Breaking Down the Ending of ‘Black Rabbit’

Warning: This post contains spoilers for Black Rabbit.

By the time Black Rabbit arrives at its eighth and final episode, it’s hard to believe brothers Jake (Jude Law) and Vince Friedkin (Jason Bateman) are going to manage to find a way out of the pretty massive mess they’ve created for themselves. But if there’s one thing you’re rooting for as the show careens to a bittersweet finish, it’s that the shaky-but-unmistakable bond between the brothers will hold until the end credits of the Netflix limited series roll.

Now streaming, husband-and-wife creators Zach Baylin and Kate Susman’s gritty crime thriller centers on the Friedkin brothers’ dealings surrounding the titular downtown Manhattan restaurant, an establishment we learn started as a joint venture between the pair. However, depending on who you ask, troubled addict Vince was either bailed or forced out of ownership of the Rabbit a few years prior after a pattern of misbehavior culminated in him making a drunken bet that resulted in an employee’s paralysis. By the time Vince returns to town, Jake and his famous musician business partner Wes (Sope Dirisu) have turned the Rabbit into one of the city’s trendiest establishments. But Jake isn’t without his own issues, including escalating money troubles and a habit of looking the other way when powerful men do bad things to vulnerable young women on his watch.

“It’s really about these brothers who love each other but don’t match—one’s a screw-up, and the other is much more buttoned up,” Bateman told Netflix’s Tudum. “Everybody can relate to that. Everybody’s either got a sibling, or a friendship where you love being with one another, but it’s kind of dangerous; where that person usually gets you in trouble, but they’re really exciting to be around.”

Following the reveal that Vince was one of the masked thieves behind the violent robbery of the Rabbit’s high-end jewelry showcase—and the person who shot and killed Junior (Forrest Weber), the son of crime boss Joe Mancuso (Troy Kotsur), to prevent him from murdering Jake alongside Wes—the brothers’ situation becomes more precarious than ever. Jake was the one who initially came up with the idea for the robbery in a desperate attempt to erase Vince’s debts to Mancuso. However, he called the whole thing off after Campbell (Morgan Spector), the fixer of VIP Rabbit regular and repeat sexual assaulter Jules Zablonski (John Ales), offered Jake $500,000 in exchange for him deleting the surveillance footage of Jules slipping drugs into the drink of Rabbit bartender Anna (Abbey Lee), who was then accidentally killed as a result of the brothers’ mistakes. Jake used the bribe money to pay off Mancuso, but he didn’t account for Junior viewing the robbery as a way to prove himself to his father, and recruiting an angry Vince to join him in the endeavor.

Read More: Jude Law and Jason Bateman’s Brother Act Is the Reason to Watch Netflix Thriller Black Rabbit

What happens to Vince?

After Jake betrays Vince by tricking him into revealing his whereabouts to Mancuso and his lackey Babbitt (Chris Coy) to protect Vince’s daughter Gen (Odessa Young) and get her to safety, Jake rushes to help Vince once again escape a vengeful Mancuso’s clutches. He then calls Campbell and reveals that he kept a copy of the footage of Jules drugging Anna in order to blackmail Jules into allowing Vince to use his private plane to leave the country. The brothers go to the Black Rabbit to wait for Campbell and Vince confesses to Jake that he killed their abusive father when they were children by dropping a bowling bowl on his head, prompting Jake to reveal that he saw what happened that night and has known all along.

Convinced that Campbell isn’t coming and that he doesn’t deserve to escape, Vince takes the opportunity to call the police and confess to his crimes. But when he realizes that Jake will never stop trying to protect him, likely to the point of his own downfall, Vince steps back off the roof of the Rabbit and falls to his death.

How does Black Rabbit end?

In the wake of Vince’s death, Jake gives the footage of Jules drugging Anna to the detective investigating Anna’s death. A final montage of scenes that jump ahead in time then reveals Jake has closed the Rabbit while his head chef, Roxie (Amaka Okafor), has struck out on her own and opened a new restaurant called Anna’s. Jake has also given up his life of luxury and returned to working as a bartender, a decision that appears to have made him happier.

“It’s about reckoning. It’s about realizing when you evaluate your life whether you’re living someone else’s dream or your own dream,” Law told Netflix. “I think that’s the essence of Jake’s journey, certainly.”

Write to Megan McCluskey at [email protected].