‘Nine Perfect Strangers’ Ending Explained: Take That, Satan!

When Hulu’s Nine Perfect Strangers came back for a second season after a four-year break, it was tempting to believe that it had an interesting story to tell. The cast was such that, failing a good story, the series would show us a good time, and failing that, at least it would give us a thread to follow. Alas, this entry into the Nicole Kidman Wigs of Infamy canon could muster none of this. Masha’s mushroom samba through the gorgeous alpine vistas of Zauberwald was full of false starts and disappointments. Heading into the finale, Nine Perfect Strangers had parked its star-studded patients into their respective emotional resolutions and turned its focus to the complicated past that Masha shares with evil CEO David Sharp, teasing a potential meeting between the coldhearted industrialist and the now-dead daughter he had with Masha. It also left Martin, the only person trying to rein Masha in, drooling on the floor as his dead mother lectured him. Would Masha’s psybicilin machine allow her and David to share a reunion with their lost Tatianna? Would Masha’s gambit to secure more funding succeed in saving Zauberwald? Would poor Martin, true heir to Zauberwald, find healing in his demented mushroom reverie?

The finale (“Never Change”) embodies its title to a ridiculous degree. As in the first season finale, Nine Perfect Strangers crams in as many rug-pulls and revelations as it can. Masha had no intention of introducing David to her beloved Tatianna and nor was she looking to peel off some of his cash; those were both red herrings meant to draw David in. The real game was to draw together people whom David had wronged with his satellite conglomerate, Signal Ops, and put David on trial in a kangaroo court presided over by Masha. We learn how all the patients at Zauberwald are connected; the Signal Ops-owned studio exploited Brian’s meltdown, it was David’s funding that granted and then revoked Wolfie’s scholarship, Victoria’s husband/Imogen’s father took his own life out of guilt once Signal Ops dropped bombs he helped design on Matteo’s family, and Matteo met Agnes in a Signal Ops-sponsored field hospital where he was recovering. Nearly every person gets some time to give David a piece of their mind, with the curious exception of Matteo, who continues the season-long trend of getting scant lines when he gets any at all. Bombs destroyed his family and home, but Nine Perfect Strangers has way more time for a music scholarship and a TV host falling from grace.

Everyone agrees that David should be punished by being forced out of the war game. He promises to stop making bombs, but later tries to back out by claiming what’s said while tripping out on drugs doesn’t count. But of course, Masha secretly recorded him and leaked the footage to the media. Brian’s very on-the-nose reaction once he sees the clip: “Eat sh**, Satan!” After Martin comes down from his psychedelic freak-out, Masha leaves Zauberwald to him and gives him the approval his mother never did. Like the first season, everyone leaves Masha’s chaotic, unethical retreat genuinely healed from the experience. Victoria and Imogen are on happier terms. Peter no longer needs his evil father’s love and plans to keep seeing Imogen. Wolfie and Tina break up and, pointedly, Tina returns to the piano once Wolfie is gone. The editing seems to compare this break-up with Brian’s “break-up” from his puppet Jesse, which makes no emotional sense whatsoever. Agnes takes Brian along with her as an entertainer to the sick and dying. Masha’s ghost daughter fades away with the suggestion that Masha has finally let go of that trauma.

In the final moments, Masha and David meet at a McDonald’s (?!?!) for the world’s weirdest branded peace summit. He offers her a contract that would sell her protocol, device, and research to him for $100,000 and an NDA for good measure. Masha tries to raise the price, but David has footage of all the crimes and misdoings that happened at Zauberwald and even season one’s Tranquillium. Masha has to settle or be ruined, so she settles, albeit in the creepiest, psycho-sexual way she can. She kisses David, and reminds him that they’re family, so they’ll always be stuck with one another.

This scene theoretically sets up a third season, but where could Nine Perfect Strangers really go after this? Over 16 episodes in two seasons, the series has centered on the mysterious, beguiling Masha and gestured toward investigating her as a character, only to shrug at her motivations, deeper beliefs, or desires. The all-star casts of both seasons were essentially garnishes and side-dishes to a good-looking, but disappointing main course. It leaves the series stranded in the shallows of a promising story to the extent that it doesn’t feel like it’s about anything. The eat-the-rich notes of the finale feel like an afterthought, especially when Matteo, who lost his family and home to war, is shoved aside for champagne-problem handwringing about being canceled on TV. Nine Perfect Strangers is a vibes-only series about nothing that wasn’t terribly interesting to watch, but maybe it paid off a celebrity home renovation or two.