‘Lady in the Lake’ Ending Explained: Who Killed Cleo Johnson?

Can such a gap in experience and circumstance ever be bridged? The show seems to take a glass-half-empty approach to that question. It’s true that Black Baltimoreans bust up a Nazi rally, since the Jews’ enemies are their enemies too. But the last images of such unrest are the riots and brutal crackdowns that erupted following Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination; Cleo, meanwhile, wearily scoffs at the idea that she and Maddie could be friends. The severing of Maddie’s ties to Ferdie and to her adopted neighborhood are other datapoints to consider when assessing the show’s take on cross-racial solidarity against robber barons and fascist mobs. In Lady in the Lake’s world, at least, the outlook is grim.

I did a little explainer for the end of Lady in the Lake for Decider. These are servicey, but I try to have some fun and say something interesting with them.

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