Can You Keep A Secret Ending Explained And Series Recap: Will There Be A Season 2?

The central idea of BBC One’s fresh-baked crime comedy, “Can You Keep A Secret?”—a man pretending to be dead, as his wife accidentally receives a large sum of money, all in cash, thanks to an insurance fiasco—is so very delicious. The show, loaded with both wry British humor and a hefty amount of looniness, is a bit of a mixed bag, but still a breezy watch nonetheless. And of course, it leaves you with quite a cliffhanger and very strong possibility of another season. We’re going to talk about that here and also discuss the whole show a bit. Here we go.

Spoilers Ahead

What happens in the show?

Alright, instead of doing this from the point where the show takes off, I’m going to go chronological here. So William and Debbie are an older couple living in this quaint little English village, Colberton. William suffers from Parkinson’s, has a major sweet tooth, and mostly stays at home; Debbie, on the other hand, is a feisty woman brimming with sass—the actors, Dawn French and Mark Heap, both big British names, have incredible chemistry here, by the way. Anyway, one day, William accidentally overdoses on Parkinson’s pills and goes completely unconscious. After trying everything to wake her husband, Debbie has no choice but to call the town doctor. The doctor, who’s still suffering from germophobia—that’s a normal thing in a post-Covid world though—quickly pronounces William dead, and even produces a death certificate. Debbie, meanwhile, calls the funeral home and sets up everything for her husband’s funeral. But William comes back to life after all this, and Debbie is understandably stunned and thanking her stars. Naturally, she has to cancel the arrangements for the funeral. But when she goes to the funeral home, the director, this gentle-looking ginger guy, Marcus—who has an important part to play in this crazy tale—mistakenly thinks she is the widow of this dead man, having the same name and surname as William, and drops the talk of nobody claiming the insurance money for the man yet. That prompts Debbie to not clear the confusion and kiss the corpse—because she has to be convincing and effectively pocket the money. As a result, the real William, despite being alive and kicking, has to stay dead. Not that it should matter, as the man mostly stays home anyway, other than occasional chocolate biscuit runs to the gas station. 

Two months go by, and Debbie brings their son, Harold, aka Harry, into the fold—that’s where the series kicks off from, actually. Harry is a thirty-something simple man who loves his football manager game, his wife Neha, and their two kids, but also suffers from anxiety and is currently on antidepressants. Naturally he is as shocked as anyone should be in this situation, and not quite sure if his parents have done the right thing by keeping the money. But Debbie pretty much convinces him that it’s for everyone’s good. However, there’s one big problem: Harry absolutely has to keep it to himself and not tell his wife, because Neha is a cop at the local police station. And she seems to be pretty good at her job, although there’s hardly any crime in Colberton, other than this disheveled guy, Pigfish, stealing petrol, but still pretty much wandering all over town without getting caught.

Does Neha find out? 

How can she not when her husband is Harry, who can’t live without telling his wife everything? At first, she doesn’t believe him when, at a fundraiser for William (arranged by Debbie, who else?), Harry starts acting weird and ends up telling the truth—his father is alive. Neha consoles him by telling him William will live forever in Harry’s heart. So Harry takes his wife to his parents’ house to show her that his father is also living very much in flesh and blood. That—and the whole thing around it—is a huge shock to Neha, and her first reaction is Debbie should give the money back. And of course, she should surrender herself to the police, considering what she and her husband have done is a crime. But Debbie being Debbie, she refuses to turn herself in, and Harry finds himself in between his mother and his wife. Debbie’s argument is she has always been the model citizen, and so has William, but they didn’t get any special support for his Parkinson’s, as their insurance didn’t cover it. You can’t deny she has a point, but Neha isn’t in the wrong either. However, Debbie eventually gives in and goes to Neha, requesting to be arrested. But upon realizing Debbie has only used the money to help people she cares about and made their lives better—that includes getting Harry and Neha a new jet spray—Neha switches sides and joins her mother-in-law. Having her cop daughter-in-law on her side does put Debbie in an advantageous position, but there’s another big problem—she is being blackmailed. Somebody is aware of what she has done and has dropped off a letter, basically asking her to pay them off, or else her secret comes out. 

Who is blackmailing Debbie?

The blackmail part shouldn’t at all come as a surprise, given how nonchalantly William goes out of the house every now and then. That has a lot to do with the pills he’s taking for Parkinson’s and also his love for chocolate biscuits. Point being, it’s not exactly difficult for people to figure out what’s happening if somebody has keen eyes. Thanks to her daughter-in-law, Debbie soon finds out it’s none other than her former friend and neighbor, Pamela Anderson—yes, that’s the name. So to one-up Pamela, Neha comes up with the plan of setting a burger trap. That works out, and Neha manages to catch Pamela’s guy red-handed, with the bag full of cash and (fake) drugs, which Harry dropped as per the plan. The guy turns out to be none other than funeral director Marcus. Doesn’t that make total sense?

It doesn’t take much effort to subdue Marcus, as he gets very scared seeing Neha. But then Debbie pulls off a surprising move by inviting Marcus to her home for lunch. Marcus then reveals that the only reason he chose this path was financial duress and nothing else. Feeling bad for the guy, Debbie gives him some money while lamenting him getting in bed with Pamela Anderson. But Marcus denies knowing or having any connection with Pamela Anderson. That only proves there’s another blackmailer around—either Pamela herself or she’s in cahoots with someone else.

Does Pamela Anderson die?

Debbie is clearly not someone who would just sit around, so she decides to find out what Pamela Anderson has against her. And the best way to do that is by sneaking into Pamela’s house, for which she takes her son along. Neha and William, meanwhile, go to pick up some Parkinson’s medication through not-so-legal means because he can’t get it anymore considering the prescription is invalid (it’s for a dead person). That leads to William consuming some cannabis, going on a bad trip, and vomiting gallons. Back to Pamela Anderson, Harry tries his best to keep her occupied while Debbie gets inside her house to check if she can find anything. She does find a letter in Pamela’s bedroom, addressed to her regarding the blackmailing, which confirms Pamela is, in fact, the other blackmailer. But when Pamela returns to her room, Debbie fails to get away, so she puts on her faulty collagen mask instead. Pamela sees that and faints immediately, resulting in her death. Except nobody really dies in this show—apart from the real William Fenden—and like what happened with William, the germaphobic doctor was initially wrong here as well. It is also discovered that Pamela was being poisoned, most certainly by the real blackmailer, who was trying to frame Pamela for the blackmailing. 

Who is the real blackmailer?

It’s always the person who you suspect the least, right? I have seen way too many shows and movies to realize that, and I also don’t think this show really wanted to hide it from its audience. The character of Jean, from the local widow club, did seem like a regular supporting character except for one important thing—Jean is blind, and the Fendens didn’t need to hide from her. I mean, William didn’t have to go inside the kitchen cupboard every time Jean came home. But the blindness is, of course, a lie. Jean’s eyes are not completely healthy, though—she does have double vision—but she can see fine enough to tell that William is alive and well and to hatch the blackmailing plot.

But with the Pamela incident, Jean now has to fast-track things before getting caught. So she opts for desperate measures by dropping by Debbie’s house when just William and Harry are there—Neha and Debbie are out investigating the matter of who poisoned Pamela, at the same time. Jean, who’s no blind woman, is smart enough to put Billie—her friend and the other widow, who is innocent—to sleep and then do the same to Harry and William by luring them with just-out-of-the-oven chocolate cupcakes. By the time both Harry and William figure out Jean is not really the blind and innocent Jean, they’re too far gone, and Jean is about to leave with the bag full of cash. But how can she get past Debbie Fenden? This show might have a crime at the center, but the people who are associated with it are all good people with no bad intentions. Except Jean, of course, who ultimately gets caught as Debbie and Neha return, right on time. 

Interestingly, despite Jean getting caught, not everything—by which I mean the part where William is alive, but his family has the insurance money of a dead William, and so on — gets out in the open. I find it a little absurd that Jean is not screaming from rooftops about it after being prosecuted for whatever she did with Pamela. But this is not a story where logic is supposed to have that much of a stronghold, so we can just let it slide. Nobody in their right mind wouldn’t really go for a house party, inviting the entire village, but that’s exactly what Debbie does. Her friendship with Pamela Anderson is also rejuvenated. Unfortunately for William, he still has to go and hide in the kitchen cupboard, as he has to play dead for the greater good. 

What will happen to the Fenden family?

The show could have neatly wrapped up everything with the house party, where Harry starts feeling bad for his father being stuck in the cupboard and decides to pop in with a chocolate, only to find out his mother is also there. That’s a nice wholesome crime family photo they could have left with, but someone else had other plans—who else but the germaphobic doctor? All she needed was a tissue, which she couldn’t find, resulting in her coming into the kitchen and opening the cupboard. Instead of what she was looking for, the doctor finds the Fendens—Debbie, Harry, and William, whom she herself pronounced dead. Debbie, still full of all the sass, promptly throws the right question at the doctor—”Can You Keep A Secret”?

A second season is a given at this point, but in case we don’t get one, I suppose Debbie is smart enough to convince the doctor and get her on the payroll, just like Marcus. The doctor wouldn’t want her reputation to be tarnished, right? So even though the ending is a real “what in God’s name” moment, I really don’t think anything is going to happen to the Fenden family. They are good people, after all, and at least in the world of this show, good people get to live, unharmed.

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