Black Butterflies (Les Papillons Noirs) is a French thriller series, released on Netflix on 14th October 2022. The series is created and written by Bruno Merle and Olivier Abbou. There are six episodes in total with a runtime of about 45-64 minutes.
The synopsis of the series reads, “Low on the inspiration for his second book, a gloomy novelist agrees to write a memoir for a dying man — and swiftly becomes part of his bloodstained past.”
The cast of the series includes Nicolas Duvauchelle as Adrien Winckler, Niels Arestrup as Albert Desiderio, Axel Granberger as Albert Jeune, Alyzée Costes as Solange, Brigitte Catillon as Catherine, Henny Reents as Nastya, Lola Créton as Catherine Jeune, Marie Denarnaud as Mathilde, Alice Belaïdi as Nora and Sami Bouajila as Carrel.
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Black Butterflies Ending Explained
The series is about Adrien Winckler, who is a struggling novelist working as a ghostwriter to make ends meet. At the dusk of his life, Albert Desiderio, a humble retired man, decides to hire Adrien to write his memoirs. But the fantastic love story Albert shared with Solange during the 70s turned out to be the confession of a serial killer couple.
Stuck in a creative rut and not being able to write a new novel, Adrien accepts a ghostwriting job from an ageing man named Albert, who wants to pen the story of his lifelong love, Solange. The couple met as a kid, coming from troubled families and bullied school life, they found solace in each other.
One day, when they were young, they visit a beautiful beach and meet two brothers who seem very friendly, however, the older one tries to sexually abuse Solange, who, in order to defend herself, murders her attacker.
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In order not to leave witnesses to the crime of his beloved, Albert drowns the younger brother and thus the couple commits their first murder. Some years later, they open a hair salon in Marrakech and live happily until Solange becomes pregnant and has an abortion.
In 1972, during a vacation on the French Riviera, the couple meet a photographer named Steven Powell, who invites them to his home. Once there, they start drinking alcohol, dancing and taking sensual pictures. The photographer tries to sexually abuse Solange, so this time Albert stabs him to death.
On the other hand, Adrien is trying to have a child with his wife Nora and one day she reads his written material on Albert’s story and thinks that it is an excellent novel. She tells about it his mother and even gives the manuscript to Adrien’s publisher. After listening to the killing confessions Adrien decided that he won’t be indulged in it anymore, but after getting praise from everyone, he has no choice but to sign a contract and continue listening to the old man.
Once he decides to go back, he gets swarmed by a group of black butterflies and one of them gets stuck on his windshield, which he puts inside his car. Albert continues his story of how they used to go from place to place, where Solange would seduce the men and if they didn’t stop on saying no, they were stabbed and killed by Albert’s scissors.
Meanwhile, a policeman follows Albert’s trail. inspector Carrel uncovers an incriminating lead in Powell’s cold case and makes his way to Albert’s house. Seeing his different-coloured eyes, Albert realizes that it is the baby of one of his victims, the same one he abandoned in 1978 in a cemetery.
The policeman attacks the old man, but Albert fights back, knocking him out and keeping him locked in his basement. And as Adrien’s relationship with Nora deteriorates, he becomes acquainted with Albert’s friends, like Nastya. We also get to know that he used to work as a bartender and once saw a man molesting a girl, while trying to save her, he lost control and went to prison for almost killing the man.
However, the girl came back for him and became his wife, who is Nora. Similar to the emotions that Albert felt for Solange, Adrien is going through the same and feels jealous of her closeness to a male colleague. This strains their relationship and he finds himself connecting with Nastya.
But he didn’t know that she will be a character of the book coming into his own life. We see that Solange is getting tired of their killer lifestyle and goes to find her estranged father, Hans Schrieber. But he refuses to welcome her in his present life and Albert ends up killing him and his wife, but they didn’t notice that a kid was there too, she was Nastya.
After discovering the link between Albert and Nastya, Adrien demands they finish the book — but he doesn’t expect the ending to include himself. Soon after the old man confesses that he is his father, actually, after Adrien discovers that he has the same rare diabetes. Overwhelmed by the revelation, the novelist suffocates him and flees the scene.
A year later, Adrien published the novel, which is quite a success and living a happy life with Nora and their baby. He has to go back to Paris for a book event and his mother comes to meet him. Adrien has been avoiding her since he got to know that she is actual Solange and has a fight with her. But they reconcile and she tells him what happened in the end.
She says that after she got pregnant with Adrien, she knew something had to be done or the baby would be lost again. So she set the salon on fire and ran away to start a family in Brussels, working in the hospital. There she met Wim Winckler, a doctor and married him. Mother-son duo then discuss if there could be someone who could connect the dots and Nastya comes to mind.
That’s why Adrien goes to meet her and she ends up reading the book. Nastya confronts Adrien about changing the story of her parent’s death. He does not understand and she explains that it was not Albert who murdered his family but Solange. It was Solange who was killing everyone, not Albert.
Lastly, Mathilde connects all the clues from Carrel’s apartment and goes to find him at Albert’s house. She discovers his body in the basement where the name Mody was written. So she starts looking for Mody. On the other hand, Adrien wants to reveal the truth to the world and starts writing all the facts in a draft, while avoiding the police.
Being discovered, Solange/Catherine takes her grandson and confesses that when she found out that Albert contacted her son, she looked for him and convinced him to blame himself for his crimes. However, the time has changed Catherine and the story ends with Nora getting her baby back and Mathilde questioning Adrien.
In a mid-credit scene, we see the intro scene of a child sitting with spilt cereal and Wim Winckler slaps Adrien for playing with the food when Catherine refuses to get intimate with him. This enrages her and she ends up stabbing him with a knife in the back and beats herself with his belt, to make it look like she was a victim of domestic abuse and in defence she stabbed him.
Black Butterflies is currently streaming on Netflix.
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