WARNING: This article contains major spoilers from Better
Better recently started on the BBC with the entire series dropped in one go on the BBC iPlayer and some people binging their way through it. The series, which is already gaining comparisons to Happy Valley, focused on a corrupt Leeds police officer DI Lou Slack (played by Leila Farzad) trying to go straight and take down informant and crime lord Col McHugh (Andrew Buchan) after working with the shady gangster for so long. However, fans are keen to know whether Lou was finally able to do “better” and leave behind her own dodgy past.
Vernon was grilled about Bulgey’s death
The finale picked up directly in the aftermath of the last episode, the next morning.
Following the shocking penultimate episode in which Vernon Marley (played by Anton Lesser) shot dead Peter ‘Bulgey’ Donovan (Garry Cooper) and burned down his house to save Lou, he found himself being grilled.
Lou and Phillip Cowper (Gavin Spokes) interrogated him.
Vernon gave his story including how he shot dead the supposed intruder with an illegal weapon he’d acquired while he was a police officer back in the 1990s.
Lou fell under suspicion
Senior detective Sandy Mosby (Lucy Black) was watching the interview playing out and was left intrigued when Lou started asking Vernon if he’d like a solicitor present and warned he would later regret it, potentially ending up serving time.
This moment seemed to throw some suspicion onto Lou as she appeared to be trying to silence Vernon.
Vernon refused her and continued with the interrogation, saying he wasn’t sure what was going on in Bulgey’s mind when he broke into his house.
Things got more tense as Vernon was quizzed over why he set his house on fire with the former copper saying he “panicked”.
Added onto this, forensics found a trace of nude nail polish which implied a woman had been in his house, forcing Vernon to take another tactic.
He told Philip he wanted Lou out of the room on the pretences of holding a grudge towards her family.
Vernon managed to get Lou out of the interview room in the hopes of stopping her from becoming implicated in the crime.
Lou was panicking herself and trying to keep her cool, knowing she could go down if it all came out.
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Esther quit the police force
DC Esther Okoye (Olivia Nakintu) was revealed to have gone on long-term sick leave and handing in her notice with Mosby questioning what had gone on between Lou and the other officer.
Lou lied about what transpired between her and Esther and where she’d got in intel from when she’d stopped Col McHugh only to come up with nothing.
Mosby wasn’t convinced by Lou’s words but she said she’d found out either way.
Lou stepped down from the McHugh case
Lou was looking through burner phone records but again tried to throw suspicion off her by telling another officer to just let it go. But it was clear the guilt was too much for her.
She later told Phil her head was all over the place and said she wanted to leave the task force and the murder and anything related to McHugh.
The detective said wanted to leave it up him to take down the “big fish” but he was unsure saying Sandy wouldn’t have any of it.
Lou and Esther met
Lou’s colleagues wanted to know why Esther quit but she remained tight-lipped.
Instead, Lou went around to see Esther but her former colleague refused to speak to her and so she left a message, saying the service needed people like her to care otherwise nothing would ever change.
But Lou went even further than this and said Esther was nothing like her and if she returned to the service then she would step down and leave.
After hearing Lou’s words, Esther came to speak directly to her but said she couldn’t come back because she’d been used for corrupt ends without her knowledge.
She told Lou reporting her for corruption was the right thing to do but knew nothing good would come of it.
Lou tried to change her ways
After stepping down from the task force, Lou and her husband Ceri Davies (Samuel Edward-Cook) had words about Esther’s departure from the force and whether she would spill the beans.
But Lou was struggling with the guilt and was told she had to “live with it” by Ceri, but he also said she was in the right line of work if she wanted to make amends for the past.
The couple then discussed what they were going to do with £80,000 they had with Lou deciding to give it to the people who most needed it.
She then started to give names relating to the McHugh crime syndicate as she wanted to turn over a new leaf.
Lou even made some donations as they continued to give away money and stayed out of the case with the McHughs.
Later, she tried to see Vernon but he refused to meet with her as tension mounted about whether she would also go down.
Cer and Lou went out for a fancy dinner with the officer apologising to her partner for pushing them into this life together. He said he didn’t want the corrupt gangster life but wanted to be with her.
Lou and Noel meet
She later went to visit Noel Wilkes (Kara Moore) in prison and she needed to call in a favour, telling him when he got out he could make a clean start with the spectre of Col looming over him.
Lou said the gangster didn’t have to define him but Noel wasn’t interested in hearing what she had to say.
Curtis took over Col’s business
At the McHugh residence, ‘Curtis’ Lord Roy (Mark Monero) was asking Col his boss if he thought Bulgey’s death could be linked somehow to Lou.
Later in the episode, Curtis visited Col’s place again and saw the crime lord seemed to have lost his edge. Col was gardening in the middle of the pouring rain as he dealt with his grief.
Curtis asked Col what he wanted to do with Bulgey now out of the picture and Slack no longer protecting them, saying they needed a plan.
He also revealed Vernon was now in a prison and needed to be dealt with, but Col seemed to have zero interest as he tried to stop his garden from becoming waterlogged.
Curtis said he was happy to take care of things while Col was in his bereaved state.
Vernon is killed by Noel
Vernon gave a full confession for Bulgey’s death and was being held in a secure unit on account of his arm, which needed to be healed before he was allowed to mix with the rest of the prison population.
Eventually, Vernon was back in the general prison population and seemed to be happy but there was foreshadowing of something bad to come.
Noel later approached him and shanked him after admitting he’d been coerced by Col into killing him. The young man apologised to Vernon after stabbing him with the former copper forgiving him for his actions.
This meant Noel’s chances of getting out were looking very slim and the young man still in the thrall of the McHughs.
Vernon’s death wasn’t in vain
Vernon’s death linked the whole case together and was the thing needed to take down the McHughs with the taskforce assembling.
Lou was eaten up with guilt for Venon essentially sacrificing himself and giving her a way out of her corrupt life. She later went to Vernon’s funeral and was given his personal effects, leaving her emotional.
Lou went to visit her mother after so long as she again tried to make amends. She said she had been too young to get to know her father. But she also asked her mother if anyone was beyond saying with Lou’s mum saying no one was, which gave her hope.
Lou later told Cer she needed to take down Col for Vernon because everything was her fault.
Cer was left troubled by her decision with her husband saying he would take their son Owen Davies (Zak Ford-Williams) to his parents home to keep them both out of harm’s way as Lou went after the dangerous gangster.
Owen and Lou had a heart-to-heart as she said goodbye to her family and went on the mission to take down the McHughs once and for all with her family fearing for her.
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Lou went after the McHughs
She broke into Vernon’s house and found the gun behind the garden gnome as he’d told her about.
Lou then contacted Col to tell him she wanted to give him something and on top of that she said she’d found a note on Aoife McHugh and would give it to him – but this was just a tactic to lure out the mobster.
They agreed to meet at their designated spot with Col turning up and Lou pulling out a gun on him. She revealed what really happened with Bulgey and Vernon, saying she was “all out of ideas” about how to deal with Col but said she needed to stop him
Lou couldn’t pull the trigger on Col, saying he was “like a brother” to her, nonetheless, she confessed she was going to hand herself in and reveal her dodgy history with his criminal gang.
She asked Col not to hurt her family as she handed over the gun to him.
He then spoke about his grief at losing Aoife, revealing he had actually found his daughter’s suicide note and knew Lots was bluffing. He said after Aiofe’s death the fire had gone out of him.
Col and Lou handed themselves in
Both Lou and Col were at an impasse with the police officer saying they could go in together and confess everything.
They both know it needed to end and there was no way out with only the truth giving them an exit for their misdeeds.
Then they waited to hand themselves in with no one turning up for a while until finally someone came down to process them. The screen then cut to black as it was uncertain what had happened to them after they confessed all.
Better is streaming on BBC iPlayer now