Spoilers: Here Is How that Murder Went Down in 'The Better Sister'

As I wrote in my original review, I really liked The Better Sister, which closely follows the Alafair Burke novel on which it’s based. The performances are terrific, and the mystery is solid. I’m also a sucker for murder mysteries with courtroom elements, and this one hits that sweet spot. I thought the whole thing was wildly addictive.

I’m not an outlier, but there are folks who didn’t care for The Better Sister. I don’t get it, but then again, Tori doesn’t get my indifference to the comedies of Julio Torres. Different strokes. Still, if you’re one of those people who started the series but bailed (maybe because you’d just watched another show about complicated sisters from different socioeconomic backgrounds), or if you zoned out and didn’t quite follow the ending, here’s a brief explainer.

Here’s the setup: Chloe (Jessica Biel), a wealthy magazine editor (as if those exist anymore), comes home from an event to find her husband, Adam, lying on the floor, murdered. She checks on the body, gets covered in blood, and as she runs out to call 911, she grabs the knife and later hides it.

Pretty quickly, Chloe’s teenage son Ethan (Maxwell Acee Donovan) becomes the prime suspect. His alibi falls apart, he’s been hanging with a sketchy friend who deals drugs, and he was recently suspended for bringing a handgun to school. He’s clearly lying about something, and the police eventually arrest and charge him with the murder.

Enter Chloe’s estranged sister Nicky (Elizabeth Banks), who rolls in from Ohio. We soon learn Nicky is actually Ethan’s biological mother. She used to be married to Adam, but their marriage imploded after a poolside incident where Nicky, drunk, nearly drowned Ethan. Adam took full custody, married Chloe, and the two raised Ethan together, cutting Nicky out.

Now, with Adam dead, Nicky is Ethan’s only surviving parent. She steps in to help with his defense. Chloe and Nicky clash at first, but over the course of the series, they bond over Ethan and their shared history.

Meanwhile, Chloe had been having an affair with Jake (Gabriel Sloyer), Adam’s business partner and their neighbor. She keeps it secret, fearing the police might think either of them had a motive to kill Adam.

Jake, however, is being pressured by an FBI agent who Adam was feeding information about their company — the Gentry Group — to the feds. The Gentry Group, run by Bill Braddock (Matthew Modine), is clearly up to something shady, and Chloe tries to investigate, but Braddock blocks her at every turn.

Another possibility? Adam was killed by someone targeting Chloe. As the editor of a feminist magazine, she’d received a flood of death threats. But that theory collapses when some of the most disturbing messages, ones wishing Adam dead, are traced back to Ethan. The circumstantial case against him tightens.

As the trial approaches and things look grim for Ethan, Chloe makes a move: she takes the stand and confesses that Adam had been abusing her. At first, it seems to support the idea that Ethan killed his father to protect her. But Chloe then reveals she told Jake about the abuse, and confesses to their affair, planting the idea that Jake might have had motive, too.

When Jake is called to testify, he pleads the Fifth on every question. That’s enough to raise reasonable doubt, and Ethan is found not guilty. Afterward, Ethan confesses to Chloe that he staged the scene to look like a robbery, assuming she had killed Adam. Chloe, however, denies it.

In the final two episodes, the full story unravels. At their father’s funeral years earlier, Chloe secretly gave Ethan a burner phone so he could stay in contact with Nicky. Later, Nicky investigates the pool incident that got Ethan taken away from her and discovers a buried police report: Adam had drugged her and staged the event to make her seem dangerously negligent.

When Ethan later tells Nicky that Adam has been abusing Chloe, Nicky drives, leaving her phone behind to avoid being tracked, from Ohio to confront Adam. He attacks her, and she kills him in self-defense, leaving the knife behind and fleeing back to Ohio to protect her alibi.

She eventually confesses everything to Chloe. Together, they decide to frame the villainous Bill Braddock by planting the murder weapon, the knife that Chloe had hidden, in his office and gathering evidence of his involvement in a human trafficking ring (which, frankly, feels like a plot device more than a core storyline). Braddock is arrested. Meanwhile, Chloe and Nicky leverage the magazine to expose misconduct by the detective who led Ethan’s case, getting her pulled off the case.

Braddock goes to prison. Chloe and Nicky write a book together. They co-parent Ethan. And everyone gets a relatively tidy, feel-good ending. And that’s how it all unravels.