A shocking event at the end of the first episode binds the two characters together, but Fran’s motivations remain unclear throughout. Until we get to the finale, when all is revealed.
But just what happened in that final episode? What did Ria uncover about Fran’s business? And where did we leave each of the central characters?
Read on for everything you need to know about the ending of The Guest.
What did Ria find out about Fran?
Ria found out that she had been recruited as part of a scheme ran by Fran many times before. It involved finding young women, hiring them as cleaners, then promoting them to assistants.
Mike would also be used to bring them in, like he did with both Ria and her predecessor, Anna. His death had been caused simply because he had gone off script while on cocaine.
Once Fran gains the trust of the women and they become reliant on her, she uses them to launder drug money.
The business operated as follows; Fran’s husband Simon shipped in prescription drugs, Fran would sort them and then Richard would sell them to, as Fran said, “bored housewives” and “middle class office workers living for the weekend”. Fran would then send her assistants to Dubai with the cash, and there it would be converted into cryptocurrency.
Each of the assistants would only do it for a short time to earn some money, then move on. Fran saw this as her way of giving back, helping other women move up the economic and social ladder.
However, Fran said Anna had been stealing from them, and so she had been killed, presumably by Simon or Richard.
What did Fran do?
In the finale of The Guest, Ria woke up believing she had killed Fran’s husband, Simon. In actual fact, it later becomes clear that Fran had killed Simon herself.
Simon was abusive, so much so that Fran had to have her own room that she could lock herself in to escape his wrath and his violence. On the night he died, he had been hurting and threatening her when she hit him in self defence and killed him.
She had then drugged Ria and framed her by placing the murder weapon in her hand. Ria went on the run, and managed to find out the truth. However, just as she did so, she was intercepted by Richard, who wanted to stop her from exposing the operation.
She was taken to a secure location where she and Fran finally had it out and opened up to one another. As Ria broke down, Fran told her she saw herself in her. That’s why she gave her the job and the opportunity.
Richard tried to poison Ria, but Fran saved her at the last moment by hitting Richard over the head with a bowl. She freed Ria and allowed her to make a run for it.
Where did we leave Ria and Fran?
Two weeks after Ria escaped, a radio report revealed that Fran was on the run from the police, with their drug operation having been exposed and Fran being implicated in Simon’s murder.
Richard had been caught and was expected to go to jail for, as Sharla said, “the rest of his life”. Ria had been completely exonerated.
Meanwhile, Lee had got himself a job, and Ria was planning a backpacking trip abroad.
At the very end of the series, Ria received a letter containing a cryptocurrency drive that she had found in Richard’s lock-up, containing the proceeds of their operation.
She had taken Fran’s advice when she had said to take what she could. As Ria loaded the device, she saw the amount on the screen tick up into the high hundreds of thousands, and very likely the millions. She smiled, as she knew she had secured a new future for herself.
The Guest is available to stream in full on BBC iPlayer.
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