Warning: This article contains full spoilers for Fool Me Once.
Netflix and Harlan Coben have done it again! The streaming giant has made a habit of adapting the best-selling author’s gripping thriller novels for the screen in recent years, with the addictive, page-turning nature of Coben’s books neatly transforming into bingeworthy limited series that you say you’ll just watch one of but end up marathoning in a single sitting. The latest in this super-successful streak? Fool Me Once.
Starring Michelle Keegan and Coben-verse veteran Richard Armitage, Fool Me Once sees ex-soldier Maya Stern’s world turned upside down when she spots her recently murdered husband, Joe, hugging their young daughter on a nanny cam. To get to the bottom of this impossible sight, Maya starts her own investigation into her husband’s death and how it could be connected to the recent murder of her own sister, Claire. And in doing so she earns the unwanted attention of the police.
But is Joe really alive? The show keeps us guessing throughout, but eventually the shocking truth is outed. And we bet you didn’t see it coming…
Did Joe fake his death in Fool Me Once?
Seeing Joe on that nanny cam shakes Maya up so much because she was there when he died, as shown via various flashbacks that depict Maya leaning over her husband’s body covered in blood. In the final moments of the show’s seventh and penultimate episode, however, we learn why she’s really so distressed by it: because it was Maya that killed Joe.
After she discovered that her own husband had killed her sister, because she was leaking evidence that Joe’s family company, Burkett Global, was guilty of serious pharmaceutical malpractice, Maya shot Joe dead and claimed it was a mugging gone wrong. However, she was never able to see his body as his mother, Judith, took over the funeral arrangements. So there remained a small chance he could’ve been alive.
But, no, Joe did not fake his death. Maya ultimately uncovers that her babysitter Izabella was employed by Judith to hack into her nanny can and deep-fake the footage of Joe — it was really Izabella’s husband, Luca, who had a similar face and body type to Joe. Judith strongly suspected that Maya was truly responsible for her son’s death and so wanted to frighten her by convincing her Joe was still alive so she would do something drastic and slip up.
In the end, though, it was Judith who slipped up, as Maya confronted the Burketts about the truth of their company’s crimes and Claire’s death, while recording them on the same secret nanny cam that fooled her into thinking Joe was alive.
In short, Joe Burkett is a goner, but something tells us actor Richard Armitage will be back in another Harlan Coben Netflix adaptation before long.