Angela Ending Explained: Is Edu Real?

Netflix’s Spanish thriller series ‘Angela’ blurs the line between the real and the imagined through the lens of a toxic and abusive marriage. The titular character is the mother of two who has found herself in an insidious dynamic with her husband, Gonzalo, stuck in a cycle of abuse and apology. Still, her world turns on its axis when she crosses paths with a strange man, Eduardo Silva, who claims to have been hired by her husband to commit her assassination. As a result, the woman’s life becomes engulfed by fear and paranoia. Nonetheless, a new kind of menacing danger seeps into her life when Gonzalo turns around and insists that everything, from Edu to the lows of their marriage, is a fabrication of his wife’s psychotic imagination. As a result, backed into an impossible corner where she must think twice before even trusting her own mind, Angela finds herself in a fight for her life and family. SPOILERS AHEAD!

Angela Recap

Angela and Gonzalo’s marriage remains rocky, especially in the aftermath of a domestic violence report filed against the latter. Even though the wife insists that she had nothing to do with the report, the husband continues to blame her for it, creating a tense atmosphere between the two. This only feeds into his abusive behavior toward her, leading to frequent violent outbursts on his part. Simultaneously, he continues to play the part of a seemingly perfect father while manipulating and gaslighting the mother of his children into remaining silent and docile. On the morning after one such violent encounter, Gonzalo leaves for an international business meeting and sends over some apologetic flowers for Angela. As a result, the latter meets Eduardo Silva, the flower deliveryman who claims to have attended high school with her.

Over the next few days, Edu continues to text Angela in an attempt to rekindle their acquaintanceship. However, soon enough, he brings up the woman’s precarious situation at home, having read the signs to realize something must be wrong. Furthermore, after a few pseudo dates, he kisses her, adding another puzzling layer to their dynamic. Although Angela tries to put a stop to their dangerous new connection once her husband returns to town, Edu inevitably seeks her out again. Moreover, he makes an outlandish claim, accusing Gonzalo of hiring him as a hitman to kill his wife. While Angela is initially reluctant to believe this story, things begin to change once she starts feeling more and more unsafe around her husband. Thus, when things reach their peak and Edu offers to kill Gonzalo for her, she finds herself agreeing to the whole thing.

Nonetheless, the trap that the duo set for Gonzalo never truly takes off, even before Angela gets cold feet. As a result, the mother finds herself at the remote house, a frequent meet-up spot for her and Edu, with her two girls as a last resort for safety. Horrifyingly enough, she only finds Edu’s dead body on the premises. Consequently, once Gonzalo arrives at the house, befuddled and confused, his wife readily points a harpoon gun at him, prepared to defend herself and her kids. Yet, the man continues to deny all accusations, making Angela look insane and dangerous throughout the encounter. Soon, the police arrive right as she accidentally triggers the harpoon gun, putting her husband and daughters at possible risk. Thus, she’s arrested on the spot and taken into custody. Later, after she recounts her side of the story to the officers, they make a horrifying conclusion: Angela’s experiences seem to be a perfect recreation of the plot of a crime novel written by an author named Eduardo Silva.

Thus, once it begins to look like everything over the last couple of days had been a figment of Angela’s imagination, the court inevitably orders her to enroll in a mental hospital for treatment. Although she initially tries to fight her circumstances and believes in the reality of her experiences, she can’t help but second-guess herself in time. Gonzalo has a myriad of evidence in his arsenal, including CCTV footage, which disproves his wife’s stories and her mother’s history with schizophrenia, which could be hereditary. At the same time, he also begins working to legally prohibit Angela from seeing her kids ever again. Fortunately, she has her friend, Ester, who is a lawyer, by her side. Therefore, once her time at the hospital ends, the two women begin working to reunite the mother with her kids and prove her husband’s history of abuse.

Angela Ending: Is Edu Real? Was He a Figment of Angela’s Imagination?

Angela and Edu’s dynamic remains outlandish and unbelievable from the beginning. He claims to have been hired by her husband for the explicit purpose of killing her. While she refuses to believe him at first, she eventually begins to see things in a different light. A few pieces of evidence here and there compel her to believe her husband might have something to do with the recent disappearance of Nekane Lopez, an architect at Gonzalo’s firm. This fact, paired with his history of domestic violence, convinces Angela about the credibility behind Edu’s claims. She believes that the recent animosity between them, sparked by the domestic violence report, has finally pushed her husband to the extreme. During all of this, Edu’s influence and impact on the woman’s life play an integral part, helping her uncover evidence and supplying her with theories. Therefore, once his existence comes into question, all of her claims begin to unravel.

Angela’s mother has a Schizophrenia diagnosis, which could have possibly been inherited by the daughter. Therefore, using this claim and the circumstances surrounding her arrest, Gonzalo portrays his wife as mentally unstable, insisting that her theories and paranoia are a result of her own hallucinations. The fact that Eduardo Silva doesn’t seem to be a real person, but rather the author of a book with an identical plotline to Angela’s claims, adds further credibility to her husband’s allegations. Still, despite her time at the mental health facility, Angela can’t shake off the feeling that her time with Edu was real. The fact that test results showcase no signs of her inheriting her mother’s disorder further compels her to doubt everything. Eventually, the answers come from the most unexpected places. During one of their outings, Angela had managed to burn her calf on the exhaust pipe of Edu’s pipe. When her mother points out the scar to her, it turns into the indomitable proof of her experiences’ reality.

From there, Angela and Esther evaluate the former’s time with Edu to find out any instances that could lead them to tangible proof of his existence. This brings them to an automobile shop where the man got his bike fixed after it got wrecked by local troublemakers in the aftermath of an outing with Angela. Thus, the two women finally get a name: Roberto Irigoyen. Some more online stalking and snooping eventually brings them to a local dive, The Red Fish Tavern, Roberto’s bar. A visit to the establishment brings Angela face-to-face with the owner, who turns out to be the same man who had pretended to be Edu all this time. Consequently, the truth finally comes out. Angela hadn’t imagined or hallucinated anything. Instead, her time with Edu was a part of Gonzalo’s scheme to implicate his wife of insanity in an attempt to ruin her life and win full custody of their daughters.

Does Angela Win the Case Against Gonzalo? How?

Gonzalo’s plot against his wife doesn’t simply end with trapping her in the mental health facility and discrediting the reality of her experiences. Ever since the domestic abuse report was filed against him, he has held Angela responsible for it. Even though the report itself was anonymous, and she convinced the authorities to drop the charges, lying on his behalf, he continues to blame her for it. At the same time, he remains steadfastly against divorce, knowing that it would impact his finances, assets, relationship with his daughters, and his reputation. For the same reason, after his path fatefully crosses with Roberto at the sea, he comes up with the scheme to ruin Angela’s life. The first phase of his plan discredits the woman’s words, ensuring that the reality of his violent actions never comes out or is believed. Next, he makes a move to sever the ties between her and the kids.

The harpoon incident and a previous accident arm Gonzalo with enough ammunition to take out restraining orders against Angela and initiate the process of filing for full custody of the kids. Nonetheless, since his wife discovers the truth about Roberto before the trial, it gives her an advantage to build her own case against him. With Esther and Ander’s help, she wants to prove Gonzalo’s abusive gaslighting scheme. Initially, Angela attempts to do so by uncovering the financial trail any partnership between her husband and Roberto would have left behind. Roberto is the owner of a bar that was previously shut down on account of health and safety hazards. However, ever since her arrest, it seems to have renewed its license, returning to business. Therefore, Angela realizes it’s no coincidence that Gonzalo just happens to be friends with Gorka Santos, a city planning official.

Further sleuthy digging into the latter’s finances reveals that he had hired the landscaping services of a company at exorbitant prices. In turn, the company had belonged to Santos’ husband. As such, the trail of bribery and money laundering becomes clear, giving weight to Angela’s defence. Yet, on the day of the trial, she realizes that she needs more concrete proof. Once she realizes Gonzalo had stolen her old diaries from her mother’s house, a new plan begins to take hold. Using the bar’s lack of safety as leverage, Angela convinces Roberto to bring her husband out to his bar by convincing him that traces of the stolen diaries were left behind on his computer. Once he arrives at the location, Angela confronts him, and it doesn’t take long for things to take a violent turn. However, unbeknownst to Gonzalo, the laptop’s camera catches the entire incident, sharing it with the school’s board over an online meeting. As a result, the reality of his abuse finally comes out in the open.

Does Angela Get to See Her Kids Again?

Angela’s relationship with her kids remains complicated, mainly due to an incident that took place when the girls were still toddlers. The birth of the twins took a toll on the mother, who remained severely unsupported during the early days. While she was forced to quit her job and stay at home, her husband continued on with his life, refusing to be of any real help with the twins. In fact, he would repeatedly demean and belittle her during any intense and frustrating moments when the circumstances would overwhelm her. Furthermore, he had impossible demands from the new mother, discouraging the use of formula for feeding or even daycare. Eventually, once Angela managed to win that argument and set the babies up for daycare, a workplace emergency erupted the first time she was dropping the twins off.

As a result, Angela forgot to drop her daughters off at daycare and rushed to the office to put out professional fires. Unfortunately, in doing so, she accidentally left her daughters alone in the locked car. Hours passed before anyone took notice of the incident and reached out to the authorities for help. Even though the babies were saved in the nick of time, the incident cast a sobering shadow on Angela’s motherhood and her relationship with Gonzalo. The latter continued to hold the accident over her head, compelling her to feel guilty and subsequently grateful to her husband. For the same reason, she allowed herself to excuse his behavior once the domestic violence began. Later, Gonzalo used the same incident to get full custody of the girls. Nonetheless, in the end, by proving his abusive behavior, Angela manages to win the case against him, finally reuniting with her daughters.

What Happens to Roberto?

Since Angela uses recorded evidence of Gonzalo’s abuse to reveal the truth about his character, his attachment to Roberto manages to fly under the authorities’ radar. Even though the woman proves the truth behind her words, it’s difficult to find any concrete evidence that would prove Roberto is the same man who pretended to be Edu to gaslight and trick her. Still, he eventually receives his comeuppance, delivered at the hands of Angela herself. Roberto’s bar was initially shut down due to its lack of safety regulations, as the exposed electric wiring presented a huge fire hazard. Nonetheless, thanks to his subtle deal with Gonzalo, he manages to get a new license for the place.

In the end, Angela gives Roberto a chance to do the right thing by fixing the wiring issue and creating a safe space for his business. The fact that his girlfriend, Rosa, is pregnant likely acts as some incentive for the mother to refrain from directly going after the bar owner. She wants to give the kid a chance ot grow up with a father. Yet, she also recognizes the danger that the Red Fish Tavern poses to its many young patrons. Therefore, once Angela is out of the hospital, starting to put her life back together, she and Esther go out on one last adventure. The duo sneaks into the empty bar and messes with the wiring to start a fire. As a result, she gets her revenge on Roberto by ruining his hazardous business.