The Better Sister's Ending Explained: Who Killed Adam?

[This post contains spoilers from the finale of "The Better Sister," streaming now on Prime Video.]

Aretha Franklin and Annie Lennox sang it best: "Sisters are doin' it for themselves."

Those two superstars may not extend their rousing 1985 feminist anthem to covering up murder and other general bad behavior, but when the shoes fits... and it certainly does in the finale of Prime Video's The Better Sister. After a season spent airing a lifetime of grievances, sisters Chloe (Jessica Biel) and Nicky (Elizabeth Banks) finally put their heads together to take down a few enemies and wash their hands (and lives) clean of the man they have both called husband. Who says you can't bond with your siblings later in life?

But before we get to their happily ever after (for now?), let's back up. In the previous episode, Chloe, Nicky and their shared son Ethan (Maxwell Acee Donovan) were trying to find some sense of normalcy after he was acquitted of his father's death in a rather hastily wrapped up trial if I do say so myself. But in the calm, Nicky began confessing her sins — or rather one sin — to Chloe. She is the one who killed Adam (Corey Stoll), her former husband and Chloe's current husband. While Nicky had been living in Ohio — ironically still taking care of Adam's mother (Deirdre O'Connell) — she was communicating with Ethan, who confided in her that he saw Adam physically assaulting Chloe during a heated argument. Nicky doesn't take it well, especially given another recent revelation. Thanks to a police report, she learns that Adam lied about what happened the day she supposedly got drunk and nearly let an infant Ethan drown in the pool. Adam had actually drugged Nicky to make it look like she was a negligent mother, giving him plenty of cause to file for sole custody of Ethan. While the series didn't focus too much on Adam, the last two episodes do some serious (and worthy) character assassination on the dead guy.

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Armed with this new intel, a fiery Nicky drives to Adam's house to confront him on the afternoon that opened the series. She comes in like a hurricane with her fury (not the best tactic admittedly), which he matches and violently escalates. At one point during their physical struggle, he even digs his teeth into her shoulder, leaving the mark she has been concealing all season. Ultimately fearing for her life, she slashes Adam across the face and then jams the pocket knife into his throat. Dare we say, "You go girl!" But of course, watching your ex-husband choke on his own blood isn't a cause for celebration, so Nicky races home to Ohio and his mother like nothing has happened.

But why, you ask, didn't Det. Guidry (Kim Dickens) and Det. Bowen (Bobby Naderi) consider Nicky a suspect before now? In the flashback to the day, it is revealed Nicky's phone was broken and she left it at Adam's mother's house, meaning their trace showed she was far from the scene of the crime. Unfortunately, when Guidry pays Adam's mother a visit, she tells the eager investigator the phone was with her all day, meaning her former daughter-in-law could have absolutely killed her son.

With Nicky's confession, Chloe realizes she needs to divert the detectives away from her sister and she's already planted the seeds of reasonable doubt by tossing Adam's business partner (and her lover) Jake (Gabriel Sloyer) under the bus as a possible new suspect during Ethan's trial. If she sticks to this "it's all about his shady business dealings" approach, she might have a shot. So she zeros in Adam's relationship with fellow attorney Bill Braddock (Matthew Modine), a mouthpiece for the nefarious Gentry Group and a close ally for Chloe until he wasn't. I will say, the role of the Gentry Group in all of this has been convoluted to put it nicely. Ultimately, it boils down to faceless bad-guy developers doing bad things. 

Catherine (Lorraine Toussaint) already warned Chloe that Bill likes the chase, so she doesn't give him the satisfaction and pays the slimy man in President Snow drag a visit. While ever so politely making nice in his house, she uses the access to plant the murder weapon in his desk. The motive is also built in. Adam was talking to the FBI about Bill and Gentry Group, all of whom are casually engaging in or burying instances of human trafficking, indentured servitude, and manslaughter in order to build stadiums in record time. Like clockwork, the police, led by Bowen, arrest Bill on a tip and give him the kind of public perp walk that rich people sure do hate.

While Chloe is plotting against Bill, Nicky remains fully committed to her somewhat childish grudge against Guidry. Only this time she has ammunition, and it's not the right hook she showed the detective in the courthouse. Years ago, the police covered up that Guidry assaulted a Black man she had mistaken for a suspect, injuring the man so severely that he is now confined to an assisted care facility. Hoping to get Guidry out of any position of power where she could come after her, Nicky gives the report to Catherine to broadcast out through the vaguely feminist media empire of which she has built up Chloe as the face. It works, and Guidry is benched by her boss, as she watches Bowen arrest the wrong guy.

In other words, Chloe and Nicky seemingly get away with it — kind of. They end their day on the beach staring at the stars. "This is what we did today," Chloe says, spinning an alibi in real time. They smoke on the beach, build a fire, and gaze at the Big Dipper. Collateral damage be damned!

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Of course, nothing is completely handled and pretending like it is, even for a fleeting moment, feels a little silly. Bill is a powerful man who won't take being framed lightly — even if murder is one of his more modest crimes. Nicky has also poked the bear that is Guidry, a workaholic who (if her phone calls are any indication) would rather obsessively hunt down criminals than be at home with her wife.

Then there's the matter of poor, sweet Jake, who's dead body washes up on the shore in the final scene, seemingly confirming his fears that any combination of Bill, corrupt FBI Agent Olivero (Frank Pando), or the Gentry Group want him dead. But who killed the dreamy guy caught in the crossfire of a marriage gone wrong? This show barely conceals how badly it wants to make a second season, and it makes a good case for it.

For now, the Taylor sisters got away with murder and The Better Sister got away with an impressive hat trick. While its opening episodes were a little tougher to wade through, the series evolved from a squabbling sibling drama with blood splatter on the perfect wall treatments, to a grimy-yet-engaging murder mystery that pieced back together its sister detectives. I wouldn't have said this at the beginning, but The Better Sister makes you beg for more, if only to see what Chloe and Nicky write in their tell-all book.

The Better Sister is now streaming on Prime Video.