'The Witness' Ending Explained: How Did Alex Reconcile With Andre?

[Spoiler Alert] The Witness’ ending was about Alex reconciling with Andre because, for the longest time, Alex hated Andre for keeping him away from the world. Why did Andre’s style of upbringing involve so much anonymity? Rachel, Alex’s mother and Andre’s wife, was murdered in Wimbledon in the ‘90s by Napper, with Alex being the only eye-witness of the crime. The police set their sights on Stagg and kept trying to put him in jail. Since there was no evidence against him, and given how he was innocent, Stagg was a dead end. In the meantime, Napper went ahead and killed Samanthan and Jazmine, and he was arrested for that. But the authorities were unable to connect Napper to Rachel’s murder. Now, over the course of the investigation, Alex and Andre were constantly hounded by the media and people in general. So, Alex decided to move to France with Andre. Eventually the press found them there, so they had to shift to Spain. And while nobody was able to reach them there, another issue gained prominence: Alex’s unraveling. Due to Andre’s overprotective nature, the lack of closure around Rachel’s murder, and him hitting puberty, Alex began to act out in ways that made him a nuisance at school and society in general. Eventually, Andre decided to let Alex live his life the way he wanted, which caused them to grow apart. So, how did they eventually reconcile? In addition to that, since Deceit and The Murder of Rachel Nickell already exist on Netflix, what was the point of making this miniseries? Let’s find out.

The police had ample evidence to prove that Napper was the one who had murdered Rachel. When that evidence was provided at the court, Napper was convicted and he was sentenced to life imprisonment in the Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital. There were 2 issues with that sentencing: firstly, Napper was already staying in Broadmoor because of his psychological issues; which meant that that “life imprisonment” wasn’t a punishment that was proportional to the crime that he had committed. Secondly, the police were aware of Napper’s past misdemeanors and they failed to incarcerate him, thereby allowing Napper to roam around and commit crimes. Hence, even though Rachel’s case was brought to a close, Andre (who had traveled from Spain to the UK to witness Napper’s trial) felt like he hadn’t gotten any closure. He was so angry that he returned home without delivering any kind of speech to the press. Out of nowhere, he received all the documents related to the Napper investigation from an anonymous source. While he focused on parsing through the details in those dossiers, Alex and Anna (Alex’s girlfriend) traveled all the way to the UK to meet Dr. Monroe, one of the doctors who treated Napper, to learn why Napper was the way he was. 

Through their conversation, Alex learned that Napper was bullied as a child because of his undiagnosed Asperger’s syndrome, he was sexually assaulted by a family friend, and he possibly blamed his abused mother for his father’s departure from the family. So, every time he killed a woman, he imagined he was killing his own mother. He killed a girl child because, well, he didn’t relate with girls, and he didn’t kill Alex because he saw a reflection of himself in Alex. Alex asked Monroe what memories Napper had of his childhood, teenage years, or adulthood. Monroe said that it was possible that Napper probably had no memory, recent or otherwise, because of his trauma; it was like his mind was a void. This brought Alex to the realization that since Andre had been so overprotective and nurturing after that traumatic experience, he has turned out to be a relatively well-adjusted individual. He could have become someone like Napper if Andre didn’t behave like a helicopter-parent with him. Of course, when Alex was close to Andre, and he didn’t have that outside perspective, he thought that Andre was an idiot who can’t or shouldn’t be respected. But after learning about Napper’s backstory, he understood the work that Andre had put into shaping his sense of morality and ethics.

In The Witness’ ending, when Alex returned to Spain to discuss with Andre what he had learned from his conversation with Monroe, Andre had already immersed himself in the dossier and was willing to return to the past to dissect how badly the police had managed Rachel’s murder investigation. He was so engrossed in those documents that he almost failed to listen to Alex saying that he wanted to thank him for being such a good parent. Eventually, Andre heard what Alex was saying and he gracefully accepted his son’s gratitude. In doing so, the father and the son were able to bury the hatchet, rekindle the love that they had for each other, and put away all the negative experiences that they had amassed since the day Rachel died. Apart from the possibility that Napper didn’t kill Alex because he saw himself in that little child, it was believed that Rachel didn’t resist when she was being attacked so that Napper’s focus was on her instead of Alex. Which meant that Rachel had sacrificed herself for Alex’s sake. 

If Alex and Andre grew apart and became bitter human beings, Rachel’s sacrifice would have been in vain. So, the fact that Alex and Andre reconciled with each other and reforged their bond meant that they hadn’t failed Rachel like the system had. By centering the narrative around Andre and Alex, the show wanted to send this message that we often don’t understand the true depth of our parents’ sacrifices until we come across examples of people who didn’t get proper parenting. That doesn’t mean that you should treat your parents like gods for not being awful. However, if they are genuinely putting an effort to ensure that you don’t drown in the horrors of the world that have been exposed to before your brain can develop properly, that should be lauded. Parenting isn’t an easy job, especially when the world becomes darker and grimier with each passing second. Therefore, yeah, if you are lucky enough to have a parent who is creating memories with you and, as a parent, if you have a child who’s impressionable and has a good heart, cherish it.

In addition to the theme of parenting, The Witness put the spotlight on the mismanagement by the police, the judiciary, and the mainstream media. The police’s whole job is to keep the general public safe. They have access to mountains of data. They can often bend the law to their will. But then they just forget about all that and focus on catering the needs of some politician. Of course, not all police officers and investigators are like that. It’s just that the ratio of good to bad officers is so lopsided that you kinda have to see the justice system as a hub of corruption and laziness. The miniseries unfolds in the UK, but if you pick any country in the world and look at the state of its law enforcement authority, you’ll inevitably come to the conclusion that it needs a complete overhaul, top to bottom. The same goes for the judiciary. If you have an overwhelming amount of cases where someone who is clearly guilty is being able to secure their freedom or getting a punishment that’s not proportionate to the crime they’ve committed, then the law needs to be scrutinized and changed according to the times we are living in. 

And then there’s the mainstream news media which has gone from reporting the truth to turning every “scandalous” crime into a circus. There are countless examples of how the victim’s family is affected when they are constantly hounded by media personnel. Yet, there’s no change in their approach towards tackling a criminal case in a sensitive fashion. In a time where they expect empathy from the general populace and the system, they are treated like the contestants of a reality TV show. That just makes you wonder if these media personnel have a soul; if they themselves have experienced any kinda tragedy; if they ever experience that fear that they’ll be treated the same way they treat the victims or the family of the victim. They see every incident as an opportunity to increase the viewership of the channel they’re currently working on. Since they don’t give themselves the time to process (or verify) the information they are getting, they end up shaping public opinion in such horrendous ways that they do more harm than good to the investigation. The mainstream media is such a cretinous organism that there’s no way to overhaul it. You can boycott it, but then they are gonna be replaced by YouTuber-journalists and social media journalists, whose insensitivity will make mainstream journalists look like Gandhi. All you can do at this point is hope that your tragedy doesn’t become the subject of a media trial or pray that enough journalists suffer horrors beyond human comprehension and start treating victims of gut-wrenching crimes in a sensitive fashion.