'The Crow Girl' Ending Explained & Finale Recap: Did Sophia Craven Kill Ben Burkeman?

The Crow Girl’s ending centers around how Victoria exacts revenge on her lifelong tormentors. [Spoiler Alert] Her father, Ben Burkeman, used to rape his daughter every night while her mother, Mary, ignored her daughter’s plight and turned up the volume on the TV to drown out Victoria’s screams whenever Ben climbed up the staircase towards Victoria’s room. Ben also got Victoria pregnant and lied to her that her newborn daughter Madeleine died during childbirth after “she” dropped the baby in confusion and cracked her skull. It was quite apparent that Ben was not only torturing Victoria physically but also mentally and emotionally to make her feel guilty. In The Crow Girl’s ending, Victoria just wanted to save her daughter from the monsters living in that house, but before Madeleine could escape, Ben pushed the young girl off the stairs and killed the innocent soul. This was the moment Victoria decided to make her father realize that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. She tied him to the chair he left every night to rape her, and burned him down in the very same house where he wanted to keep her a prisoner her entire life. The monster died in his cage, turned to ashes. But even though Victoria had realized her personal vengeance, the fight was far from over. The Crow Girl season 1 ended on a head-scratching cliffhanger, suggesting that Victoria Burkeman and Sophia Craven are the same person. Yes, it was badly executed but that’s what we got so, without further ado, let’s break down all the important events of the finale to see what might happen in season 2.

Martin Died In The Woods

Some 25 years ago, a young Victoria had befriended an eight-year-old, Martin Ryan, whose parents often used to book the holiday cabin in Ferrets Wood. As per Victoria’s narrative, it was her father, Ben, who killed Martin because of her growing fondness for the kid, but you see, throughout the show, Victoria had been the most unreliable narrator, mostly because she herself was suffering from dissociative personality disorder. This could mean Ben was telling the truth and Victoria might have had a role to play in Martin’s death, which would likely be further explored or revealed in The Crow Girl season 2. My best guess is that Victoria got angry with Martin for some reason, which was why she locked him in a crow’s nest and left. Meanwhile, Ben, who had been keeping an eye on her child, used the opportunity to kill Martin so he could pin the blame on Victoria to make her a prisoner of her own guilty conscience. Her entire life, Victoria blamed herself for Martin’s death, and that was one of the narratives that we came across at the beginning of the show. However, the actual truth is still hidden somewhere in the dark corner of Victoria’s mind.

Victoria’s Past Is Still A Mystery

The Crow Girl’s ending revealed that the girl whom we saw as Victoria Burkeman wasn’t real. I mean, I know real isn’t the right word here. What I am trying to say is Victoria is what Dr. Sophia Craven looked like when she was a teenager (these two characters are played by two different actors, but they represent the same person, much like in Fight Club). It is possible that Sophia committed the murders as Victoria because she wanted the real victim, Victoria, to take her vengeance. The timeline of Martin’s death had already given it away, as Clara Rugaard, the actress playing Victoria, didn’t look a day older than 25. But I am not exactly sure why Sophia wanted to use “Victoria’s face” to commit the crimes and not her real self. Maybe something major happened during her early twenties that split her personality into two. That said, there are still a lot of gaps in Victoria’s past, which I guess the second season will likely address further. I am personally interested in knowing how a psychiatric patient escaped her father’s house and got a PhD to become one of the most famous clinical psychologists in Bristol, England. And why was she really self-diagnosing her younger self?

Sophia Craven killed Carl Lowry

It wouldn’t be wrong to assume that Sophia was the mastermind whose actions kicked off a full-fledged investigation on Carl Lowry and the human trafficking ring he was running along with his affluent friends, “the Leaders Of Commerce.” Someone had planted a body outside the building that was being used for Carl’s company, Mount Park Dental Limited, on the day Carl was arrested for possession and distribution of child abuse images. So, it was obvious that Sophia had been tipping off the police from the very beginning. I also believe that she didn’t just start doing things randomly but had been keeping an eye on Carl and his friends for years before coming up with a plan to bring their intricate network down. It is likely that it was Sophia who had poisoned Carl after his victim dropped the charges, and that she later killed the man in the hospital to personally deliver the judgment he truly deserved.

Sophia Will Bring Down The Entire Network

So what was actually happening in Bristol? It seemed like Carl Lowry, the reputed dentist, and his wealthy friends: David White, a former butcher and self-made billionaire; Peter Drake, principal of the private Beecham College; and many others, hosted illegal underground fighting matches for their amusement. They would hire pimps to approach asylum seekers living in England and promise them financial incentives, therefore bringing these young men to the underground ring where they would force them to fight until one of them died. Later, the body of the dead immigrant was stored in a cold storage on Ben Burkeman’s farm, where the caretaker Vincent Dwyer would feed the corpse to the pigs to remove any evidence. I guess these pigs were processed and stored in David White’s warehouse, from where they were exported throughout the nation. And people in the neighborhood really loved the meat. Quite a commentary.

Now, in order to expose these people, Sophia Craven, aka Victoria, broke into Vincent’s cold storage container and took out the packed corpses of Daniel Rexha (17), Faisal Qureshi (21), and Samuel Osman (18). She left these dead bodies at the culprit’s property to help the police draw a connection and arrest these men. However, the police didn’t really find any incriminating evidence in season 1, which is to say, the investigation will continue in season 2, where Sophia might indirectly help her new lover, DCI Jeanette Kilburn, to expose the ring and arrest the creme de la creme really responsible for murdering these innocent these asylum seekers for their amusement. Victoria’s father, Ben, too, was a part of this scandalous group, but nothing much has been revealed about his connection in season 1, and we most likely would find more in The Crow Girl season 2.

Sophia Is The Crow Girl

One of the reasons why Sophia created this image of Victoria in her mind was because she believed that she was cursed and everything she loved got hurt. Victoria brought a crow to the house when she was little, and her mother broke its neck and killed the poor creature in front of her eyes. Later, her father killed Martin, the only friend Victoria had, making her realize that her parents would kill everything she loved. They didn’t even spare their own grandchild, Madeleine, and blamed Victoria for her death. It was one of the reasons why Sophia Craven didn’t marry anyone or was so afraid of getting close to anyone. She had developed feelings for Jeanette, and that’s what had started to scare her the most. I guess her feelings for Jeanette will lead to an internal conflict where Victoria will try to harm Jeanette because she, being an officer of the law, would sooner or later become a hindrance in Victoria’s path for vengeance. While Sophia, who wants to have a peaceful life and start a family of her own, wouldn’t want Jeanette to leave her. If you see, it’s the same predicament that one of Sophia’s patients, Margaret Reagan, was going through.

Sophia Has Kept Mary Alive

Victoria hasn’t killed her mother Mary yet and just locked her in a sound-proof room she had built in her basement at the beginning of the show. I guess Sophia or Victoria had planned something really sinister for Mary and wanted to give her a very haunting death, so Mary would ultimately realize the pain Victoria had suffered throughout these years. Mary, being  a mother, could have taken a stand against her husband and saved her child from such a monster, but she didn’t and Victoria does hold her mother responsible for looking away. However, I believe Victoria might not kill Mary until and unless she had got rid of all the other culprits, especially David White, the man who had been stalking her everywhere.

DI Lou Stanley May Return

In The Crow Girl’s ending, Superintendent Verity Pound had made it quite clear that Lou Stanley would most certainly lose his badge for sleeping with a victim, Ursula Wilson, and starting a new side gig hiring the asylum seekers to sell drugs. However, something tells me that he can still return for the second season, where he will help Jeanette solve the murders and protect her from the vigilante who had sworn to regain her respect and end the conflict by killing everyone who had been hurting young girls and boys in the city. Also, Jeanette could rekindle her relationship with her husband, Alex Kilburn, for the sake of her young kid, Joe, especially when she finds out that the woman she had been sleeping with is actually the vigilante that she had been hunting throughout the city.

To sum it up, there are a lot of things that still haven’t been answered in season 1, and because I haven’t read the books, I am not sure how these conflicts are going to be resolved in The Crow Girl season 2. But if you have, do share some interesting insights in the comment section. Also, if you have any query or if you think I made some wrong connections which need correction, do let me know in the box below.

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