The Watcher Ending Explained (In Detail)

The ending of Netflix’s The Watcher has proved divisive, yet the series' ambiguous coda has a hidden secret meaning. The Watcher is a Ryan Murphy miniseries loosely based on the true story of 657 Boulevard in Westfield, New Jersey. Naomi Watts and Bobby Cannavale play the fictionalized couple Nora and Dean Braddock, who move into a new home with their family and then begin receiving anonymous threatening letters warning them against making any alterations to the house.

The Watcher takes many major liberties with its real-life inspiration. Most of the story depicted on screen is fiction, outside the mysterious letters, the location of the house, and the paranoia and trauma that they caused for the couple involved. After seemingly revealing that the titular threat is Theodora (Noma Dumezweni), a private investigator whom the Braddocks have hired, the series finale of The Watcher ends without ever revealing the true identity of the letter-writer. In this regard, The Watcher is true to the real-life story upon which the show is based, as the case remains unsolved to this day.

What Happens In The Watcher’s Ending?

It's Revealed That Theodora Sent The Letters

At the end of The Watcher, the characters Nora and Dean Braddock discover that their private investigator, Theodora, has been hospitalized with cancer. In what seems like a classic twisty ending to a Netflix mystery show, the dying Theodora admits that she was the one who sent the letters. She explains that she had bought 657 Boulevard because it was her dream home, only to be forced to sell it when she couldn’t afford the place.

When her husband died, she realized he had hidden away over $1 million. Thus, she could in fact afford the house, leading her to concoct a bizarre scheme to pen threatening letters in order to convince the Braddocks to leave the house.

Why Did Theodora Claim She Was The Watcher?

She Was Trying To Provide Closure For The Braddock Family

Theodora explains she hired actors to play the pig-tailed woman who appeared in Dean and Nora’s bedroom, all in an attempt to get her house back. However, at Theodora’s funeral, her daughter refutes these claims, and then the Braddocks learn from their neighbor Mo (Margo Martindale, from the cast of Mrs. America) that Theodora never lived in the house.

In The Watcher's rare, dark, double twist ending, it turns out that Theodora was lying as she lay dying, trying to give the Braddocks some closure by claiming to be the Watcher since she was never able to uncover the actual assailant who tormented the couple while she was on the case.

What Happened To Karen In 657 Boulevard?

Much To The Shock Of Viewers, Karen Wasn't The Villain

When the ending of The Watcher reveals Theodora was innocent after all, the suspicious realtor Karen (The White Lotus's Jennifer Coolidge) seems to be a prime suspect. She made no secret of the fact that she wanted 657 Boulevard for herself, she could have been the girl in the pigtails, and she could have written the letters that threatened the Braddocks. As a realtor, Karen was also likely to know all about the house’s secret subterranean tunnels and could have used these to scare the Braddocks into moving out.

However, like many Ryan Murphy movies and shows, the twist ending of The Watcher completely disproves this theory when Karen does move into 657 Boulevard after the Braddocks leave the house. She survives about 48 hours in the house before she is chased out by a masked assailant, and in that time, she suffers more than the Braddocks did during their entire residence in the house.

The reason that Karen’s dog is killed and why she receives a letter from the Watcher is so that The Watcher’s ending can firmly disprove the possibility of her being the title villain. Since Karen is the most obvious suspect, her traumatic experience is necessary to make it clear that The Watcher’s ending removes any lingering suspicion from her character.

Was John Graff A Real Person?

John Graff In The Watcher Was Fictional (But Based On A Real Murderer)

Like many true-crime shows on Netflix, The Watcher plays fast and loose with the facts of the case that it is based on. Despite what some sources claim, John Graff was not a real person. The character is based on real-life murderer John List, who did tragically kill his family in Westfield, New Jersey.

However, List had nothing to do with the 657 Boulevard case and no connection to the story, making John Graff a fictional creation with a grim real-life inspiration. The reason that The Watcher’s ending adds Graff to the show’s list of characters is likely to accentuate comparisons between the real-life story and more explicitly supernatural scary stories, such as The Amityville Horror.

Is Dean Braddock Becoming The Watcher In The End?

It Would Be Too Much Of A Creative Deviation For Him To Become The Villain

Dean Braddock’s inability to save his family from the Watcher causes the character to obsess over the villain, leading his and Nora’s marriage into trouble. Like Jack Torrance in The Shining or George Lutz, the patriarch of the unfortunate family seen in The Amityville Horror, Dean Braddock eventually flirts with outright madness by the time The Watcher’s dark ending rolls around. During a therapy session, he brings up the house unprompted, and, when he tells Nora he is at a job interview, he secretly revisits 657 Boulevard and watches the new inhabitants of the house as they collect their mail.

However, this doesn’t mean Dean is now the Watcher. For one thing, Dean doesn’t do anything actively malevolent. For another, Nora also visits the house immediately after he leaves, meaning she also hasn’t been able to let go of the events that transpired there. Most importantly, although The Watcher follows Netflix's true crime show protocol and changes a lot of facts.

The show is still based on a real-life case, and the real people involved weren’t accused of fabricating the letters, nor did they torment the next inhabitants of the home. As such, even with its fictionalized elements, it would be too much for The Watcher’s ending to imply otherwise.

What The Watcher’s Ending Really Means

The Netflix Series Is About The Power Of Paranoia

The Watcher’s ending is not as straightforward as those of many other Netflix shows, but that is only because it is based on a real-life unsolved case. The lack of resolution in the real-life story is the primary reason that The Watcher’s ending can’t simply unmask its villain.

However, the other reason that the Netflix hit can’t have a tidy conclusion is that The Watcher is about the terror of not knowing your neighbor, of never being sure who you live near and what they are up to, and of the impact that a culture of anonymity has on small communities.

The Watcher casts suspicion on almost all of its cast and exonerates almost none of them precisely so that the Netflix show can prove that there is no knowing who the Watcher was, and that might be the scariest ending of all.

How The Watcher Ending Sets Up Season 2

Season 2 Could Go Any Direction

The Watcher season 2 has been confirmed, despite the fact that the Netflix true-crime show was initially billed as a miniseries. The ending of season 1 was incredibly ambiguous, especially since it wasn't originally intended to have a follow-up, and it mirrored the mystery of its real life inspiration. As such, what could happen in season 2 remains incredibly ambiguous, but there are a few hints from the ending of The Watcher which could be clues.

Firstly, Dean's descent into obsession could become a key plot point when The Watcher returns. While he himself isn't being set up as the Watcher, his growing preoccupation with the house and the identity of those stalking his family may lead to him remaining to be involved. There's also, of course, the fate of Karen to consider. She was chased out of the house by the real Watcher, meaning they're still out there and definitely do exist. This means there's still much for Dean to uncover should he return.

However, there's also the chance that the show will take on more of an anthology set-up. This would mean that The Watcher season 2 focuses on a different case of suburban horror, rather than continuing the story of the Braddock family and 657 Boulevard.

The second season was confirmed by Netflix back in 2022, and so far little has been revealed of what the story will be and how season 1 set it up, but it's likely that when the first trailers eventually arrive it will be much clearer which key details from The Watcher ending will remain relevant in the show moving forward.

How The Watcher Ending Was Received

Viewers Did Not Love How The Watcher Ended

Despite the real-life unsolved nature of the case that inspired the first season of The Watcher, fans of true crime and mystery were hoping for a more conclusive ending than the one they got. While some critics, like Evan Romano of Mens Health, enjoyed how “unsettling” the ending for the show was, viewers were overwhelmingly disappointed with the end of the show.

One Reddit thread saw those discussing the show calling it everything from “underwhelming” to “garbage” and everything in between. The Independent event gathered some fan reactions in an effort to find a consensus about the ending of the show. One Netflix subscriber called it “the worst ending I’ve ever seen” and another called it a “pointless, pointless series.”

It’s hard to fault the disappointment voiced all over the internet when so many TV audiences long for story arcs to be wrapped up with a neat ending. As more shows are being canceled after a first season, particularly on Netflix, and storylines are left unresolved as a result, TV fans are craving more from their entertainment. A lot of television isn’t being given room to breathe or grow an audience beyond their first eight episodes. Audiences want those single seasons to give a semblance of closure for the story. The Watcher ending didn’t give them that.

What The Cast Has Said About The Watcher Ending

The audience responses to the ending of The Watcher were mixed. Many viewers felt the 2022 Netflix series created more questions than it answered. Fortunately, several members of the cast of The Watcher have given their own theories and explained a little about the ending which helps shed light on the final scenes of the miniseries. Naomi Watts and Bobby Cannavale spoke to Netflix's TUDUM in 2024, and shared their thoughts on how The Watcher ended.

For example, for Bobby Cannavale, the identity of the Watcher remaining a mystery is thematically important for the show. Judging by the star's comments, it seems that the ambiguity creates a sense of dread that works much better than an identity reveal at the end of The Watcher would have:

“That sense of paranoia has seeped in. You just never know. Everybody can be a suspect. Even the person you love most can be the person you need to be careful of.”

However, Cannavale also acknowledges the frustration at the lack of clarity at the end of The Watcher. Still, despite understanding the perspective of many viewers, the Dean actor stands by not revealing the identity of the Watcher:

“It's an interesting ending and it depends on what you bring to the party.I think everybody will take a different meaning from that ending, depending on who you are, what your value system is, where you come from, what your history is, what your relationship to material wealth is, what your connection to your family is. I kind of love the ending because you can be really cynical and you can really just throw your hands up and go, ‘Well, you never know'. I'm glad it doesn't end on a real disclosure of who it was. I think it's less important who the Watcher is and really who you are and what's important to you. I hope that by the end, people will walk away from it really [taking] stock.”

It's not only Bobby Cannavale who has strong thoughts and ideas about The Watcher ending. Speaking to EW in 2022, Naomi Watts had her own explanation for the ambiguity at the end of The Watcher, and why it was important. For Watts, the central mystery of the Netflix miniseries wasn't as important as the emotional journey the family went through, or the wider social commentary the plot is trying to convey:

They feel like the house is going to solve their problems, and it ends up being the catalyst that causes a whole lot of new problems that they didn’t anticipate. Now, they’re just trying to figure out who the other [really] is. I think, yes, there are definitely undertones there of [Stockholm Syndrome]. The cycle continues, and we’ve gone too far believing in this American Dream with such entitlement and the fear of no longer being relevant anymore if that dream isn’t realized. It’s a vicious cycle.