'Cash Queens' Ending Explained & Finale Recap: Do The Ladies Escape Prison? 

The French language Netflix original Cash Queens tells the story of three poor women and one who is rich, but poor in love, working together to escape the lives they’ve been given because of the circumstances that men put them in. The 8-part TV show sees the women conduct 3 heists, progressively worse than the previous, and somehow survive despite a dozen mistakes. Rosa is the first to learn she has no money because her husband’s debt allows her only 30 euros a week to live her life. On the other hand, Sofiia has children to feed, but the DFS, i.e., French child services, is eager to send her kids to foster care because there’s mould in her house and she’s considered negligent because she does the night shift. When she loses her job, being falsely accused of stealing a cake, it hits the woman how bad her situation really is. Kim, Rosa’s best friend, has bipolar disorder and not much to her name, so really, they believe they have just one choice: steal money and escape this hell-hole they call life. Do they succeed? What happens at the end of Cash Queens?  Let’s find out. 

Spoiler Alert

How Do The Ladies Get All The Women Of Trevise Involved?

After Marionnaud’s announcement that he was going to tear down every building in Trevise because of vague asbestos-based risks, only to build a massive shopping complex on the land afterwards, all the residents were furious, but none more so than the women. This is what our gang taps into, reaching out in their respective circles and pulling more and more women in, until they have a meeting with dozens of interested and motivated women, all of whom want to put a stop to Marionnaud’s plan. They’re incensed to see Chloe there, though, calling her a racist and a bigot just because she’s married to one. The ladies convince them to hear them out, though, saying Chloe’s not the only woman who’s had to resort to marrying a less-than-ideal man.

What follows is a case of them selectively revealing information to them, but without any explanation for how they know all this stuff. Like their claim that Marionnaud and Ezechiel are working together, or their foreknowledge about a cocaine shipment coming in via van. But the women of Trevise swallow it all up anyway, until the bank robber outfits come out and they get a little freaked out. They do give in eventually, all dressing up with wigs and caps and shades and using voice modulators so that the cops won’t be able to tell who’s who. Eventually, when the gang is asked to heist the cocaine, they manage it, even with cops shooting Chloe (she had a bulletproof vest on), and because they have an identical decoy van, they get away safe. Well, mostly safe, Alex gets shot, though she doesn’t reveal it till after they’ve burned all the cocaine.

Also, a bunch of older women break into the warehouse where Ezechiel was hiding the 2.5 million euros and overpower his two goons, Dylan and Hakim, getting away with the money, even though it all goes to the cops eventually. When Ezechiel finds out, he threatens to kill them but spares them after Hakim and Dylan confess their love for each other in front of him, revealing that they were planning on getting married. He’s surprisingly progressive about this (though he’s obviously not a good person). At this moment in time, all he cares about is getting his money back.

Do Malik And Chloe Have A Happily Ever After?

Malik is Sofia’s brother and a police officer who basically knows Rosa is involved in this scammy situation, but can’t prove it. When he meets Chloe, they have an instant connection, and after some thinking, she decides to give cheating a try. Chloe has an abusive husband, who only ever cares about his chicken. Chloe tries her best to live in the household she helped build because that’s just what rich wives do. But she’s deeply unhappy. Kim and Rosa end up saving her from killing herself when they’re trying to steal her husband’s Ferrari. This is when she joins the team as a designated driver. But being with the other women shows her other sides of womanhood. It allows her to see how she can escape her current lifestyle in more ways than one, i.e. she doesn’t have to kill herself and give her stupid husband that pleasure. Instead, she can be happy by working on her connection with a younger man like Malik. At first, you don’t think things are going to get serious until they do, and you’re left wondering when it turned from lust to love. 

For Chloe, Malik is an escape, but the same applies to him, too, I think. Malik is surrounded by women, but the way Chloe treats him is obviously way different from the others, and she’s one person who genuinely takes him seriously. Even in the force, people don’t seem to be taking his opinions too seriously, which really is quite the shame. Anyway, in their last scene together, Chloe handcuffs Malik to herself because she doesn’t want him to go into a dangerous situation alone. They get into a car accident, but this woman has literally experienced death twice before, once with a gunshot, so she might be able to survive that massive accident, but I’m not sure I can say the same for Malik. In the end, we don’t find out if they survive or not, but even if they do go into comas, let’s hope they did survive because they’re kinda sweet. Plus, it’d really be a slap in the face of Marionnaud. 

Do Kim and Alex make it out Okay?

In Cash Queens’ ending, the person who started it all, Rosa, decides to sacrifice herself to save the other women, or at least those of them who are left. Sofia is by herself, and Kim is driving an injured Alex, who’s been shot and is bleeding profusely. We never find out if they truly escape and make it out alive, especially Alex. But seeing as the whole dozen of police cars that were chasing them ended up stopping for Rosa makes one thing clear, the women did drive off, but does Alex survive? 

Well, we can assume the women got out of the city. Sure, the women of Trevise are on their side, so maybe they’ll find a way to get Alex treated, but I think it’s more likely they escape first and then get the treatment. The whole reason Sophia and Rosa wanted money was to give their kids a better life, but this seems to be the worst-case scenario for them. However, we can imagine Rosa’s sacrifice and her pointing out that she would not like to be called “man,” makes for one killer ending that might also lead us to believe the women succeed in one way or another. Sure, Rosa has to go to prison, but she’s going to have Simon’s baby (which she seems to want, especially now the guy’s dead). Once she’s done, she can probably go join her friends, likely in Panama, as Kim had planned earlier, when things seemed to have been going kinda well for them. 

Is There A Nasty Surprise In Store For Sofia Next Season?

Earlier in the season, Sofia’s ex-husband, Oualid, had tried to blackmail her for money after he’d recognized her limp from CCTV footage of the bank robbery. The gang had responded by trying to threaten him at gunpoint, though he’d slipped and hit his head, bleeding out on the floor. Panicking, they’d packed him into a massive suitcase, but with a comedic twist, a random VIP had been checking out of the hotel where this had happened, and they’d packed the suitcase and checked it onto their flight after leaving. It was a little conspicuous that this never came up afterwards, since it’s not like they don’t scan checked-in luggage, but we do get an Oualid teaser right at the end of the season. We see him walk up to an airport check-in counter for a flight to Marseille, with his neck in a brace; battered but not dead. It really makes no sense that he survived his stay in the suitcase without suffocating. But also, it would have been a pretty major news story when they found him while x-raying the luggage, no? Guess he escaped some time before the suitcase exchange and made it out alive. If there is a second season, he’ll probably be around as a villain character. 

What’s The Real Message Of the show?

Upon little research, I found out that this show is based on true events from 1989, where 5 women bonded and robbed around 8 banks in the south of France. The story was flashy, mainly because it was women who wanted emancipation and an escape from their pathetic lives. Cash Queens seems to be loosely based on this story that was adapted just last year into a movie. Gang des Amazones, they were called, but this is a dramedy, so does it do them any justice? I’m not so sure about that; however, it certainly focuses on feminist ideologies. It is interesting to see how the women are mostly portrayed as kind of dumb, but eventually get things done because it’s just in their nature. As if heists can be pulled off by anyone, but also this is the comedic aspect of the show, so I guess it somehow works? Anyway, what did you think of Cash Queens? Did the ending feel like a happy one to you? 

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