The Ending Of Who Killed Sara Season 1 Explained

Some stories are just timeless. There has always been an audience for tales of the rich and attractive acting reprehensibly: there probably always will be. And the latest soapy rich people drama is Who Killed Sara?, on Netflix.

The Mexican whodunit follows Álex, framed for his sister Sara's death in a parasailing accident 18 years ago, and jailed ever since. The show begins when Álex is released from prison and sets out to get revenge on the affluent Lazcano family, whom he believes is responsible for her death. It's a perfectly bingeable title — ideal for viewers who liked Behind Her Eyes or Succession, or anyone just likes watching rich people behave badly.

Who Killed Sara? premiered on March 24, 2021 on Netflix and quickly became one of the streamer's most popular titles, ranking in the top ten its first week. Less than a week after the premiere, Netflix renewed Who Killed Sara? for a second season – and it's already scheduled to premiere on May 19, less than two months from this time of writing.

With season two just around the corner, now's a good time to brush up on what went down in the season one finale, and what it all means going forward. 

So, who did kill Sara? The short answer is, we still don't know. 

During season 1, Álex learns that Sara was pregnant. It was thought that the father of her baby was the Lazcanos' son, Rodolfo, and at first Álex considers Rodolfo his top suspect. But then Álex learns that the true father was César, the Lazcano patriarch. (Rodolfo didn't learn this himself, until after Sara's death.) The Lazcano matriarch, Mariana, was also aware of the pregnancy and wanted to keep it quiet.

So, the two likeliest culprits are César and Mariana, but several flashbacks pointed towards Mariana and her lover Elroy as being involved with Sara's death — or, at least, knowing that Sara was going to die. In the season 1 finale, Mariana is shown ordering Elroy to tamper with Sara's parasailing harness. He doesn't work up the nerve to do it, yet the accident happens anyway. Afterwards, Mariana only pretends to call an ambulance, sealing Sara's fate.

That would leave Mariana as the likely culprit, although we never actually see her tamper with the harness herself. So, if someone did tamper with the harness, it was either Mariana, possibly César, or another person who was on the boat trip that day — but not Elroy or Rodolfo. 

On the other hand, there's also the possibility that none of them killed Sara. Later in the season 1 finale, Álex discovers Sara's journal, in which she wrote about wanting to die. But even if her death was a suicide, there are still many loose ends to tie up. 

César actually had two reasons to want Sara dead: the pregnancy, and the fact that she knew about his dark secret. 

César imprisons sex workers and tortures them in a dungeon in his casino, before killing them. Before her death, Sara obtained a videotape of someone beating and killing a sex worker named Flor Sanchez. It could have been César, but the killer's face wasn't shown. Regardless of whoever did the actual killing, Sara had the evidence that could bring down César's empire. 

Sara seems like an innocent victim here. But then, in the finale, Álex finds another disturbing clue in her journal: a drawing of a shallow grave. Álex digs it up and finds a skull with a bullet hole in it. Another flashback showed César choking an unknown woman before shooting her. This would probably be the owner of the skull which Álex finds 18 years later.

This has disturbing implications. Sara clearly knew something about the death of this woman, because she knew the location of the grave. But she reacted to this much differently than she reacted to the tape of the Flor Sanchez murder. This time, Sara felt guilty and wanted to die. Worst of all, in one of the teaser scenes for the next season, Álex learns from a psychiatrist that his sister was "more dangerous than she appeared to be." 

Whatever the truth is, season 2 will have Álex's looking for the truth. And the truth could be even worse than he ever thought possible.