Warning: This post contains spoilers for Apple TV+’s Lady in the Lake

In Lady in the LakeNothing is as it seems for Madeline “Maddie” Morgenstern (Natalie Portman), a Jewish housewife turned investigative journalist in 1960s Baltimore. For most of the Apple TV+ show, which is based on Laura Lippman’s 2019 novel of the same name, Maddie is obsessed with uncovering the truth behind the unsolved murder of Eunetta “Cleo” Johnson (Moses Ingram), a Black woman whose body was mysteriously found in the fountain of a park lake. But Maddie questions everything she thought she knew when she comes face to face with a very living and breathing Cleo in the final moments of the penultimate episode.

In Episode 6, Maddie is in hospital after being stabbed to death by Mrs. Zawadzkie, the mentally ill mother and accomplice of Stephen Zawadzkie, the killer of Tessie, a young Jewish girl whose murder launches Maddie’s career as a journalist. As Maddie recovers, she has feverish hallucinations about her life and the murders of Tessie and Cleo, which cloud her perception of reality when she wakes up and meets Cleo, a person who has dominated her thoughts for months, in person for the first time.

While there’s little explanation for how or why Cleo appears alive at the end of the episode, there’s no denying that she is very much alive – and that Maddie needs to re-examine what she thought she knew about Cleo Johnson’s disappearance. In episode 7, the series finale, all the answers to why Cleo faked her own death – and why she returned – are revealed. Here’s what you need to know about the shocking twist at the end of. Lady in the Lake.

Is Cleo still alive?

Cleo is still very much alive. As she explains to Maddie in the hospital in Episode 7, she faked her own death with Reggie’s help to avoid being killed by Shell Gordon and to cover up the attempted murder of Myrtle Summer. Although the body in the lake was identified as Cleo, it was actually the body of her best friend Dora, who had died of an overdose the night Cleo was supposed to be killed. Reggie and Cleo dressed Dora’s body in Cleo’s clothes and placed it in the park fountain, where they hoped her body would not be found. She was eventually discovered after someone sent a complaint about the fountain lights not working to the newspaper where Maddie worked. Since Dora’s body had been in the fountain for months, her face was not recognizable, making it plausible that Cleo had been murdered and left for dead.

What happens at the end of Lady in the lake?

In the seventh and final episode of Lady in the LakeCleo returns to her former life for a moment, again with Reggie’s help, to secure evidence that Shell Gordon was running an illegal numbers game so that Maddie can publish it in an expose. Cleo offers Maddie the scoop if Maddie keeps quiet about Cleo faking her own death.

To do this, Cleo disguises herself as Gordon’s new male accountant, which gives her access to the hotel office where his organized crime records are kept. After taking the books, Cleo sets the hotel on fire before leaving to meet Maddie one last time and give her the records. Cleo then leaves Baltimore for good with her two sons on a ship to Paris, while Maddie publishes her revelations about Gordon, which are later published as a book.

What happens to Cleo?

After leaving Baltimore, Cleo moves to Paris with her two sons and assumes the identity of her deceased friend Dora. She fulfills Dora’s dream of performing as a nightclub singer in Paris – and in doing so also fulfills her own dream of singing, which she had given up as a young girl. In Paris, she meets her husband Slappy.

What happens to Maddie?

Maddie’s investigative journalism about the murders of Tessie and Cleo and her revelations about Shell Gordon help launch her career as a renowned journalist. At the end of the series, Maddie has published a book about the cases she uncovered as a journalist and is happy with her decision to pursue a career as a writer. Although Maddie has already ended her marriage to her husband Milton Schwartz, she decides to end her new affair with police officer Ferdie Platt as well.