'Squad 36' Ending Explained And Full Story: Is Antoine Dead Or Alive?

Institutionalized authoritarian corruption is a universal crisis, and the people involved in the profession of upholding the law are as much of a victim of it as common people are. Netflix’s French thriller, Squad 36, ponders over this issue using a much-treaded narrative course. With a grounded yet extremely slow-paced story with a morally questionable lead and no likable characters involved, Squad 36’s tragic ending could have intrigued viewers better had the glaring problems been taken care of. Even significant issues raised by the movie, like the importance of the mental well-being of those serving law and order, are simply mentioned and not explored. Overall, this two-hour snoozefest of a crime caper neither possesses the cerebral nuance to hook in viewers nor has the reliance or strength in its action elements —creating an overall tedious experience as a result.

Spoilers Ahead

Why Did Antoine Begin Searching For Richard?

The beginning of Squad 36 follows members of a special anti-gang search and intervention squad of the French police as they tail their target, Karin Mahmoudi, a notorious drug lord with connections to the Moroccan mafia. Following a prolonged car and bike chase through the streets of Paris, Antoine, one of the senior members of the team, manages to corner Mahmoudi, but given the prime directive of their mission is not to arrest this suspect, Antoine ends up letting Mahmoudi go. Also, the squad has already been criticized and reported for causing a scene in public during their pursuit, as the higher ups fear it might lead to collateral damage and ensuing bad press—which is why Antoine cannot afford to engage with Mahmoudi in public. As the team retreats to their base, we meet Antoine’s colleagues, dear friends—Sami, Richard, Vinny, Walid, and Hanna—and their superior, Balestra, who informs his squad about the recent negative reception regarding their modus operandi. 

Antoine is in a relationship with Hanna, who is aware of his bad habit of slugging it out in illegal underground fighting pits and tries to dissuade him from engaging in it any longer. Antoine doesn’t adhere to her advice and, following a win, ends up getting into a brawl with a couple of miscreants. As a result, the next day, Alexandra, the chief supervisor of the S&I squad, hands him a transfer order for insubordination and reckless behavior. An ashamed Antoine shuts his friends out of his life for the next six months, until a series of tragedies strikes.

Walid and Vinny are murdered under suspicious circumstances, prompting Antoine to check up on his former colleagues, and Richard, Antoine’s close friend, turns out to be missing. Vinny had tried to reach Antoine by calling him moments before he was murdered, and his last words in his voicemail hint that he was going to share something crucial that was bugging him. Antoine becomes concerned about Richard’s well-being after learning about his deteriorating mental condition from his wife, Sofia. Questioning the director of the psychiatric hospital Richard was admitted to before he ended up disappearing all of a sudden, Antoine learns about Victor Garnier—Richard’s neighbor/former supervising officer during his training days—the only person Richard confided in before going missing. As the higher authorities, represented by Commissioner Wagner, appear extremely negligent about the plight of the squad members, Antoine gets more involved in investigating the situation on his own—much to Wagner’s dismay. Balestra tries to warn Antoine time and again, but his efforts go in vain.

Antoine gets to learn from Victor that Richard was not his usual self, acting increasingly paranoid and growing anxious as he anticipated he was being targeted by a dangerous lot. Victor shares a number with Antoine to reach Richard, and running it through an ID check with Hanna’s help, Antoine learns it belongs to a sex worker named Kristina Donkeva. It should be mentioned that after Antoine left the squad, Hanna quit S&I and joined the armed forces.

Hanna and Antoine rekindle their relationship, and Hanna reveals that since his departure from the squad, Sami led his team into shady business by taking on assignments with the SIT (Special Investigation Team) unit. Antoine meets Kristina to question her regarding Richard’s whereabouts. As he checks her phone, he comes across a photo where Sami and Richard are seen with Karim Mahmoudi. Baffled, Antoine implores Kristina to let him communicate with Richard—and she agrees to reveal the location of his next meeting with her in exchange for money. However, it was an ambush that Antoine somehow survived, and Kristina ended up meeting her end in the mess. As a result, Wagner suspends Antoine, but his investigation continues nevertheless. Antoine meets with Sami on one occasion, and gets called out for not being present for Richard when the pressure of their job started affecting his psyche. Antoine decides to snoop around the nightclub where Sami and Richard were seen with Mahmoudi, and the drug dealer abducts him in retaliation. Mahmoudi roughs up Antoine, but not before revealing that he has nothing to do with Richard’s situation. 

Who Was the Killer?

Antoine’s mad pursuit of truth wrought terrible consequences, as Hanna was shot by the mysterious assailant who was targeting the S&I squad members one by one. Hanna was fighting for her life at the hospital, and finally Antoine learned the error of his ways as he decided to stop acting on his instincts any longer. Although Antoine was troubled to realize that the mysterious assailant was framing Richard by using his gun to kill and shoot the squad members, making it seem that, losing his mental faculties, the S&I member has started targeting his colleagues. On the other hand, following a series of murders and assassination attempts, pressure started mounting on the higher authorities, and Alexandra, Balestra, and Wagner started feeling the heat. They decide to use Antoine’s determined, driven pursuit of justice, as Alexandra reveals crucial intel about Sami’s team to Antoine. As it turns out, while being assigned to a joint assignment with SIT, Sami and his team were investigating Karim Mahmoudi and his drug network. Apparently, Sami had shaken hands with the dreaded drug lord, who sought Sami’s help to search for his stolen money. Mahmoudi’s nephew, Ichem, who was transporting the drug money, went missing as well, and Mahmoudi wanted Sami to search for him.

The reality was much more troubling than assumed, as Antoine learns while eavesdropping on Karim’s conversation with one of his henchmen who accompanied Ichem while transporting the money. Sami’s greed drove him to put a hit out on Ichem and steal the drug money, and he took help from his comrades—Vinny, Richard, and Walid—to orchestrate this daring plan. However, Richard was overwhelmed with fear after learning of Mahmoudi’s connection with the Moroccan mafia. Sami shared the loot with his crooked members of SIT, without paying heed to the possible repercussions of his actions. To eliminate loose ends, Sami killed Walid and Vinny. At present, as Richard decided to return to Sofia and revealed his intention of confessing his crimes to the higher authorities, Sami murders him and his wife as well. Despite being a family man himself, Sami had no consideration for the lives and families of his comrades, and he was responsible for Hanna’s present predicament. 

As Mahmoudi learns the truth about Sami’s actions, he takes his lackeys to Sami’s residence to get his revenge. Antoine, who has learned about the entire situation, warned Sami by texting him—but by the time Sami had managed to return to his residence, Mahmoudi and his goons already had the area surrounded and took his family hostage. As Antoine and later Balestra arrived at the spot to protect Sami’s family, a prolonged gunfight ensued—which resulted in Sami’s wife Vanessa getting injured. At last, Mahmoudi was neutralized, and a guilt-ridden Sami took his own life. He breathed his last by asking Antoine to not let his children know the ugly truth about their father. 

Did Antoine Reveal the Truth at the End?

Antoine was not shocked to learn that Wagner, Balestra, and the other head honchos of the administration have already created the narrative to provide the departed Sami a heroic send-off and put the entire blame on Karim Mahmoudi. Balestra tried to convince him by mentioning that the heinous truth that a police officer himself turned out to be a cop killer and stole drug money by killing gangsters would not be good for public morale—they would completely lose their faith in the established system. But Antoine was adamant about revealing the truth to the public—after all, he lost his dear comrades thanks to the machinations of a madman. In fact, with Victor’s help, Antoine is able to obtain Richard’s files on every problematic deal Sami and his team were a part of. 

Balestra informed his higher-ups about this, as there was no chance of keeping Antoine silent with concrete evidence at his disposal. Antoine met with a recuperating Hanna and decided to return the car and gun he took from Marcus, his associate from the fighting pit. Right at that moment, the miscreant who engaged in a brawl with Antoine all those years ago spotted his car and performed a drive-by, which claimed Antoine’s life. Balestra, reeling from the death of his most dependable squad member, takes the file away—securing the sanctity of the lie of the administration. There is a possibility that higher-ups have put the hit on Antoine.

In Squad 36’s ending, Antoine’s funeral is arranged, and he is given a hero’s send-off. The truth remains hidden, although Victor, Richard’s friend, is still aware of the entirety of the situation. Although there isn’t much he can do on his own, and most probably, like everyone else, he too has to bear with the decrepit system. Balestra can turn his back on his superiors, but there is no strong indication of that either. 

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