Sarah Pinborough described her thriller novel, Behind Her Eyes as a “Martime book” when
it was published in 2017. Her advertisers and publisher also warned readers,
promoting it with the viral hashtag #WTFthatending. And why wouldn’t it be? The
story indeed concludes in a rather peculiar fashion!

Now, thanks to Netflix, this thriller has been adapted into a
successful miniseries and the author is still stunned with her own twist. “I
finished watching it and then I had a shower and went to bed and I was still
thinking, ‘That ending, man!’ – and I made it up!” she said in an interview
with a news organization. “But it’s different seeing it.”

Behind
Her Eyes follows the story of a single mother Louise, played by Simona
Brown, who engages in casual sex with a man she met in a bar, only to discover
that he is her new boss, David, played by Tom Bateman (yes, it kinda feels like
the pilot scene from Grey’s Anatomy).

Well, as the show progresses, Louise befriends a woman named
Adele (played by Eve Hewson) who turns out to be David’s wife. Soon, she finds
herself in a toxic love triangle. As Louise gets closer to the couple, she
uncovers some unsettling truths about their past.

This latest Netflix’s series seems like a domestic affair
drama at first, but when the big reveals come, Behind Her Eyes serves truly well to its #WTFthatending premise.

But here’s the thing: Did the show creators stay faithful to Sarah
Pinborough’s novel?

The initial reaction of the series suggest that Steve
Lightfoot’s screen-adaption remains true to the source material throughout the
series. But what about the ending?

Ahead of the series release, actor Eve Hewson said to a media
organization, “I think we stayed pretty true to the book, I know that Sarah
Pinborough said she loved what she saw and she wrote the book, so if she’s
happy with it then I think we’ve done a good job.”

Here we are going to dissect Netflix’s miniseries and
highlight the key differences between Sarah Pinborough’s book and its
adaptation into the series:

WARNING: Below are some spoilers of Netflix’s Behind Her Eyes season 1

Is the
ending of the miniseries the same as mentioned in the book?

Before reading on, let us ask you a question first: did you
understand the show’s ending?

Exactly our point!

To identify the differences, it’s important that you understand
the book’s ending first. Don’t worry! The detailed explanation is coming right
up:

The ending of the series predominantly rests on a supernatural
phenomenon believed to be an “astral projection,” something which Adele figures
out how to use while staying at a psychiatrist hospital (showed in a flashback
scene), and exactly the same process she teaches to her husband’s mistress,
Louise as a means to fight against her repeated nightmares.

In the beginning we learn that Adele frequently lucid dreams
about something, and in the climatic episode, we discover that those dreams
were actually Adele spying over her husband and her secretary Louise, which
means she already knew about their affair. And that was the reason why she
bumped into Louise in the first place.

In the last episode, Louise tells David that she has a
suspicion over her wife for killing Rob – whom Adele had suspected David of
killing. In the next sequence, we see a flashback to Rob’s murder where Adele
is confessing to David that she buried his body down the well. The series jumps
to the present day, with David assuring Louise that he will handle the matter
himself.

In the next scene, we see Louise confronting Adele, saying she
knows she has been spying over them, while also revealing that David intends to
go to police to hand himself in for the crime she believed Adele committed.

Now, this is when things get super crazy!

After receiving distress messages from Adele, she decides to
meet her again, only to find her house on fire, which we presume is a suicide
attempt.

Unable to get inside, Louise uses astral projection to break
in, and discovers that it is a trap! It is an astral projection Adele arranged
for her to take over her body entirely so that she didn’t have to lose David to
her.

That’s it, that’s the ending, you thought? Well, there’s more!

It turns out that Adele is not actually Adele; she has died in
the body of Rob! The whole time it was Rob in Adele’s body, who was also spying
over David and Louise. We learned that Rob secretly fell in love with David,
and captured both Adele and Louise’s bodies through astral projection as a
means to be with him.

Yes, exactly, WTF!

In the final sequence, we see Louise now married to David, and
he is unaware about the identity of his new wife. Though, Louise’s son David’
is suspicious about his mother’s strange behavior.

The ending is more or less the same as the book’s, with one
key difference that Rob (living in Louise’s body) hints that he will kill Adam
by making it look like an accident.

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