He kept that from Anna since she probably wouldn’t have let him work for them as a handyman if she knew, uh yeah.

Looking outside her window, Anna sees Buell walking to Neil’s house with a hammer in his hand and immediately follows him, forcing herself to overcome her fear of storms as it starts to rain. But once inside, Anna finds Buell bleeding out on the floor. He didn’t come over to kill them, just to bring them some mail that was accidentally sent to the wrong place.

At that point, Anna thinks it was actually Neil all along but twist, it’s Emma! She’s an evil 9-year-old who could give Damien a run for his money. Emma has been killing people all along, even her mom and her former teacher. She also slits her dad’s throat because she hates his ventriloquism act and admits to killing Chastity because she wouldn’t buy her chocolate bars. Then she intentionally stole one of Anna’s knives to frame her for Chastity’s murder. Her plan is to kill Anna next and claim Anna did it all and she killed her in self-defense.

Luckily for Anna, Douglas arrives in time to save her just as Anna kills Emma with a piece of her casserole dish. And Douglas’s arrival is enough to clear Anna’s name since he serves as a witness to the whole thing. Happily ever after?

The Woman in the House ending: What happens in the end?

She’s admitted to the hospital where she gets several apologies, first from the detective, then from Douglas, who is actually her therapist and admits he put her on an intense psychotropic drug when she probably could have just been on Zoloft. Even Carol comes by to apologize.

From there, Anna starts to get her life back on track and it looks like she and Douglas are headed for a reconciliation. Anna also lets Buell permanently move into her attic and even fixes up the space for him so he can do his taxidermy up there.

Then we skip ahead one year later and Douglas and Anna are happily together again, they even have a newborn baby. Anna is in New York to visit her best friend Sloane, who finally accepted an offer to work at a new art gallery there. On the plane ride, Anna is back to her old habits except now she’s switched from wine to vodka and is more frequently popping pills. She settles into her new book until her seatmate arrives, guess who? Yes, we get a fun surprise cameo from Glenn Close!

Anna suddenly blacks out and heads to the bathroom, only to find Glenn Close’s dead body stuffed into the tiny bathroom. She rushes back to get her flight attendant but when they return, she’s gone and there is no trace of her. Anna tries to convince him of what he saw but he claims there was no passenger in the seat beside her. The only proof Anna finds when she gets back is a small compact mirror stuffed into the seat. A new mystery unfolds! And this time it feels very Flight Attendant. Season 2, anyone?