'Nero The Assassin' Ending Explained & Season 2 Theories

Nero the Assassin’s ending was about Hortense launching an attack on Brother Penance and the archbishop and bringing an end to their tyrannical reign. How did things come to that? Well, for starters, in order to stop Hortense’s marriage with Tancrede, Hortense’s father and Lamartine’s vice-consul, Rochemort, ordered the titular assassin to kill the groom so that she could be married to the Prince of Segur. Then a one-eyed witch entered the picture because Nero’s name showed up in a prophecy about the man who’d bring an end to the drought, which had apparently been caused by the Church by killing everyone who practiced magic, that was plaguing France. But then it was revealed that Nero had a daughter, Perla, with a prostitute named Callista, who died during childbirth, which made Perla the most important sacrificial lamb to end the drought and revive magic. Then there were the penitents, led by Brother Penance, who were slaughtering anyone and everyone who wasn’t religious enough. Other characters who were involved in this mess and were trying to protect Perla from any kind of harm were Horace, Lothar, and Zineb. And through the complicated series of events, the archbishop of Segur sidelined the prince, Hortense, and Rochemort and gave up the city to Brother Penance, because the archbishop was under the impression that only Brother Penance could kill Perla and save the world from eternal damnation. Did the archbishop’s gamble pay off, or did Perla one-up him and Brother Penance? Let’s find out.

Spoiler Alert

So, prior to the finale of Nero the Assassin, the one-eyed witch died trying to help Perla, Hortense, Rochemort, Nero, Lothar, the injured prince, and Zineb escape from the archbishop’s guards and the penitents’ clutches. During the finale, it was revealed that the penitents were terrorizing the villagers of Segur to get their hands on Perla. When they couldn’t find her, they beheaded Horace to show the people who were protecting Perla what would happen to them. Since Nero and all the other soldiers who were still loyal to Hortense and the prince were starting to feel the heat, they were debating whether they should stay in Segur and fight the penitents or if they should escape to Lamartine. Hortense became the tie-breaker as she decided to storm the castle and take down the archbishop and Brother Penance. Nero was against this idea because he felt that they’d all get overwhelmed and die for nothing. However, since so many of the soldiers were behind Hortense, she refused to back off. Eventually, Nero decided to side with Hortense and agreed to assassinate Brother Penance and the archbishop, with Perla and Zineb’s assistance, via the secret passage in the castle that had been unearthed by Rochemort. 

In the meantime, Hortense, Lothar, and all the soldiers will initiate a rebellion. That said, when it came to executing this plan, Nero changed things up drastically. Even though he said that he was in support of this Hail Mary plan to kill the archbishop and Brother Penance, deep down he was convinced that it was a suicide mission. Nero knew that everyone was suspicious of Rochemort anyway because of his proximity to the archbishop. So, Nero framed Rochemort as the one who had leaked the information to Brother Penance that the rebels were about to attack him and the archbishop through a secret passage in the castle. This prompted the archbishop and Brother Penance to increase security, thereby giving Nero the perfect excuse to force Hortense to take Zineb and Perla and go back to Lamartine, build an army, and return to Segur only when she was absolutely sure that she’d win. He’d even left behind a letter for Lothar, telling him to evacuate the village along with his soldiers so that they could live to fight another day.

Nero’s play would have worked if Rochemort didn’t expose Nero’s lies in an attempt to clear his own name. I mean, Rochemort was guilty of many things—namely the murder of Tancrede, the murder of the consul of Lamartine, and siding with the archbishop in his endeavor to remove the prince from his throne—and that’s why he didn’t want the false accusation of leaking info to the archbishop and Brother Penance slapped on him. Obviously this angered Hortense a lot, and Perla felt betrayed. But before Nero could convince both of them that his plan just made sense, Perla ran off while the penitents stormed the village. Disguised as a penitent, Nero waded through the chaotic crowds to look for Perla. However, before he could get to her, Nero was captured by the penitents and hung upside down by the boots. Realizing that this was do or die for everyone, at the end of Nero the Assassin, Perla decided to plunge the obsidian knife that the one-eyed witch had given to her into her chest and kill herself. 

In her dying moments, she hoped that her death would bring about some kind of change in the world and her father’s life would be spared. Well, she was right because as soon as Perla bled into the earth, the drought came to an end, and it began raining once again. Zineb, Hortense, and Rochemort saw this environmental shift from afar but kept marching on towards Lamartine in the hopes of returning to Segur once they had an army at their disposal. As everyone in Segur, including the penitents, rejoiced, Nero freed himself and went over to his daughter’s lifeless body. Brother Penance, along with some of his soldiers, went to the castle to talk to the archbishop about how this rain was a result of their repentance. The archbishop was quick to point out that they had actually failed and what they were witnessing was Perla’s doing. Since Brother Penance didn’t agree with the archbishop’s interpretation of the events that were unfolding before his eyes, he decided to throw the archbishop off the balcony of the castle, thereby killing him. During the closing moments of the show, somebody knocked out Nero and kidnapped Perla, who came back to life as she was being carried away.

What the hell actually happened in this show? You see, there’s a lot of context that’s missing from the show. The showrunners decided to focus on Nero and his friends’ journey from Lamartine to Segur instead of giving us any real hints about what had actually created the divide between the church, the magicians, the penitents, and the general populace. If the one-eyed witch was 800 years old, that means that there’s a lot of lore that we weren’t made privy to. Based on the church’s general allergy towards anything that makes them question their religion, we can presume that the version of faith shown in this series was against any kind of magician because it proved that those who claimed they were conveying the word of the Lord didn’t have any actual powers. But I suppose the existence of magicians created some kind of balance that kept the world from crumbling. Hence, you can see magic as a not-so-subtle commentary on environmentalism, whereas the archbishop’s and the penitents’ anti-magic stance is something that echoes the sentiments of those who don’t believe in climate change. As in they’d rather believe in something that’s intangible than trust the group of people that’s helping humanity maintain some kind of an ecological balance. 

Now, after all these years, Perla has proven the archbishop and the penitents wrong by restoring the lost magic through an act of self-sacrifice. The archbishop realized that he should have supported Perla because she had the power to bring an end to this drought, instead of blindly believing in God. However, his realization came too late, and the mob of fanatics that he had riled up ended up killing him. Will Brother Penance and the penitents ever come to the same realization, or will this rain strengthen their belief that their absolute devotion to God is what has caused all this? I think they’ll go for the second option because once you have spent so much time on creating the foundations of this cult, and you have spilt so much innocent blood to prove how dedicated you are to your cause, you have to keep believing your lie until your dying day. So, did the penitents kidnap Perla so that nobody could associate her with the end of the drought, and that’d allow them to spread the propaganda that their prayers and their God were the reason that it began raining in France once again? I’m not so sure. I don’t think the penitents were all that focused on Perla. We know that Zineb, Hortense, and Rochemort were too far away to come back to Segur and kidnap Perla. Lothar could be responsible because he must’ve been angry at Nero after reading his “I have betrayed you” letter. But my best guess is that it’s the one-eyed witch.

Yes, we saw the one-eyed witch’s bewitched serpentine necklace, which Nero had put on Rochemort’s neck, fall off when the one-eyed witch was impaled and supposedly beheaded. That said, what’s the golden rule of entertainment? Until and unless you see a dead body, you shouldn’t assume that a character is permanently dead. Yes, I do think that the one-eyed witch died initially, which is why the necklace fell off Rochemort’s neck. However, when Perla’s sacrifice restored some form of magic into this world, it’s totally possible that she was resurrected along with Perla herself. Why’d she kidnap Perla, though? Well, she’s technically a goddess, and even though Brother Penance won’t publicly accept that God had nothing to do with the end of the drought, if he believes that Perla is that powerful, he’ll try to capture her and make her do his bidding. Therefore, it’s possible that the one-eyed witch took her away to a place that even Nero wouldn’t know about. Why shouldn’t Nero know where Perla is? Because he has a habit of betraying his own people. In addition to all that, if nobody knows where Perla is, maybe the one-eyed witch will get the time she needs to properly train Perla. In the yet-to-be-announced second season of Nero the Assassin, do I expect magic to be fully restored, Segur to be taken back from the clutches of the penitents, and Nero to make a complete 180 as a character? No, on all fronts. 

First of all, I think the entirety of the second season will be spent on explaining what the definition of magic is in this fictional universe, why it was essential to the ecological balance, and how it was vanquished. Maybe during the final episodes, we’ll start seeing some early signs of a proper magical resurgence. The penitents will continue to strengthen their stronghold with the help of religious propaganda. I don’t think Hortense, Rochemort, and Zineb will be able to form an army so easily. They’ll need to win over the trust of Lamartine before they move their defense forces towards Segur. Meanwhile, I think Nero will be compelled to do a lot of soul-searching, specifically in terms of his feelings for Perla and Hortense. He won’t be able to stay in Segur because he’s a wanted fugitive there. Lamartine will take him too far away from Perla. So, I suppose he’ll hang around the outskirts of Segur until he eventually reunites with his daughter. Well, those are just my thoughts on the ending of Nero the Assassin. If you have any opinions on the same, feel free to share them in the comments section below.