Let’s break it down.***SPOILERS AHEAD***
Just like every other Netflix original these days, the child abduction tale The Snow Girl (La chica de nieve) ended its first series by posing several important questions. Let’s just hope the Spanish-language drama doesn’t suffer the same fate as 1899, The Midnight Club and Resident Evil, which were all cancelled before our burning questions were answered.
Still, the gripping finale did at least tie up its central mystery: what happened to the five-year-old girl who disappeared during a crowded street parade nearly a decade ago?
If you were left a little bamboozled by the constant time jumps, here’s a handy guide to exactly what unfolded.
***The Snow Girl Spoilers Ahead***
The Snow Girl ending explained: One final twist in the Netflix drama
Miren saves the day
After nearly ten years of trying to get to the bottom of Amaya’s abduction, dogged reporter Miren (Milena Smit) finally achieves a breakthrough thanks to the unlikely combination of a VHS repairman and a hairband.
Having stolen the former’s accounts book, she discovers the machine likely to have produced the videotapes proving the youngster is still alive, which belongs to a woman living in the isolated hills. As we know from the previous flashback episode, the woman is Iris (Cecilia Freire), a former patient of Amaya’s fertility doctor mother who, after learning that she couldn’t have children, decided to steal a kid instead.
Having been told that anyone outside the dilapidated house she’s been held captive in for nine years is a threat, the brainwashed Amaya – now aged 14 – hides when Miren pays her ‘mother’ a visit. A desperate Iris, of course, has already killed an inquisitive bank associate to avoid exposing the secret she and her husband (who’s since been splattered in a Final Destination-style car accident) are Malaga’s Most Wanted.
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Thankfully, Miren leaves the property without stumbling upon the whole truth and therefore also with her life intact. But her presence spooks Iris enough to abandon the property with her ‘daughter’ later that rain-soaked night. By this point, Miren has recognised the headband the culprit was wearing is the same as Amaya’s in the most recent video footage and is only a few yards behind.
Realising the game is up, Iris decides the only course of action is to drive her and a petrified Amaya off a cliff.
“I won’t let them separate us,” she screams just before crashing through a roadside barrier. Iris immediately dies in the accident, yet miraculously the teen gets out of the vehicle with barely a scratch.
Still loyal to the woman she believes is her mum, Amaya then aims a gun at Miren but following a brief scuffle, she’s restrained until emergency services arrive.
The reunion
Parents Álvaro (Raúl Prieto) and Ana (Loreto Mauleón) spent an agonising six years not knowing whether their daughter was alive. And then, thanks to the occasional videotapes Iris sent to relieve her guilt, they spent another three years not knowing where she was. Their long-awaited reunion, however, isn’t an immediately joyous occasion.
Traumatised by the loss of both her abductee parents and the bombshell that her whole life is a lie, Amaya initially refuses to engage with her biological mum and dad. She’s actually angry their continued quest to find her resulted in Iris’s death.
But the fact she later allows them to watch cartoons by her side suggests their relationship will slowly be repaired.
Who killed Luque and Foster?
Before her super-sleuthing skills finally pay off, Miren becomes a person of interest herself following the suspicious caravan blaze that kills both Luque (Tristán Ulloa) and its owner Foster (Stephan Wiks).
She wasn’t short of a motive, that’s for sure.
Luque was the convicted rapist also responsible for a dark web forum that posted footage of her own harrowing sexual assault. He also refused to tell Miren anything about the list of contributors who’d paid thousands of Euros to gain access when she visited him years into his prison sentence.
Foster, meanwhile, was the paedophile who openly admitted to watching the attack on Miren and who only agreed to give valuable information if she’d pose for some creepy photos.
Somehow that photo evidence of a fully-clothed but clearly unsettled Miren survived the fire, making her the prime suspect for a revenge attack. The police, however, have nothing else on her, and that’s unlikely to change. The reporter’s colleague does stumble across proof she was surveilling the two criminals shortly before their deaths but in an act of solidarity, he removes the memory card on the camera that later falls into the hands of the cops.
What happens to Miren?
Having seemingly got away with murder, Miren is free to write a tell-all book about her experiences working on the case of Amaya’s disappearance. But she doesn’t get much time to enjoy some relative peace and quiet.
Outside a book signing, she’s handed an envelope similar to the ones Iris posted – only this time what’s inside is a photo of an unknown young woman bound and gagged.
Will we get to find out who the victim is, who abducted her and what Miren is going to do about it? Only Netflix’s trigger-happy execs know the answer.
All six episodes of The Snow Girl are now available to stream on Netflix. Check out our Drama hub for all the latest news. Looking for something else to watch? Visit our TV Guide or Streaming Guide.
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