Netflix’s The Beast in Me focuses on how people deal with grief, suspicion, and the stories they create to cope.
Claire Danes plays Aggie Wiggs, a writer still haunted by her son’s death. As Aggie becomes intrigued by real-estate mogul Nile Jarvis (Matthew Rhys), her curiosity leads her into a dangerous situation filled with disappearances, cover-ups, and secrets that affect everyone around him.
This recap covers the main storyline in a single sweep, highlighting the key reveals and shifts. You’ll find the ending explained right below.
Before the recap, watch the trailer
The Beast in Me Recap
Aggie Wiggs is introduced as a once-famous author stalled on her long-delayed Supreme Court book. The deadline is gone, the manuscript is empty, and the house she shares with her dog has started to feel like a container for everything she hasn’t faced. Her grief for her son, Cooper, hasn’t faded. It’s only become quieter.
A brief encounter with her new neighbor, Nile Jarvis, shifts the air. Nile is a successful developer with a long shadow behind him: his first wife, Madison, disappeared under circumstances the public never forgot. He was never charged, but the suspicion stuck.
Aggie is desperate to write again, and Nile becomes the subject she can’t let go of.
Their early conversations are uneasy. Nile responds to Aggie’s bluntness, and Aggie can’t ignore the inconsistencies around Madison’s disappearance and the unresolved anger she carries toward Teddy Fenig, the young man involved in Cooper’s accident. When Teddy himself goes missing and police treat it as a probable drowning, Aggie’s curiosity becomes concern. Nile’s calm reaction doesn’t help.
As she pushes further, Aggie connects with Brian Abbott, the FBI agent who once handled Madison’s case. At the same time, Nile’s business is under pressure: a major project is stalling, Martin Jarvis, Nile’s father, is tightening his grip, and Rick Jarvis, Nile’s uncle, is handling the problems Nile doesn’t want traced back to him.
Aggie keeps working. Nile keeps closing in.
The more she investigates, the clearer it becomes that everyone is tied to Nile: even Madison’s parents. When Aggie realizes Madison’s supposed suicide note wasn’t written on the night she vanished, the version of events Nile has relied on begins to fall apart.
Everything turns when Aggie breaks into Abbott’s apartment and finds a flash drive connected. It leads to a livestream: Teddy Fenig, half-naked and alive, being held somewhere. Before Aggie can do something, Nile has discovered she has proof that connects him to Madison’s murder. The FBI arrives at her door, and her home has been staged to frame her. Cooper’s old room has been rebuilt to match the livestream set, with Teddy’s body placed inside it.
Flashbacks in the final episode fill in the rest. Madison wasn’t suicidal that week; she was trying to leave Nile. She had become Abbott’s source. Nile confronted her, killed her in a rage, and with Rick and Martin’s help, hid the body. The same pattern followed with Abbott. And later, with Teddy.
Aggie escapes long enough to reach Nina. She tells her plainly what Nile has done and warns her that the same patterns are spilling into their marriage. Nina doesn’t intervene in the moment, but the conversation lingers.
That night, Nina questions Nile about Madison, the note, and the contradictions he never addressed. He finally says it: he killed Madison. He claims he did it because he thought Nina wanted him to. He goes on, admitting to Teddy’s death as well. Nina records everything.
By morning, the confession is in FBI hands.
The Jarvis family breaks under the weight of it. Martin collapses from a stroke. Rick hands over evidence for a reduced sentence. Nile is arrested and receives three consecutive life terms. Soon after, he dies in prison, a killing that traces back to Rick.
Aggie turns back to writing. Her book, The Beast in Me, becomes her attempt to face what happened without rewriting it into something cleaner.
The final scenes split the consequences. Aggie reads from her finished work. Nina stands at home with her newborn, aware of what her child will grow up carrying.
The Beast in Me Ending Explained
The ending circles back to the question the series asks from the start: how much do stories shape the way people understand themselves, and what happens when those stories collapse?
Aggie’s closing pages on karma give the clearest answer. She rejects the idea of cosmic justice and instead frames karma as the long tail of consequence, what people plant, what grows from it, and what they pass forward. The damage Nile caused doesn’t disappear after his arrest or even after his death. It continues in the families he broke and the lies he told,
Aggie admits that she had been doing her own version of that, creating a story around Teddy Fenig that let her avoid confronting her grief. Nile saw those cracks and used them. Her accountability now isn’t about taking blame for his crimes but acknowledging the way she looked away when her instincts warned her to step back.
Nina’s ending is more open. She did the right thing, but she now has to raise a child while carrying the full truth of Nile’s violence. Her final look at the baby is unsettled, not because of fear, but because she understands that legacy is something people must confront rather than escape.
Key Details
The Beast in Me premiered on Netflix on November 13, 2025. It is an 8-episode limited series starring Claire Danes as Aggie Wiggs and Matthew Rhys as Nile Jarvis. The supporting cast includes Brittany Snow, Natalie Morales, Jonathan Banks, David Lyons, and Kate Burton. The series was created by Gabe Rotter, with Howard Gordon as showrunner and Antonio Campos directing. It is produced by 20th Television.
The Poster
