Netflix’s Ares season 1 finale recap

Rosa is chosen as the next candidate to become the president of Ares, but must first pass a sinister test. Will she bring balance to Ares or will she destroy it?

Carmen checks out what is happening with Jacob. He’s being kept in another room with his hands tied and a couple of Ares members to guard him. Carmen is asked to leave, but Jacob first gives her a message for Rosa. He says that he trusts her and that she has to do the right thing and free Beal.

Maurits talks with Rosa, asking her if she knew Jacob was responsible for the murders and if she saw anything in the catacombs. He talks about her mother, how they were engaged once and how Rosa’s father took her away from Ares and made her little by not taking her ambitions seriously. The same way he doesn’t take Rosa’s ambitions seriously.

He says Rosa’s father isn’t there for her and never has been, but Rosa’s father is actually sitting outside of Ares at that moment, maybe waiting for his chance to take her home.

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Maurits tells her that leading Ares requires the ability to make sacrifices. It’s what differentiates leaders from followers, and if Rosa makes the right choices tonight, she’ll become Ares’s new president.

Carmen comes in and warns that she’ll have to do something unthinkable to achieve it. Maurits leads Rosa out of the room, but not before Carmen gives her Jacob’s message. As Rosa is taken for preparations, Carmen attempts to free Jacob. For some reason, Jacob refuses to run.

Maurits addresses the alumni and tells them that in order to restore balance they need to adapt to the times. It’s time for a radical change. He introduces Rosa as their candidate for president or Ares.

Rosa is taken to face Jacob and given a knife. She’s expected to kill him in order to become president. Jacob encourages her, saying that if she’s president she can set Beal free and change everything.

They have a nice moment where he says that he was alone until she came out of the blue and met him. She’s never given up on anything, he says, so don’t give up on this. She stabs him in the heart and he dies in her arms. She is devastated, but she’s passed her test and she is welcomed as the new president of Ares.

Rosa asks to be taken to see what is underneath Ares, which is now her right as president. There is no monster. Beal is just a story they tell their junior members to keep them in line. What is really kept underneath Ares is a swirling pool of blackness. All the guilt and shame the members of Ares expel into this pool is what allows them to make the hard decisions that have brought the country into a great Golden Age.

Rosa begins to heave up one of those giant eggs, but she swallows it back down and then throws herself into the black pool. This certainly alarms and surprises Maurits. The pool stops swirling and we’re transported to the sordid origins of the Netherlands, a ship flying an Ares flag and filled with black slaves.

Rosa emerges from the pool covered in blackness. It looks like she has become the monster Jacob hoped to free. Maurits and the other Ares elders flee in terror as Rosa pursues them with slow menace. A panic breaks out as she begins to cause mass suicides among the Ares alumni. People run out into the night screaming as Carmen and Rosa’s father stand outside and watch in shock.

Maurits retreats to his office. By the time Rosa finds him there, he’s already stabbed himself in the heart with a pair of scissors. With his last moments, he turns to face Rosa and tears off his own face like a mask. She sits behind his desk, the new leader of Ares. Rosa’s father walks into the office. As she stands to meet him, he embraces her. But when she opens her eyes, they are as black as the rest of her.

There’s a lot going on here and all of it is terrifying. This brutal and bizarre ending obviously leaves the door wide open for a second season, although I have no idea how they would proceed from here. With Ares practically demolished, would Rosa leave it in tatters or resurrect the society on her own terms? Has she really become the monster the members of Ares have feared for so long and is she lost forever? What will become of the country without the secret power of Ares behind it? And since everyone just killed themselves, will Rosa face any legal repercussions for her supernaturally enacted mass murder?

All I know is that this series is seriously horrifying, completely disturbing and totally messed up. There has been a trend on twitter of Netflix subscribers who have started watching Ares and have had a hard time finishing because they’re too freaked out. I honestly don’t blame them.