The Better Sister Ending Explained: Who Killed Adam?

At the end of Prime Video’s ‘The Better Sister,’ we finally learn the identity of Adam’s killer in a shocking revelation that complicates matters even further for sisters Chloe and Nicky. After battling to have their son Ethan’s name cleared, the mystery of Adam’s murder turns into a frenetic race where the authorities and the two sisters must work against the clock to thwart one another, as doubts are cast on all parties involved. Subsequently, past secrets come to light, threatening to tear apart the status quo, leaving the fates of our central characters hanging in the balance. As a result, Chloe and Nicky have to put aside their differences and learn to live and work with one another as enemies gather around their castle, with Adam’s death at the center of it all. SPOILERS AHEAD.

The Better Sister Plot Recap

Chloe Talor is the head of a famed magazine around the country known as The Real Thing. She has a close relationship with her son Ethan, but her bond with her husband, Adam, is slightly more strained. As a consequence of her growing popularity as an empowered female figure running her own company, she attracts people’s attention all the time. However, at times, this attention can be unwarranted and undue. Such is the case when she receives a parcel with cryptic threats and a superimposed picture of her face over someone else’s naked body. When she informs Adam about the parcel, he immediately suggests hiring professional security to keep them both safe. She decides to put it off until later. That night, after attending an event at a prestigious hotel, Chloe returns home to find Adam’s bloodied dead body lying on the living room floor.

After calling 911, Chloe is taken to the police station, where she is questioned by detectives Nancy Guidry and Matt Bowen, who ask her the details surrounding the night’s events and what led to her finding Adam’s body inside the house. During the interrogation process, Chloe gets the sense that Nancy is highly suspicious of her answers and seems to be monitoring her every move. The following morning, Chloe and the cops inform her son Ethan about Adam’s death. At this point, we finally learn that Chloe is actually Ethan’s stepmother. In fact, Ethan’s biological mother is Nicky, Chloe’s sister, who was married to Adam before he filed a restraining order against her for threatening Ethan’s life during one of her drunken episodes. The incident tore Ethan away from his biological mother while Chloe became his de facto mother in her absence, especially after she started dating Adam.

The complicated family dynamics between Chloe and Nicky are of special interest to the detectives investigating Adam’s death. They contact Nicky to inform her about Adam’s case while also urging her to come to New York as she is Ethan’s legal guardian, a status not shared by Chloe, much to her chagrin. After Nicky’s arrival, old tensions flare between the two sisters as they try to assert their control over Ethan in separate ways, trying to ensure he does not get involved in the murder case. However, eventually, the cops dig up evidence that places Ethan on the scene of the crime, suggesting that he may have something to do with Adam’s murder. This link becomes all the more prescient when the boy’s alibi for the night of the murder proves faulty, and his relationship with his dad is revealed to be fraught with ill feelings.

The Better Sister Ending: Who is Adam’s Murderer? Why?

The first significant suspect in Adam’s murder is Ethan, his own son. After the police increase their probe into the matter, they arrest the boy, tracing a pattern of lies in his answers to the cops. As such, both Chloe and Nicky have to hire a special attorney with experience in dealing with teenage clients, Michelle Sanders, to head the case. Using a variety of legal strategies, she, Chloe, and Nicky manage to wrangle Ethan away from the accusations leveled at him by the state and his brief stint in prison. However, in the wake of his release, the mystery surrounding Adam’s murder remains just as prescient and unsolved as before. Therefore, it comes as a shock when the truth finally comes out at the end without any seeming provocation – Nicky, Adam’s ex-wife, and Chloe’s sister, is the murderer.

Many years ago, Nicky handed Ethan a secret flip phone to communicate with her, a device whose existence was not known to either Chloe or Adam. While Ethan had no interest in talking with Nicky initially, he started conversing more with her during his later teenage years, curious about his real mom. During one of those secret chats, Ethan informed Nicky that Adam was being physically abusive towards Chloe, a sight that often terrified him. Worried about her sister’s well-being and Adam’s darker nature, Nicky decided to confront him once and for all and save her sister from her ex-husband’s clutches. However, during the visit, things went out of hand, and Adam tried to physically overpower her. In an act of desperation (and seeming self-defense), she took out a knife and stabbed him.

After returning to her Cleveland, Ohio, home, Nicky acted as if she had no idea about Adam’s murder. However, the call from the cops arrived not long after she made it back inside. She reveals the truth to Chloe in the present day after the latter learns that Adam lied about her sister’s drinking problem and how it led to Ethan almost dying. In fact, he fabricated the entire claim by drugging Nicky, thereby convincing the authorities that he was right. When Chloe learns the truth, she is disgusted by Adam’s action, especially because it ruined her sister’s life forever. Despite their many arguments throughout the series, it is the one moment Chloe feels deeply sorry and empathetic towards her sister. Thus, when she learns about Nicky committing the murder, she decides to defend her sister and help her escape the situation rather than hand her over to the authorities.

Is Bill Braddock Arrested?

Once Chloe learns the truth about Nicky’s crime, the two sisters realize they have to come up with a way to protect one another without falling prey to the forces accumulating around them. For Chloe, this means dealing with her deceased husband’s connection to the Gentry Group and his boss, Bill Braddock’s alleged corrupt ties with the organization. The problem becomes all the more tricky to handle because of the involvement of the FBI, which is led by a conniving agent named Edward Olivero. He puts Chloe under a lot of pressure to dig up any evidence she might find on the Gentry Group and their business relationship with Braddock and Braddock. However, when she goes through with the plan, Olivero pulls the plug on her, leaving her to deal with the situation on her own once more.

Near the end of the narrative, a desperate Chloe searches her husband’s bedroom once more to find any documents he may have left behind of what he found about the Gentry Group while working undercover with the FBI. After a thorough search, Chloe discovers a secret file and audio tapes hidden under the safe’s false bottom, information that directly leads to Braddock’s illegitimate deals with Gentry. She immediately seals the file and sends a copy of it to Officer Matt Bowen anonymously. In the meantime, she presents another set of files to Braddock, using it as a gift of good gesture to regain his confidence, pledging her allegiance to him wholeheartedly. However, this is merely a ploy for her to double-cross him behind his back.

Therefore, in the final parts of the show, we witness Officer Matt Bowen work in conjunction with Olivero to conduct a raid of Braddock’s personal residence while also apprehending the man for the various incriminating evidence Chloe planted in the house on her way out. His arrest is a significant win for the two sisters because it conveniently shifts the attention for Adam’s murder away from them and Ethan and puts it firmly on a shady business transaction gone wrong, specifically at the doorstep of Bill Braddock. His arrest puts an end to a major evil in the world, mainly because of the disturbing work carried out by the Gentry Group and how he was facilitating it. Additionally, it makes it look as if Adam’s murder has finally been solved, even though the sisters know that is far from the case.

How Does Nicky Thwart Detective Guidry?

While Bill Braddock’s arrest is one part of Chloe and Nicky’s solution to escaping the law, the second part of their plan comes to fruition through the efforts of the latter. After heading out on a casual fishing trip outside the city, Nicky and Ethan spend some time together as a mother-and-son duo. During the trip, Nicky gets in touch with the private investigator Chloe hired to look into the stalker sending threats to her. It turns out that the man was digging into Detective Nancy Guidry’s past and trying to find something bad on her record. In one such record, the PI found that Guidry had beaten up a black man accidentally without realizing it was the wrong culprit. The whole matter was swept under the carpet by her higher-ups, even though she should have been charged with gross negligence of duty and lazy racial profiling, a severe black mark on anyone’s career.

When Nicky gets her hands on the report, she is immediately intrigued by the possibilities it presents. Worried that Guidry was too persistent and the most likely candidate to figure out the truth behind Adam’s murder, she had hired the PI to investigate the detective and find any skeletons in her closet that might be of use. And now that she finally had it, she could use it to further her own interests. She immediately takes the file to Katherine, who, like Nicky, is delighted by the fact that she can take the detective out of the equation, someone who has regularly been a thorn in everyone’s side. Katherine releases an article blaspheming Guidry’s reputation, utilizing the info from Nicky’s report. As a result, the higher-ups are forced to place the cop on a temporary leave of absence, akin to a suspension.

The irony of Guidry’s fate is that moments before her career comes crumbling down, she learns that Nicky was the one who murdered Adam. After making a secret trip to Nicky’s Cleveland home, she sits down with Nicky’s mother to discuss her movements on the night before the murder was committed. The details gathered during the conversation suggest to Guidry that Nicky was the murderer all along, even though she has no official way to prove it. Unfortunately for her, her zeal to get to the bottom of the affair is cut short abruptly when she realizes that her dirty past has resurfaced, returning to haunt her in full force. Thus, with her out of the way, the two sisters are finally clear of any danger, eliminating their worst enemies and framing someone else to take the fall.

Does Jake Die?

Despite things seemingly working out for the sisters, the same cannot be said for others like Jake. At the end of ‘The Better Sister,’ we shockingly learn that Jake has died through some mysterious circumstance, the most likely answer being suicide. In an earlier scene, we see him agitated and desperate for Chloe’s help after FBI Agent Edward Olivero starts to squeeze him dry by forcing him to procure the incriminating evidence he requires to nail the Gentry Group. As a result, Jake finds himself stuck between a rock and a hard place, trying to decide which outcome suits him best. During this trying period, he loses his job at Braddock and Braddock, which further decreases his chances of accessing any files he might find on the Gentry Group. Therefore, the onus falls on Chloe to help him out.

Worried about Jake’s state of mind, Chloe contacts Michelle Sanders, hoping that she might check up on him as his friend. However, she is incredibly dismissive, especially after learning about the mess Chloe and Jake are involved in. Later, when the protagonist successfully manages to trap Bill Braddock, having him arrested as a result, it seems that Chloe has done her part by rescuing Jake from a precarious situation. Yet, the final scene reveals that the man is dead, possibly after drowning at sea, either through his own volition or some other form of foul play. The possibility of Olivero killing Jake exists. Still, it is more likely that Jake succumbed to the pressures on his psyche and either died via suicide or had a tragic accident while diving. Either way, his fate is much darker than that awaiting the sisters.

Do Nicky and Ethan Move Away? Do the Sisters Reconcile?

As we approach the final parts of ‘The Better Sister,’ a new challenge threatens to rip apart Nicky and Chloe’s reforged bond. The former decides to go back to Cleveland, Ohio, with Ethan in tow, an idea he backs wholeheartedly. The plan comes into Nicky’s head mainly because of her concern that despite Chloe’s best intentions, her primary focus always lies on her job as the CEO of The Real Thing. As such, she worries that leaving Ethan in such an environment will only alienate him further and make him desperately need parental guidance. More specifically, Nicky is miffed off by Chloe’s plans to turn their experiences as sisters into a memoir, an idea Katherine floated. Thus, Nicky confronts her sister about the matter, offering her an ultimatum to set her loyalties straight or risk losing her sister and son forever.

Upon hearing Nicky’s concerns, Chloe states that despite what seems on the surface, the most important things in her life are Nicky and Ethan. In a moment of honesty, Chloe says that she has missed her sister for all the years they remained apart, showcasing how much she means to her. Subsequently, they both watch the live TV news coverage of Bill Braddock’s arrest, which is reported across different channels. Seeing this unfold, Nicky seems to have a change of mind, learning that Chloe went an extra step to ensure her family is safe no matter what. Although it is not stated overtly, it is likely the moment she decides that staying in New York and raising Ethan with Chloe is probably in everyone’s best interests. In fact, it is the best way to cure all the mess that happened in their past.

In the final moments, Chloe and Nicky sit down on the beach and have an intimate moment together, reflecting on their strength as a duo. It is a rare moment where they positively embrace the unity in their bond, a sharp contrast to their earlier arguments and constant bickering throughout the show. Rather than tearing each other down, the scene shows them building each other up, something they should have been doing from the start. It isn’t until the very end of the season that the sisters realize the importance and value of having someone look after their back rather than being antagonistic all the time. It is reinforced even further when Nicky states that she is willing to write a new journey together, a moment that highlights the love they hold for one another, especially as they imagine their younger selves sitting down and comforting one another.