Yahoo Lifestyle What happens at the end of The Day of the Jackal?
Question: Has anyone else been obsessed with the The Day of the Jackal adaptation starring Lashana Lynch and Eddie Redmayne as Bianca and Charles? Because same. But if you watched the final episode of the 10-part series and thought, 'WTF is happening right now?' here's an explainer of everything that went down.
The Day of the Jackal follows an elite sniper (played by Redmayne) who carries out assassination hits for fees. After he successfully kills a high-profile politician, he's approached about an opportunity, where his client wants him to kill Ulle Dag Charles (aka UDC), a billionaire who's planning to change the financial landscape with the release of his technology, River.
Only, while all this is going on, an MI5 agent Bianca (played by Lynch) is on his tail, trying to figure out exactly who he is, and stop the hit from taking place. What unfolds is your classic tale of cat and mouse, taking place across Europe.
The Day of the Jackal ending explained
The second to last episode of The Day of the Jackal sees Charles successfully carry out the murder of UDC, by shooting him on his daily swim from a fishing boat two miles out. After Charles manages to escape Croatian water, he somehow evades capture from both security and police, and begins his journey back home to Cadiz in Spain.
Meanwhile, Bianca has made the connection to where he lives, because of the sniper shot he carried out on a local Spanish gangster, who was involved with his wife Nuria's (Úrsula Corberó) brother, Alvaro (Jon Arias). Despite MI5 initially shutting her investigation down, Bianca is then asked to go and find the Jackal again, travelling to Spain with her associate Vince (Nick Blood.)
When Charles does eventually make it home (killing an English couple on holiday and stealing a lorry in the process), his wife Nuria (Úrsula Corberó) has left in a taxi with their son.
He then receives a call from his client who warns him that people know he's in Spain, just as Bianca and Vince advance on his house. Meanwhile, Nuria's brother is also at the house, and gets shot by Bianca and Vince, alerting Charles to the fact they're downstairs.
Charles hides himself in his secret safe room, behind the door of a two-way mirror, just as Bianca attempts to find him. They come agonisingly face-to-face, though she can't see him, before she heads back downstairs to find Vince. Charles then opens fire, killing Vince. Given that it's his house, the Jackal also manages to successfully outsmart Bianca, and shoots her.
He then drives away while ringing Nuria, telling her he's going to find her, whatever it takes. Only, he's hit by another car, and we're lead to believe he's dead - before he reappears for a meeting with businesswoman Zina Jansone (Eleanor Matsuura), who commissioned his hit on UDC. He tells her he's ready for his next job - but not before he's hunted down his wife and child first.
Is Bianca really dead?
The ending of The Day of the Jackal differs from both the 1971 novel by Frederick Forsyth and the previous and the 1973 film, in which the Jackal is killed.
Speaking to TV Insider about why this is, Eddie explained that they wanted to keep an element of surprise up their sleeves for the latest adaptation, and it also leaves the door open for future adventures for his character.
He said, "If you watch the original movie in which the Jackal dies — spoilers, sorry — it is so quick and ruthless, and it’s the astonishing genius of that last moment in Zinneman’s movie. Even though it had been decided before we started shooting that there the Jackal was potentially gonna continue, I think that Anu and the team wanted to retain something of the shock factor of the kind of the abruptness that is so unique. And yet, how do you do that whilst also paying respect to a character played so beautifully by Lashana who we’ve sat with?
"The Jackal, I think, has deep respect for Bianca because they are two sides of the same coin, and her tenacity and her obsession is something that he relates to. And even though it’s been a relationship that has been not tangible through meeting, it’s been one that intellectually has been — it’s the game. As she says, ‘I wanna win.'"
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