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Netflix’s Secrets We Keep Ending Explained: What Really Happened To Ruby & Why?
Warning: this article contains SPOILERS for Secrets We Keep, and it covers potentially triggering topics including rape and murder.
Netflix’s Nordic noir miniseries Secrets We Keep begins with a mysterious disappearance and ends with a shocking reveal. The series follows the disappearance of an au pair, Ruby, from her host family’s home in a wealthy neighborhood of Copenhagen. While her employers seem not to care about her whereabouts, her neighbor, Cecilie, along with Ruby’s friend Angel and a detective named Aicha, attempt to figure out what really happened to Ruby. Secrets We Keep‘s cast all give phenomenal performances that bring depth to the characters, even in the show’s darker moments.
As the mystery series unfolds, Cecilie begins to suspect that someone close to her was involved in Ruby’s disappearance. After finding a pregnancy test, she becomes even more concerned and confides in Aicha that Rasmus, Ruby’s employer, may have been involved. She even comes to suspect her own husband may have had an affair with Ruby, but the truth is even more disturbing. The crime drama highlights just how dark human behavior can become, and the lengths that some people are willing to go to maintain their power.
Did Katarina Kill Ruby? Her Confrontation With Cecilie In Secrets We Keep’s Ending Explained
The Series Implies Katarina Was Behind Ruby’s Fate
Tensions come to a head in the final episode of Secrets We Keep, as Cecilie learns the disturbing truth behind Ruby’s disappearance. After her body was found in a marina in the previous episode, the police were able to conclude that Ruby was pregnant, as Cecilie had suspected. The police initially suspected. Cecilie’s husband, Mike, who had a previous rape conviction, leading the police and Cecilie to suspect that Mike had assaulted Ruby and killed her upon learning she was pregnant.
However, both Mike and Katarina’s husband, Rasmus, take paternity tests that prove they are not the father. Interestingly, Rasmus’s test came back with a 24.1% match, indicating that while he is not the father, he is related to the father. It is precisely this connection that leads Katarina to become involved in the case to defend her family. Secrets We Keep’s ending reveals that Katarina learned of this connection from Ruby the night of her disappearance, leading Cecilie to realize that Katarina was Ruby’s murderer.
In fact, keeping Katarina’s guilt implicit emphasizes the show’s point further; it does not matter if Katarina killed Ruby because she was always going to get away with it.
In the final moments of the series, Cecilie confronts Katarina to ask if she killed Ruby, and to her horror Katarina says, “What if I did?” Though Katarina laughs about the moment and the death of her au pair, the response is utterly horrifying. Katarina never fully admits that she did kill Ruby, though it is the natural assumption that the show leads viewers to. Keeping Katarina’s guilt implicit emphasizes the show’s point further; it does not matter if Katarina killed Ruby because she was always going to get away with it.
Secrets We Keep’s Ending Reveals Ruby Was Pregnant After Oscar’s Assault
Ruby Was Proof Of Oscar’s Dark Side
Even before learning of Katarina’s role in Ruby’s death, audiences come to a startling conclusion about the father of her baby. Given that Rasmus was a 24.1% DNA match with Ruby’s baby, the culprit had to be someone related to him. The only option left was Katarina and Rasmus’s teenage son, Oscar. It is clear from the outset that there is something off about Oscar, largely through his disturbing group chat and opinions about women, and Secrets We Keep eventually reveals that he raped Ruby, resulting in her becoming pregnant.
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Oscar’s behavior, from his threats towards Viggo to his repeated filming of Cecilie without her consent, was problematic from the start, but the revelation that such a young boy could commit a horrifying act of violence is one that changes Cecilie profoundly. In the final episode, Oscar appears in Cecilie’s kitchen and repeats the assertion that Ruby was paid to like him, implying that he did not even fully see Ruby as a human being but as an object there for his enjoyment.
Why The Boys Had An Explicit Group Message In Secrets We Keep
Secrets We Keep Draws Attention To Toxic Teen Boy Culture
Secrets We Keep sets up the subplot of Cecilie and Mike’s son, Viggo, and Katarina and Rasmus’s son, Oscar, being in an explicit group chat fairly early on. Oscar’s voyeuristic tendencies are clear from episode 1, and the group chat’s explicit content is fully exposed by episode 2. The series shares that if Viggo does not post an inappropriate photo or video, he will be kicked out of the group chat, showing the pressure that the boys place on each other to be sexist towards girls their own age and grown women.
The wealthy young boys view their surroundings as belonging to them, or, at the very least, something that they have control over.
While the show never explicitly states why the boys made the group chat in the first place, it can be assumed that it relates to their views on women and the world. The wealthy young boys view their surroundings as belonging to them, or, at the very least, something that they have control over. As a result, they do not see women and girls as people but as objects, laying the groundwork for why Oscar eventually went on to rape Ruby and why he seemingly had no remorse for his actions.
Why Oscar Isn’t Punished For His Crime Against Ruby
His Family’s Wealth And Power Shielded Him
Viewers will find one of the most frustrating aspects of Secrets We Keep is the lack of justice in its resolution, but even this choice hammers the series’ themes home. Despite the police having DNA proof that Oscar is the father of Ruby’s baby and Viggo having seen a video of Oscar raping Ruby, Secrets We Keep concludes with the police ruling Ruby’s death a suicide. In large part, this is due to the fact that Katarina had deleted Oscar’s footage, meaning that the case would be Oscar’s word against Viggo’s that the video existed.
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In addition to Katarina getting rid of the evidence against her son, Ruby’s death meant that she could not testify that she was raped. With no evidence apart from Ruby’s pregnancy itself, Katarina and Rasmus would have been able to argue that it was Ruby who had assaulted Oscar, not the other way around, because he was under the age of 15. Though Cecilie knows the truth, even she is not willing to put her son through a potentially traumatic trial, showing that Oscar’s family’s power was enough to cover the crime up.
The Real Meaning of Secrets We Keep’s Ending
Netflix’s Miniseries Highlights Important Social IssuesSecrets We Keep tackles a lot of dark issues with subtlety and nuance, which is a big part of what makes it such an interesting watch. The clearest issues that Secrets We Keep deals with are those of gender and power, but even those discussions are deftly layered. In the most obvious example, Oscar’s actions show a clear disregard for women of all ages and a lack of understanding that the people in his life are not simply there for his own gain. This is equally true of Mike and Rasmus in terms of the power and wealth they wield.
Even Cecilie, Secrets We Keep‘s seeming hero, fails to grapple with her privilege by firing Angel and refusing to allow her son to testify against Oscar, upholding the power structure.
Mike and Rasmus are easily able to shield themselves and Oscar from criminal charges and bad press without a second thought, but Secrets We Keep‘s critique does not stop there. Despite facing sexism from her husband, Katarina is equally villainous for murdering Ruby and her microaggressions towards Aicha. Likewise, the show critiques the use of the au pair system that allows such inequality to fester. Even Cecilie, Secrets We Keep‘s seeming hero, fails to grapple with her privilege by firing Angel and refusing to allow her son to testify against Oscar, upholding the power structure.
