Abhiroop Das
Created by Bernardo Izaza Capdevielle, Netflix’s ‘Final Project,’ also known as ‘Proyecto Final’ in Spanish, centers around Tamara, a newcomer to the prestigious Campos Academy, who becomes the target of relentless bullying and abuse, not just in school, but also online. When one of the bullies, Xavi, comes to her with the proposal of a friendship, Tamara momentarily lets her guard down, only to be caught up in a rabbit hole of love, lies, and deceit. All the mysteries of this story find themselves linked by a mysterious thread, and to uncover that, Tamara and Xavi must face the reality of their emotions and go from there. By the end of this Mexican teen psychological thriller, the characters have a rather unusual coming-of-age, one marked by an even mix of hope and darkness. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Final Project Plot Recap
‘Final Project’ begins with a flashforward to three friends, Xavi, Pato, and Samantha, sneaking into the middle of nowhere in the dead of the night, not to have fun, but to dump a body. Instead of burying it underground, however, they choose to let it sit there in isolation, swearing never to bring it up. The show then rewinds back to a month before any of this, and we are introduced to a fourth character, Tamara. New to the Campos Academy, she is often bullied due to being a loner with a unique aesthetic. Her only friend in this school is Daniel, a filmmaking enthusiast who invites her to join him in the submission of their graduation project. Xavi, the popular boy of the school, also doesn’t have a project idea in mind and decides to manipulate Tamara and turn their dynamic into material for his work.
Daniel’s film is about bullies and the people affected by them, and to that, Tamara suggests bringing in Xavi as an opposing narrative voice. In this process, however, Tamara and Xavi end up getting closer, even when Xavi’s girlfriend, Samantha, gets furious about all of this. Eventually, Xavi and Samantha decide to do their project by themselves, and in the process, they confess to having feelings. However, Samantha, who is only in a relationship with Xavi because she knows of his family secrets, concocts a malicious plan, baiting Tamara to walk into Xavi’s house, before knocking her out and trapping her in a casket. By the time Xavi comes to know of this, things get too out of hand, and Pato declares that Tamara is dead, which is how we catch up to the show’s opening scene.
Though pressured into dumping Tamara’s body and keeping shut about it, Xavi cannot let go of the love he has for her. To his surprise, though, messages from Tamara’s phone reach everyone in the school, and soon thereafter, Violetta, a Tamara look-alike, but with a completely different personality and fashion, makes her entry into the class. As it turns out, Violetta is secretly Tamara, who survived the assault and is back to take revenge on the trio. Over time, however, she begins to realize that it wasn’t Xavi who planned the attack on her, but by then, an unknown person seems to be stalking her, sending threatening messages to toy with her mind. When Tamara reveals her identity to Xavi, the mystery person unleashes his real plan, revealing himself to be none other than Daniel.
Final Project Ending: Do Tamara and Xavi End up Together?
‘Final Project’ ends with Tamara and Xavi reuniting against all odds, after Daniel, the true antagonist, is apprehended. Despite the misunderstandings piling up over the course of several episodes, she eventually comes to realize that Xavi really wanted to save her life that day, but was forced by Pato and Samantha to cover up the events. However, with Tamara herself surviving the ordeal and joining his side, Xavi manages to get some grace from the police. To top things off, Tamara also manages to bait Pato into telling the truth while he’s being recorded, which gives the police all the evidence they need to make their conclusion. However, a series of last-minute hiccups only test Tamara and Xavi’s resolve further, and in the end, he only barely manages to survive.
After Daniel knocks Xavi unconscious and ties him up in the photography room, we learn that his grand motivation has always been to give his documentary, a metafictional nod to the show itself, a shocking ending. However, Tamara is able to interject just in time, fighting off Daniel and taking the attention away from Xavi. The latter doesn’t go scratch-free, though, as prior to Tamara’s arrival, Daniel manages to bludgeon him with a hammer. In a way, this is an ironic callback to Xavi building an online career out of bone-smashing, highlighting the superficiality of his life. Now that it’s shattered, both literally and metaphorically, we get to see his and Tamara’s real love story bloom. It doesn’t matter to Tamara what happens to Xavi’s face from hereon out, as what she loves is the person he truly is deep down.
In the aftermath of the graduation day fiasco, we see the lovebirds reunite at the hospital, where Xavi presently cannot even move a muscle without wincing in pain. However, Tamara is still able to sneak in a kiss, reaffirming her love for him. Now that the worst is behind them, the couple can celebrate their shared coming-of-age journey, one that ends in such a spectacular fashion. Having changed drastically in the span of a few months, they can claim to have become better, kinder human beings, unlike their classmates and others. While roadblocks are still inevitable in this relationship, at the very least, the two are going to be fully honest with each other, come what may.
Where Does Daniel Disappear? Why Does He Target Xavi?
Though Xavi and Tamara get their happy ending in ‘Final Project,’ Daniel’s story gets wrapped up in a rather ambiguous fashion. After he chases Tamara down the hallway and at least half the school’s length, we suddenly see him disappear into the shadows. The only time he gets brought up after that is when Tamara asks if he’s caught. To everyone’s surprise, the police reveal that he was apprehended, off-screen, and will likely face charges. Curiously, the camera cuts to Pato when this is brought up, which raises the question as to why we never see Daniel again. If the police’s account is to be believed, then he truly is behind bars. However, there is also a more sinister possibility that can be considered.
There is a chance that Daniel isn’t actually arrested just yet, but has simply escaped, leaving the police with a false suspect. The strongest reason going into this theory is how suspiciously, and with conscious narrative effect, he just slithers out of the school. That cannot be the last time we see him or hear about his documentary, and it is unlikely that he would sacrifice his magnum opus in the face of anything. This entire series is shaped largely through his desire to capture the ultimate story of a bullied person confronting their bully, and to make that happen, he is even willing to mold reality as he sees fit. With Xavi and Tamara becoming lovers instead of friends, Daniel’s perfect conceptualization gets thwarted, which is why he begins targeting Xavi in the hopes of punishing him, not for his friend’s sake, but for selfish reasons.
Moreover, Tamara eventually realizes that there is another dimension to Daniel’s actions, one connected to the feelings he likely has for her. Though their dynamic is labeled as sibling-like early on, it turns out that Daniel was doing all of this to become the sole friend in Tamara’s life. With Xavi’s arrival, that dream is squashed, and this prompts Daniel to embark on a long journey to manipulate everyone into hating Xavi before he is ultimately arrested. At one point, Daniel also expresses that he is always left out of anything that happens in school, which is our third key into his mind. While making the documentary, he likely comes to associate with Tamara’s character too much, taking on the mantle of the bullying survivor fighting back against the bully, in this case, Xavi. None of this pans out, however, and while we don’t know his exact fate, he is no longer a threat, for now.
Are Pato and Samantha Arrested?
The real masterminds behind Tamara’s pseudo-death, Pato and Samantha, are met with a fitting conclusion in the form of an arrest. Despite avoiding police suspicion all this time, going as far as to break the “blood-pact” and pin the blame singularly on Xavi, the truth about the duo is eventually revealed to the police. At the end, both get arrested by the police, alongside Daniel, though he is not shown again. The entire school comes to know about what truly happened, and how the students once deemed the most popular school are, in reality, criminals who don’t mind throwing anyone under the bus in the name of self-preservation.
Though there is an argument to be made that Pato and Samantha injure Tamara in a moment of chaos and confusion, it’s their reaction the following day that makes things clear. Unlike Xavi, who cannot bring himself to move on, Pato and Samantha quickly return to a life of indulgence, ignoring what happened to Tamara as if it were an inconvenience. This lack of remorse indicates that they barely even see Tamara as human, which ultimately becomes the reason for their downfall. In their desperate attempts to preserve a sense of power while they are still technically “children,” Pato and Samantha lose their humanity along the way. Xavi, by contrast, comes out of this saga as a more empathetic person, which is what makes his relationship with Tamara special.
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