Clickbait Season 1 Finale: Recap, Review & Ending Explained

The Answer

Who is the catfish?

Episode 8 of Clickbait Season 1 sees this finale deliver one final twist – and it’s certainly a good one. Kai shows up at the catfish house where it’s revealed that it’s actually Dawn’s place! Who’s Dawn you ask? Well, she happens to be Nick’s assistant at the school. She and her husband Ed greet Kai warmly and let him in. As they do, the pair exchange knowing glances to one another.

Realizing the jig is up, Ed and Dawn grab a gun from the bedroom and prepare to leave. Further flashbacks reveal that Dawn’s deception goes way back, including gaining entry to Nick’s phone and computer.

Messages from Mandy Harrison trickle in, which Dawn reads and believes is a sign that Nick may be cheating. In fact, Dawn’s unfulfilling marriage sees her have fun and play games with Nick’s life, logging in to dating apps and talking to Mandy under an alias for Nick. Dawn gets quite the rush from this and ends up setting numerous different dating profiles in place.

How does Dawn fool Emma?

While working through the holidays, Dawn ends up talking to Nick in his office while he’s day-drinking. There, Nick reveals that Sophie had an affair in the past, which explains why Dawn knew about this, and asks him to confide in her.

In fact, Dawn orchestrated all of this, ignoring Sarah’s messages while simultaneously speaking to Emma on the phone. She used a voice distorter to trick Emma, speaking to her on the phone late at night.

Ed does eventually find out what his wife has been up to and is understandably crushed. He calls her sick and storms off, prompting an upset Dawn to take it out on Sarah, who tries to talk to her but to no avail. The final message is that of Dawn, telling her to go ahead and commit suicide.

Where is Kai?

Ed and Dawn pack up their things and take Kai out on a road-trip. When his phone is thrown out the window, he immediately realizes something is up. Dawn and Ed eventually drive up to a caravan, where the boy is encouraged to get out the car, with a gun pointed to his head.

So who killed Nick?

It’s soon revealed that Dawn and Ed killed Nick. That night, Nick head over to their house following the incident with Simon. According to Dawn, she scrubbed the place down and managed to erase any trace of blood.

Through a number of twists and turns along the way, we finally get our answer and not a moment too soon – police rush up to the caravan just in time to apprehend the dastardly pair.

With Ed held up at gunpoint, he’s eventually shot and killed when the old man refuses to drop his gun. Now, it turns out Ed was the one who actually killed Nick in the past, bashing him in the head and killing the man outright. Dawn and Ed though both covered up the murder

How does Clickbait end?

With the case all but wrapped up, we skip ahead to see that Tara Wilson has lodged an official complaint against Matt Aldin. Pia and Sophie patch up their differences too and eventually embrace, finally ready to let go of the hurt and pain between them.

The Episode Review

So Clickbait bows out with one final twist, confirming that the clickbait title should really have been called “catfish”, although to be fair that may have been giving too much away. The whole idea of a cyber-crime being committed by a lonely wife, who inadvertently caused a death which spiraled out of control is actually quite a nice idea but the execution has been so/so.

The constant revolving door of protagonists each episode has been a real sore point, and leaves a lot of loose ends and unfinished character stories too. Were there any repercussions for Ben breaking into Simon’s house? What happened to Daryl and Simon in the end? What about Ethan and Alison, are they an item now? There are more questions but these are just a few that crop up by the end of the chapter.

Despite this, the actual mystery has been pretty enticing and I have to admit, the final twist definitely caught me off guard. I was fully prepared to expect it to be that reporter – or at the very least Detective Amiri. However, it’s a nice inclusion and this episode does well to actually explain how everything ties together. It’s just a pity that the first half of this show has been so half-baked.

Despite these issues, there’s enough here to enjoy and the ending does wrap things up nicely with a neat little bow. Is it the best murder mystery of the year? No. Is it worth a watch? Yeah, absolutely. There’s definitely some positives and these final few episodes have been pretty good.