The Ending Of The Pass Explained

Peacock's "The Pass" is a movie about trust, love, and the consequences of infidelity. The film stars Robert Christopher Riley and Drew Sidora — of "The Real Housewives of Atlanta" fame — as a married couple struggling to balance their personal lives with increasingly busy careers. When the two of them decide to test out giving each other a "hall pass" to sleep with someone else for one night, the problems in their marriage escalate and things quickly get out of control. Infidelity is bad enough on its own, but it turns out that there's a lot more going on beneath the surface of "The Pass" than you might think.

Unlike some other movies featuring "Real Housewives" stars, "The Pass" is kept almost entirely in the family. The movie is produced by "Real Housewives" star, Kandi Burruss, and her husband Todd Tucker has a writing credit on the film. The two of them were incredibly committed to getting this story told, and thanks to the help of fellow stars like Sidora, they got it done.

"The Pass" is a dramatic ride full of twists and turns that don't let up until the very end of the movie. Most of the characters keep their real motivations hidden until the last minute, but there's no reason that you need to stay in the dark after finishing the film. We're here to unwind the complications and unpack that shocking twist at the end of "The Pass."

The beginning of the movie introduces Nina (Drew Sidora) and Maurice (Robert Christopher Riley), a couple who've been happily married for seven years. Maurice works as a realtor for Nina's mother Etta (Charmin Lee), and business isn't going smoothly. Maurice is trying to sell a mansion to earn a big enough commission to buy Nina a new wedding ring, but Etta takes him off the client because she doesn't trust him. Meanwhile, Nina's design firm has just landed a big client who's going to fly her out to L.A. and keep her busy at work for months.

Maurice goes out golfing with his friends and tells them about all the work stress he and Nina are going through. They tell him about "the pass" and suggest that he asks Nina for permission to sleep with someone else for a night while she's in L.A. as a way to blow off some steam. Nina's not especially open to the idea at first, but eventually, she agrees to let Maurice have a pass as long as he doesn't sleep with anyone they know, doesn't bring anyone to their house, and doesn't do it more than once.

Maurice intends on sleeping with a stripper that he knows, but when she doesn't come in to work, he decides not to use his pass at all. While Nina's in L.A., she sleeps with her boss, who just so happens to be Maurice's best friend Terra (Erica Peeples). Nina doesn't tell Maurice about what happened, thinking that her night with Terra will just be a one-time thing.

After she gets back from L.A., Nina can't stop thinking about what happened between her and Terra, even though she feels guilty about lying to Maurice. She confesses her feelings to Terra, and the two of them make plans to spend another night together. Nina keeps lying to Maurice, but at the same time, she becomes convinced that he's lying to her. She sees that a woman keeps sending Maurice pictures, and she starts to think that he's been having an affair ever since she gave him a pass. 

Terra comes over to sleep with Nina while Maurice is out, but she has ulterior motives. She hides a condom wrapper in Maurice's jacket and leaves a pair of underwear in his and Nina's bed. After finding the planted evidence, Nina decides to hide cameras in her house to catch Maurice cheating, but she still doesn't stop sleeping with Terra. 

Maurice discovers the cameras and finds a video of Nina and Terra together. He files for divorce, and per the terms of their prenuptial agreement, Nina now has to give him 50% of her assets — including millions of dollars from her trust fund — because she cheated on him. Nina is left devastated, but the movie has one last surprise for the audience. In the end, we learn that Maurice, Terra, and all their other friends have been planning this from the beginning. They set up Nina seven years ago to con her out of her money, and now they're ready to run the scam on a new victim.  

Nina's parents both have small but important roles to play in "The Pass." We get to meet her mother Etta, and early in the movie she seems poised to become an antagonist or at least an extreme obstacle for Maurice. Etta doesn't trust her daughter's husband, even though the two have been married for years. Etta is willing to give Maurice a job at her real estate agency, but she doesn't give him any real responsibility, and she cuts him down at every opportunity.

Ultimately, Etta's warnings about Maurice aren't enough to save Nina from getting scammed. Nina's dad might actually have something to do with that. He died many years before the events of the movie, leaving Nina and Etta to rely only on each other. The movie doesn't give an exact timeframe, but it's implied that Nina's dad died around the time that she and Maurice got together.

It seems pretty likely that Maurice used the death as an opportunity. He knew that Nina had plenty of money, and he knew that he could swoop in and pose as a loving pillar of support in the wake of her father's death. That was just the beginning of his manipulation, but it gave him the boost he needed to get his scam off the ground.

The movie does a good job hiding its twist by making Maurice look like a good guy. He's got a circle of friends who all seem to get along with Nina. He's trying his hardest to lavish gifts on his wife, and at least on the surface he seems to be a dedicated realtor. The only person who doesn't think very highly of Maurice is Nina's mother Etta.

There's definitely a little bit of motherly intuition going on here. To a certain degree, Etta is subconsciously picking up on the fact that Maurice doesn't actually want the best for her daughter. It's not all just vibes, though. Etta has some genuine reasons to distrust Maurice.

Assuming Maurice and Nina started seeing each other shortly after Nina's dad died, Etta probably suspected that Maurice was taking advantage of Nina's grief. Etta also keeps saying that Maurice is lazy because he lives in a house that she paid for and only works because she gave him a job. Since Maurice's real profession is con artist, he might have struggled to provide a real job history when he and Nina got together, and that was bound to set off red flags for Etta. Even though she has legitimate reasons for distrusting Maurice, Etta can't get through to her daughter because it's also painfully obvious that she has a tendency to be an overbearing and controlling parental figure.

"The Pass" doesn't telegraph its twist, but there's at least one clear sign early in the movie that Maurice may not be exactly who he says he is. Maurice, Nina, and all their friends are out at dinner, and as they're leaving the restaurant they have a bizarre encounter. A man walking past them sees Maurice and starts yelling at him. The man says that Maurice's name is really Trent, and he says that Trent stole all of his sister's money.

Maurice and his friends have a pretty extreme reaction to this random stranger yelling at them. Maurice forcefully tells Nina to go to their car, and then he and his friends get into a fistfight with the man. Looking back it's easy to see what happened. Maurice and his friends didn't start their conning careers with Nina. They've had other victims in the past, and it's just plain bad luck that they happened to cross paths with someone who recognized them that night. They barely manage to cover up their scheme in time, but since their con is a group effort, they have a fairly easy time convincing Nina that what happened was just a case of mistaken identity.

"The Pass" hides the fact that it's a con artist movie until the last few minutes of the story. Only at the very end do we learn that Maurice and all of his friends have been scamming Nina as a unit. What's even more shocking is that the entire group has been working on their con for seven years. Maurice's entire relationship with Nina was a ploy to get a sizable portion of her trust fund money.

Pulling off this scam had to take an incredible amount of dedication from everyone in Maurice's group. Everyone had to live a lie for nearly a decade, and they all had to carefully coordinate to pull off the final part of their scheme. Obviously Maurice and his friends have some experience when it comes to stealing from people. We know that they've pulled a similar scam at least once back when Maurice went by the name Trent. Is it possible they've done this to multiple women in the past?

Maurice and his friends have probably been working as a small criminal ring for most of their adult lives, but it seems pretty likely that Nina is only the second victim of their marriage scam. They might have gotten in a practice round when Maurice posed as Trent, but it wouldn't have taken the group seven years to get Nina's money if they really knew what they were doing.

We don't know the specifics of how Maurice and his friends operate their scams, but the movie ends by letting us know that they're just getting started. Maurice meets up with the rest of the gang after finalizing his divorce from Nina, and all of them are ready to celebrate being millions of dollars richer. Maurice makes a joke about how long it took for them to get Nina's money, and he tells them that next time they need to move faster.

During the group's get-together, Maurice also makes it clear that he's going to take a break from being the one in the hot seat. For the next scam, one of the women in the group is going to seduce a wealthy widower. Maurice and the other men will play background roles, just like Maurice's friends did while he looked for an opportunity to make off with Nina's cash.

It seems safe to assume that the group's next scam won't be its last. Maurice and his friends make sure to target wealthy people, but they don't necessarily seem to be in it just for the money. Everyone acts like they genuinely enjoy running these scams, and if they're in it for the thrill, they probably don't have an endgame planned. It's likely Maurice and his friends will keep running their scam until they get caught — if they ever do.

Drew Sidora has been acting for nearly 30 years, and you might recognize her from movies like "White Chicks," "Never Die Alone," and "Step Up." She's been a cast member on "The Real Housewives of Atlanta" since 2020, and that show isn't the only thing that's been keeping her busy in recent years. To hear Sidora tell it, she's got more on her plate now than ever before.

"It's still kind of unreal for me," Sidora told People. She went on to say that "The Pass" was the fifth movie that she'd shot in a year. 2023 is a big year for Sidora, who's also starring in "God's Grace: The Sheila Johnson Story," "Boxed In 2," and "Women of the Jury" in addition to Season 15 of "The Real Housewives of Atlanta."

Sidora also told People that her role in Kandi Burruss' film is "definitely very juicy, very juicy." It's hard to argue that point, especially considering that Sidora's character Nina primarily moves the plot forward through her infidelity. Despite all the conflict in "The Pass," Sidora enjoyed working on the film and said that she's currently trying to find a balance between keeping such a busy schedule as an actress and being involved in her kids's lives.

Kandi Burruss and her husband Todd Tucker were two of the driving forces behind "The Pass." Tucker, who has a history as a producer, made "The Pass" his very first writing credit. For Burruss, who has a long history as a star on "The Real Housewives of Atlanta," this became her first opportunity to produce a feature-length film.

As producers, the two of them were responsible for getting the entire movie funded, and that meant finding some unique ways to cut costs wherever possible. Burruss has talked about one strategy for cutting down the budget that Tucker found that she wasn't the biggest fan of. "We used my house for, like, the main house," she said, adding, "Drew had to do some of her sex scenes in my bed!" (via Yahoo)

Burruss' house is where a majority of the action in "The Pass" takes place. Not having to shell out for another location likely shaved a huge amount of money off the film's production budget, but if Burruss had known going into the project that she'd have to watch one of her friends pretend to have sex in her bed, maybe she would have stuck to working in television.

There isn't any really blatant sequel bait in "The Pass." For the most part, the story focuses on Maurice and Nina from beginning to end, and it leaves their story very much wrapped up. Nina is ruined, and Maurice is rich after spending seven years scamming a woman he only pretended to love. All the major plot threads are tied off by the time credits roll, but even though this particular story is thoroughly concluded, "The Pass" has a couple of ways it could be spun into a franchise.

Because the movie ends by pointing out that Maurice and his friends are going to run another scam, a direct sequel could pick up right where "The Pass" leaves off. This time around, the audience would be in on the secret with Maurice, so they would get an entirely new perspective on the situation as the scam plays out. On the other hand, it would also be fairly easy to come up with a prequel to "The Pass" that explains how Maurice and his friends came together and started their marriage scam in the first place. Maybe we could even get the real back story on what happened when Maurice went by the name Trent.

"The Pass" debuted on Peacock on August 23, 2023, and so far a follow-up hasn't been confirmed. It's going up against plenty of other romantic streaming movies, but if its not-so-romantic twist ending thrills enough viewers, Peacock may go ahead and invest in a sequel.