Understanding the Ending of ‘No Good Deed’: What Happened to Jacob? Who Started the Fire?

Netflix’s latest show, No Good Deed, offers a dark perspective on the extent individuals are willing to push boundaries in pursuit of an ideal lifestyle. The series portrays young couples competing for a stunning 1920s Spanish-style house in Los Angeles, a family resorting to extreme measures to hide a wrongdoing, and a surprising reveal regarding a character’s deceptive nature.

Needless to say that with all the twists and turns and utter shocks that No Good Deed throws at its viewers, you might walk away from the ending feeling…confused.

**Spoilers for No Good Deed, now streaming on Netflix**

From the jump, No Good Deed promises to keep audiences on their toes. At first, it seems that Lydia (Lisa Kudrow) and Paul (Ray Romano) are typical empty-nesters concerned their family home might not be passed on to a loving new owner. Then, Denis Leary arrives as a criminal demanding blackmail money, we learn Lydia and Paul’s son Jacob (Wyatt Aubrey) died in the house, and the situation becomes even more and more complicated.

Trying to figure out just what exactly happened to Jacob and why? Who started that final blaze that seemingly targeted Margo (Linda Cardellini)? And who gets the house in the end? Here’s everything you need to know about the complicated ending of No Good Deed Season 1…

No Good Deed spends much of its run playing coy about how Jacob specifically died. We first know that he was shot and that his criminal uncle Mikey (Denis Leary) helps Paul and Lydia cover up what really happened. In fact, keeping this evidence secret is the cause of most of Paul and Lydia’s desperate behavior in the series. While your initial guess might be that Paul killed his own son, mistaking Jacob for a violent intruder, the truth is way more wild.

Eventually we learn that Paul was not the Morgan who shot Jacob. Instead it was teenaged Emily (Chloe East). Lydia and Paul were at a concert while the teens stayed home. When Jacob bursts through the backdoor, dressed like a thief and hauling stolen jewelry and watches from JD (Luke Wilson) and Margo’s home, Emily is scared. She fires in self defense before realizing she’s shot and killed her brother. That is the secret that Paul and Lydia (and Mikey) have worked so hard to cover up.

However, lawyer Leslie (Abbi Jacobson) becomes so obsessed with the house that she does her own digging and realizes that there were two different bullet casings discovered at the crime scene. Emily missed her brother. In fact, Margo shot Jacob.

Why would Margo murder the teenager? Well, he was so smitten with her that she seduced the underage boy and encouraged him to steal for her. When Jacob realizes that he’s been played, the heartbroken boy runs away with JD and Margo’s possessions, promising to reveal Margo’s treachery. The image-obsessed Margo shoots Jacob just as he arrives home — and is also shot at by sister Emily.

The revelation that Margo killed Jacob helps the Morgans find closure and the season ends with them reconnecting on stage, performing an original musical composition written by Jacob before his death.

Margo eventually gets what’s coming to her, as JD leaves her and “karma” burns her (literally). The last time we see Margo in her massive Los Angeles pad, she realizes her entire house is on fire. She only seemingly survives because she’s in the bath. However, the final glance we get at Margo reveals half her face has been badly burned.

So did JD set the fire? Did Lydia do it in a final act of revenge? Or was the fact that Margo once accidentally set her family’s own trailer on fire a bit of foreshadowing? No Good Deed star Linda Cardellini was coy when Decider asked her what caused the fire.

“I think you could call it many things. I think you can mostly call it karma,” Cardellini said.

“You’re saying that karma caused the fire?” Luke Wilson asked.

“No, but I do think I think it helps,” she said.

“It sounds like someone dancing around the spoiler,” Wilson teased.

“That’s what I think is so fun about it, though,” Cardellini said, comparing No Good Deed‘s ending to her work on another Liz Feldman-created Netflix show, Dead to Me. “I think there’s always sort of a question of ‘Did we really just see that? Is what just happened here?’”

“It’s sort of like you get to make your own adventure.”

Lydia and Paul finally do sell their house to parents-to-be Leslie and Sarah (Poppy Liu). Although they were once leaning towards Dennis (O-T Fagbenle) and Carla (Teyonah Parris), the new parents opt to buy JD and Margo’s razed house instead so architect Carla can design her dream house. What happens next to the two new families on the block remains to be seen…

We don’t know yet if Netflix will order a second season of No Good Deed, but series creator and showrunner Liz Feldman told Decider she already has a “really fun idea” for one.

“An idea that would certainly have a lot of twists and turns and new stories to tell,” Feldman said. “I hope that I’ll get the chance to do it, but I got to talk to Netflix first.”