We’ve gotten a few search inquiries about The Secrets She Keeps finale and thought we’d explore it in an explained segment.
With The Secrets She Keeps finale airing this week on Channel 10, we thought we’d break down what various parts of the ending mean. Please remember that this explained article contains spoilers for the final episode and how Meghan and Agatha’s stories wrap up.
This explained segment covers episode 6 of The Secrets She Keeps. Also, before we begin, we want to recommend this article about the inspiration behind The Secrets She Keeps book, on which the series was based.
Talking Points
- Mental illness – Pathological lying and obsession
- Startling discoveries – Agatha’s link to three other infant disappearances
- A not-so-perfect life comes with desperation
- The gunshot
- Covering over the personal lies
Agatha’s Brush With Mental Illness
The first talking point in our explained segment is mental illness, how it affects Agatha, and why she weaves her web of lies to get what she thinks she deserves. First, we must sit back and consider how a doctor would diagnose her. While we’re only spitballing here, we think she’d be classed as a pathological liar given how many fibs she weaves into her narrative.
Why does she do this?
Lying is all Agatha has ever known. She uses it as a coping mechanism. We don’t know how long she has had to resort to this. She is so convinced that she is telling the truth she doesn’t think about the consequences of her actions. This is evident when she reveals that she tried to ‘care’ for other babies she had stolen, but they died and that she didn’t kill them.
She wants to be the nurturer and to love someone unconditionally, but stealing another woman’s child and passing it off as her own is not the way to go. This stems from her obsession with Meghan and her quote-unquote perfect life, as depicted on her blog, Mucky Kids.
The Flashbacks
As explained in a series of flashbacks, Agatha longed to be a mother and lost a child when she was sixteen when it was taken away from her. Then there was the baby that was a stillbirth that she was lost during her marriage to Nicky.
Observing being a pathological liar is just the beginning of something dangerous. Agatha may have more than one mental illness, but we’re only going on what we’ve observed.
Startling Discoveries
As Agatha’s desperation begins to manifest, her involvement with Meghan reveals startling clues about her past and how she once got interviewed about the disappearance of a baby. At the time, she was never a person of interest. Still, given her connection to the Baby Ben case, they begin to consider her a suspect, especially after they discover the makeshift graveyard.
Agatha’s endless crop of lies begins to fall apart when the detectives ask questions. After receiving a warrant, they search her flat and find the locks of baby hair she kept from the infants that died on her. They test the samples and realise she is responsible for the disappearances of three other infants.
The hair samples and the connection to Baby Ben are enough to make the police realise Agatha might do something terrible to the little boy and that he might die if they don’t find him.
A Not-So-Perfect Life Comes With Desperation
Agatha’s goal to have a perfect life might appear simple inside. But it’s far from what it seems on the outside. She struggles to bond with Ben -or Rory as she calls him – and panics when the little boy gets sick, prompting her to run from the doctor’s office after he begins asking questions.
She doesn’t want to get caught with a child she knows is not hers and refuses to see that taking Ben is causing havoc in Meghan’s life just so she [Meghan] can feel what Agatha feels all the time. Another point we need to address is Hayden’s role. He’s Jack in the situation Aggie has created for herself.
When Agatha goes house hunting, she only refers to Hayden as her ‘fiancé’ when she speaks to Rhea Bowden, the real estate agent. Now, we know the couple is not engaged. It is stated earlier in the story that the oblivious naval officer did not want to marry Aggie. However, later, it almost sounds like he wants to change his mind on the issue.
Jack’s Affair
Speaking of Rhea, while it is not addressed in the finale, Meghan’s trust in Jack goes out the window after his affair with the real estate agent is revealed in the newspaper. For those who will ask how Agatha learns about it, she sees the pair meet up for a hookup, and she leaves an anonymous note on Jack’s car windscreen threatening to tell his wife if he doesn’t end it.
Later, she tells Hayden, who meets up with a journalist without allegedly telling her. He spills what he is told about Jack’s affair. This eventually gets back to Meghan, and it leaves her pissed. Again, this happened in an earlier episode. We thought we’d add it here to give more context to Agatha’s desire for the perfect life.
The Gunshot
The gunshot we hear when the snipers have their weapons on Agatha and Meghan is meant to symbolise a couple of things and can be explained as follows:
The first thing is the reason we don’t see Agatha get shot. We’re meant to believe she dies. This is until we witness her arm in a sling as she is escorted to a prison cell.
Secondly, the wounding represents how Agatha’s dreams have evaporated. Finally, the shot to the arm illustrates the damage she has done to other women’s lives by kidnapping their children.
Personal Lies
Meghan’s experience with Agatha can be explained simply as a life lesson. When you want something so badly, you don’t always get it. She realises that her life isn’t as perfect, though she already knew this.
The mum-of-three has secrets of her own which include sleeping with Simon. This ultimately puts her unborn child’s paternity in question. This is something that the psychologist Cyrus Haven brings up in the online web series, Uncovering Secrets. You can find the videos on 10Play.
For the entirety of the series, Jack is left unaware of Meghan’s one-night stand with his best friend. Finally, though, she finds out about his affair with Rhea Bowden. In one of the final scenes, we see Meghan swab Lockie’s cheek, and then Ben’s as Simon watches on. She switches the samples. However, we think the father of the baby was left to be ambiguous. We could be wrong, as Simon mentions that Meghan always knew who Ben’s father was.
What Is Coming?
Season 2 of the series will explore some of the questions that weren’t answered in Season 1. One of which will be Jack learning the truth about Ben’s paternity.
