The ‘Lucky’ Season Finale’s Deadly Plot Twist Saves Lucky’s Life

Priscilla Kills Whittaker Over Cary

Ahead of Whittaker and Priscilla’s arrival, Lucky gets a run down at the depot from Billie and her boss Kershaw (Eric Lange) about what she needs to do. They need Whittaker to confirm he knew about the fuel scheme and that he profited from it. If she feels the conversation is going left, she’s supposed to slip the word ‘genius’ into the conversation and the agents will find a way to pull her out.

With only Kershaw and Billie on the premises, and the rest of their team a mile out, it isn’t exactly reassuring. But Lucky doesn’t need them anyway. She has an ace up her sleeve that she’s been waiting to reveal since La Jolla.

As she’s talking to Whittaker and Priscilla, while the agents listens in from high up on a gas tank, she goads the mob boss by letting him know she’s aware he’s Cary’s father and telling him that his son stole the $10 million to send a message—”F-k you, Wayne.” She leans further into antagonizing him by bringing to light that he has Kershaw on his payroll.

Lucky leaves open the possibility that it’s a recent development but does so by pondering over if it is because surely he wouldn’t have let Priscilla go to prison if he’d had Kershaw working for him two years ago. The bombshell drags Billie into a fight for her life with Kershaw as they struggle for the upper hand.

Down on the ground, Whittaker tires of Lucky playing around. He’d warned her that the money only meant so much to him. Whittaker’s a man who operates on principal, if she pushes him too far, he’ll take her life over getting his $10 million back. Lucky trying to use the 12-word seed phrase as a bargaining chip for her and John’s lives isn’t a move the mob boss is willing to tolerate.

He signals for her father to be brought out. Last episode, John had been snatched from the hotel where the FBI were guarding him. Now, he’s being used as leverage, but not for long. Feeling aggravated, and done with John and Lucky’s pleas, he tells John that he’s going to make him watching his daughter die.

Whittaker orders Priscilla to shoot her. He wants her to prove that she’s truly back in the game. She holds a gun to her daughter-in-law’s head but, after Lucky whispers that she’s sorry and a tear rolls down her face, Priscilla turns and shoots her boss instead.

Her right-hand man Dutch (Clifton Collins Jr.), who was supposed to stay back at Priscilla’s mansion, appears out of nowhere to handle Whittaker’s goons as John and Lucky make a break for it. Left alone with the father of her son, Priscilla confesses that she wouldn’t have shot him if he had tried even once to be a father to Cary.

On the drive to the depot, Whittaker had apologized for the way things shook out. However, during the conversation he seemed to blame Priscilla for Cary’s death, telling her that he never told her to put her son in the mix. He recognized that he should have properly given his condolences earlier but that sentiment is hard for him because his father had beat it out of him as a child. It’s why he didn’t have kids.

The continued dismissal of Cary as his son hurt Priscilla as he put the choice to have him squarely on her shoulders. Still, even in his death, Cary could not get an ounce of consideration or care from his father and so Priscilla shoots him in the head for it.

After dispatching Whittaker’s last man, Dutch catches up to Lucky and John. He brings them back to Priscilla. Lucky asks her to let them go, to give her the chance no one had given the mob leader. She knows Priscilla sees herself in her, who she could have been if she’d gotten out of the life. It’s why Priscilla agrees to let them leave in her car, she even lets Lucky have the $10 million because it’s what Cary would have wanted. But she wants nothing to do with the father-daughter pair and to never see them again.

By the time Billie is able to make it down to the ground, after having to kill Kershaw to save her own life, the only people left at the depot are the deceased.

What Happened To The $10 Million In ‘Lucky’

Billie goes to see Priscilla at her home later that night. She makes it clear to the mob woman, who is likely to step into the power vacuum that Whittaker left behind, that she’s going to get her.

It’s not enough that her operation resulted in both Whittaker and Kershaw’s deaths and earned her sterling career recognition. No, Billie wants Priscilla, too, to avenge the death of her partner, Gates (Mo McRae). He was collateral damage and though Priscilla wasn’t the one who killed him, Billie holds her responsible.

Elsewhere, Lucky and John are in a motel. She takes care of his wounds from being beat by Whittaker’s men and then they go eat. After they talk about the dreams they’ve had—John’s of a baby Lucky getting him out of prison and Lucky of drowning—Lucky plays the bear’s recording of the 12-word seed phrase for him.

The next morning, he’s left Lucky in their room, having taken the bear and the car. He doesn’t realize he’s Lucky’s last con until he presses the bear’s tummy. Instead of Cary’s voice, it’s Lucky’s. She knew her father would try to go after the money. He can’t help himself, it’s a flaw of his that’s put her in terrible situations.

In her recording, she recounts the time he had her pretend to drown at a hotel they were staying at when she was a kid. Except she wasn’t pretending because she couldn’t swim and he knew that. John had taught her that the best cons were 90% truth and he was willing to risk her life just so he could make a scene and get their rooms comped.

Lucky says that she’s not willing to risk her life for a con anymore. She’s given him his freedom, but he can’t have the money.

All episodes of Lucky are streaming on Apple TV. Follow Sabrina Reed on Forbes for weekly coverage of series like Lanterns and news about the business of TV.