'That Night' Episodes 1-6 Recap: Did Elena Kill Wilfredo?

Netflix’s Spanish mystery thriller series, That Night, based on Gillian McAllister’s bestselling novel by the same name, will keep you hooked to the screen, at least until the wigs take over in the final episode. It all starts with a dead body. Elena had apparently panicked and run her car over a police officer when he demanded money from her and threatened her with a gun. She called her sisters, Paula and Cris, to help her get out of this sticky situation. Paula was practical and biased, whereas Cris was emotional and self-righteous. Therefore, Paula’s goal was to help her sister regardless of whether she was at fault or not, but for Cris the situation wasn’t completely black and white. She couldn’t convince herself to help her sisters bury the body, but then again, turning her back on her sisters wasn’t really an option. Paula and Elena managed to manipulate Cris into helping them, but the trouble didn’t just end there. They weren’t professional killers, so they made some rookie mistakes. So, did the sisters get caught? Let’s find out.

Spoiler Alert

Did Elena confess?

Elena wasn’t really the brightest of the three, but she felt guilty for dragging her sisters into the mess she’d created, and she felt the need to actively try and fix the situation. Paula’s plan was to use the cop’s credit card and phone around the island so that no one would find the spot where they’d buried him and would simply assume that he’d disappeared. But instead of using his credit card to buy something, Elena decided to use it at the ATM and get cash. Since she didn’t know the PIN, the card got blocked, and surveillance footage of her hastily leaving the shop was recorded. Cris had a breakdown at a gas station while she was trying to go around the island, so naturally the man at the station remembered her and likely helped the cops when they started investigating the case. The fact that the sisters left the very next day after the incident surely raised suspicion. Paula had been under the impression that Elena didn’t know the cop she’d ‘mistakenly’ killed. But then, among his belongings, Paula found a court order against Elena suggesting that he was in a custody battle with her sister. Paula connected the dots and figured that he was Ane’s father. Elena had hooked up with a local cop almost a year ago when she was on the island for vacation. She went back home, discovered she was pregnant, and decided to raise the baby on her own. She never expected to run into the guy again, but he managed to track her down from a picture that was published in a local newspaper taken at the inauguration event at Cris’ shelter. He was convinced that he was the father of the child Elena was raising, and he refused to let it go. He stated that he was being denied his rights as a father, and he could take the case to court if he wanted. Wilfredo offered Elena an alternate option; he agreed to let her be if she could arrange $100,000 for him by the next evening. Elena knew it was an impossible ask, but she tried her luck by walking into every bank on the island asking for loans. Obviously, none of that was possible to arrange within a day. She’d asked her father for help, but he stated outright he didn’t have the money. He even insinuated that maybe God wanted her baby to reunite with her father, leaving Elena all the more frustrated. She’d asked Paula’s partner, Luisa, for help by lying that she’d gotten entangled with a betting ring, but even that plan didn’t work out. Perhaps Elena should have considered discussing her situation with her sisters, but then again, she always felt intellectually inferior, so taking her problem to her sisters would’ve made her look like a mess. So, she decided to deal with the situation all by herself. She pounded a few lorazepam and grabbed a pair of toy handcuffs just for protection. Her plan was to drug Wilfredo, tie him up, and get back her and Ane’s passports. But things didn’t really go as she’d planned. 

According to her version of events, after she convinced Wilfredo to have dinner with her, she drugged his drink. He wasn’t completely in his senses when they took a walk at the beach. He noticed the handcuffs she was carrying, and he suspected that Elena was trying to fool him. So, he attempted to drown her, and the rest of the night was all blurry for her. She remembered running away from him and then getting in her car and ultimately striking him with it. Paula sympathised with her sister, and she made it her life’s mission to protect her. The sisters managed to fly out of the Dominican Republic, but eventually Wilfredo’s body was found, and since there were too many clues suggesting that the sisters were responsible, they were arrested in Spain on the basis of that suspicion. Their father refused to believe that Elena had murdered the man, so he repeatedly emphasized that they must never confess.

How did the past affect the sisters?

The evidence against the sisters was quite convincing, and even their lawyer thought that the best they could do was a public apology so that they wouldn’t be extradited to the Dominican Republic and the trial could continue in Spain. But Javier vehemently refused the proposal; he wasn’t ready to accept that his daughters were guilty, and as a result, he ended up doing things that only made their case worse. From going on a podcast and blurting out the fact that Wilfredo had tried to blackmail Elena and his daughter had only tried to protect herself (people came to know that Elena had a motive) to asking Paula to take the fall, it was all messed up. Javier thought that since Paula was pregnant, if she admitted guilt, then she wouldn’t be extradited to the Dominican Republic on medical grounds. Paula refused to do so, and Cris and Luisa criticized Javier for coming up with such an insane solution. Cris couldn’t live with her guilt anymore, so she decided to come clean. Without consulting her sisters, she spoke to the police and confessed the truth. She knew that her family wouldn’t have let her do this, but for the sake of mental peace, she figured she had to do the right thing. Javier described his family as ‘tight knit,’ which also meant they would support each other, lie to the world and even themselves to keep the family intact, and that always came at a price. 

Towards the end, it is revealed that Cris, Paula, and Elena’s mother died by suicide. She’d attempted to drown Elena and her son, Robert. Paula was at home at the time, and she managed to open the bathroom door, but she always blamed herself for failing to stop her mother from jumping out of the window with Elena and Robert in the arms. Robert didn’t survive the fall, and while Elena did, the incident had left her scarred for life. She was too young at the time to remember what had happened, but when she found out about the incident, she must have experienced extreme turmoil. Their mother was mentally unstable, but their father failed to recognize her condition, and in a way, his decision to ignore her erratic behavior only made matters worse. Paula lived with this constant guilt, and that was why she always felt the need to protect her siblings at all costs. Cris was playing on the street with her friends when the incident unfolded, and Paula always thought that her sister should’ve been there by her side that night. That traumatic incident had left a lasting impact on the sisters, and in a way, everything that they did was somehow linked to that one night. After Cris confessed to the cops, Elena and Paula were summoned by the court, but instead of facing the situation, Javier was hellbent on finding an escape. Paula knew it was a terrible idea; there was no way they would make it to France by road, but Javier was persistent, and Elena supported his decision. As the youngest, Elena often found herself completely clueless, and since she was desperate to be with her daughter, she figured she might as well listen to her father. Since Javier had almost lost Elena once, he was desperate to ensure that no harm befell her. But Javier’s plan didn’t work. They chose to spend a night at a cabin they used to visit when they went hunting, and the next morning, two hunters came across Javier, and they immediately recognized him. They called the cops, and Elena and Paula were arrested. Javier was a religious man, and before their arrest he’d visited a chapel asking God to show him what he’d been missing. Well, after the arrest, he finally realized how blind he’d been all this while. His daughter had killed a man, and accepting it meant acknowledging the fact that his wife’s death and attempted murder of Elena had impacted his daughter more than he’d wanted to believe. 

What convinced Ane to testify for Elena?

After twenty-three years, Ane, who was a journalist now, went through all the evidence that she could find related to her mother’s case. We discover that Elena chose to completely cut off ties with her daughter. She was embarrassed of herself, and she didn’t want her daughter to ever see her this way. Growing up without a mother, Elena always thought that when she would become a mother, she would do everything in her power to ensure her child’s well-being. Elena thought she’d failed herself and Ane, and she was deeply ashamed. Perhaps she thought that she’d ended up putting her daughter’s life at risk, just like her mother once did. Cris raised Ane, and she even called her ‘mom.’ Ane was raised away from the chaos, but as she grew older, she felt the need to know the objective truth. 

During That Night’s ending, we discover that, according to the autopsy report, it was confirmed that Wilfredo didn’t die of the impact, suggesting that he was intentionally murdered and it wasn’t an accident. Also, the surveillance footage from the restaurant they’d been to before the incident revealed that Elena had lied about drugging Wilfredo. The drink spilled on the table before he could even consume it, confirming that he wasn’t drowsy when they left the place. This also meant that it is likely that Wilfredo didn’t attempt to drown Elena, as she’d told Paula. Perhaps she killed him because she didn’t want Wilfredo anywhere near her daughter, and she was afraid of getting entangled in a legal battle in a foreign country. She figured this was the only solution she had, and she simply acted on it without really considering the consequences of her action. The fact that she repeatedly ran her car over Wilfredo indicated that, whatever she did, she did with intent. Ane had been recently told that her mother wanted her to testify so that she could get parole, but after studying the details of the case, she wasn’t sure what she was even supposed to say. But Ane ultimately decided to travel to the Dominican Republic to see the place that completely changed the course of her life. She paid respect to her deceased biological father and visited every spot that was significant to the sisters and the case. She wasn’t sure if she could vouch for Elena, but when she discovered that it was her aunt Paula who’d requested her to testify, and not her biological mother, she realized that maybe all this while her mother had been trying to protect her. According to Paula, Elena was very sick, and she wouldn’t survive if she stayed in prison, yet Elena didn’t seek her daughter’s help.

Ane ultimately decided to testify for her mother in court. Elena chose not to attend the trial in person; she didn’t want her presence to influence Ane or even the judge. Ane delivered an emotional speech, expressing her disappointment in her mother as a child and ultimately realizing the sacrifices her mother quietly made for her sake. She’d come across an interview of her grandfather where he’d stated that Elena was willing to do anything to not be separated from her daughter. Ane had realized what that truly meant; her mother’s heart ached to be with her, but she chose not to reach out to Ane because she knew it would be unfair to her. Ane told the court that there are two versions of the truth: in one, her mother was a monster who did terrible things to save herself, and in the other, she was a scared, desperate single mother who made a horrible mistake to protect her daughter. Ane stated that she chose to believe in the second version, because all the evidence underlined that Elena loved her daughter, and she requested the court to give her mother a chance to be a better person.

Did the sisters reunite?

Cris traveled with Ane to the Dominican Republic, and after fifteen years, Paula was finally reunited with her sister. We learn that Paula had served three years in prison for helping Elena get rid of the body. Unlike Cris, who chose to walk away, Paula stayed behind to support her sister, but in the process, she’d lost Luisa, and she never got her life back. In the fifteen years that she’d been in the Dominican Republic, she lived modestly, and her life pretty much revolved around Elena’s case and ensuring her sister’s well-being. Since Cris had confessed and provided crucial information, she managed to stay out of prison, but that was not the kind of escape Paula wanted.

That Night brilliantly captures the complex personalities of each of the sisters. Cris, the eldest, always felt the need to run away. She moved to the Dominican Republic and started a shelter for dogs because it allowed her to envision a completely different life for herself that didn’t involve her family. She was afraid of ending up stuck and being criticized by her father. Paula, the middle child, always felt weighed down by responsibilities. Although she cherished her relationship with Luisa, she could never really compartmentalize her life. The past incident made her feel as if she owed it to her family, and she often prioritized her sister over her partner and even their unborn child. Paula didn’t know how to feel about becoming a mother. It was a journey that she and Luisa had been looking forward to, yet when she found out that she was pregnant, she instinctively wanted to get rid of the baby. Probably because she didn’t think she would be a good mother, and she feared she would fail her child. Luisa walked away from her after Paula attempted to flee the country with her father and sister without consulting Luisa, who chose to support her even after she’d discovered Paula had attempted to abort their baby. Elena, the youngest, wasn’t the brightest. She made decisions in haste, and she relied heavily on her sisters to make things right for her. Although she also felt guilty for getting them involved in her messy affairs and tried to deal with her problems on her own, we all know how that went. To grow up knowing that she was unwanted by her mother and she survived by a fluke must have been traumatizing, and it surely had a lasting impact.

After Ane spoke in favor of Elena, the court finally granted her parole. When Elena stepped out of prison, she asked her sisters where her daughter was, and she was heartbroken when she discovered that she’d already left. But Elena wanted to respect Ane’s space, and she was ready to take things slow. During the final scene, Elena emotionally stated that she’d finally made a right decision in her life by not attending her trial. She was glad that Ane understood the reason why she did what she did, and for her, that itself was quite an accomplishment. Paula, Cris, and Elena were finally reunited. Perhaps Cris will choose to fly back to Spain, and Paula and Elena will continue living in the Dominican Republic since Elena was released on parole. But hopefully, Cris will start visiting them often, and who knows, someday Ane will return to meet her mother face-to-face. The smile on Ane’s face before she boarded her flight suggested that she was glad that she could help her mother, and she experienced a sense of joy knowing that she would finally get to live a life of peace. Their future is surely hopeful, although it will take some time for things to fall back in place.

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