After eight episodes, Apple TV+'s thriller series Prime Target came to an end with its propulsive season finale that answered all of our questions but left us with some new ones to mull over. It remains to be seen if the winding mathematical story of Edward Brooks (Leo Woodall) will continue with a second season or if this will be the series finale for the thriller.
In episode 8, "The Key," the culmination of the season-long mystery begins as Ed and Taylah (Quintessa Swindell) work with the pressures they find themselves under to expose the truth about the prime finder and the NSA, while also navigating an impending threat that they soon realize isn't as far off and ominous as they once assumed. Nope, it's closer but still dangerous.
Since the first episode of the series, Prime Target has had its fair share of shocking deaths, as characters began dropping like flies as the intrigue surrounding Ed's research started to come to light. Well, the season finale might have the most shocking death of them all, mostly because it arises at the hands of someone you would never expect to pull the trigger.
Warning: Spoilers ahead from the Prime Target episode 8 from this point forward!
Prime Target ending recap and review
In one of the final sequences of "The Key," Ed has an eye-opening and tense conversation with Professor Alderman (Stephen Rea), in which Alderman basically lies out the intentions that he has for Ed's theorem. Ed has been rocked to his core by what he has gone through, especially after watching Carter (Harry Lloyd) shoot and kill his friend Professor Raymond Osborne (Joseph Mydell) right in front of him. He's had enough of his work causing harm.
However, Alderman tells him that "most people die in the name of progress," but Ed counters by asking him how many more lives this whole situation will cost. Alderman won't stop with Ed. If Ed won't do what he wants him to do, he will find the next smart, young mathematics student who will do what he can't. Right then and there, in the middle of the courtyard, Ed shoots Alderman dead. Taylah and Professor Lavin (Sidse Babett Knudsen) arrive at the scene and tell him to run.
In a post-finale conversation with Deadline, Prime Target creator Steve Thompson explained that Ed killing Professor Alderman was a "huge point of debate" among the writers in the creative process for the show. But after weighing out all the outcomes of that narrative crescendo, Thompson chose for Ed to reach his breaking point and put a stop to Alderman's quest for control.
"We went round and round on that one. How the story ends was a huge point of debate. What Alderman says is the math is out and I’m going to make sure it is released to the world. And if it’s not you, I’m going to find somebody else to do it because I know it can be done. That’s what makes Edward kill him, because Edward knows that somebody else will come along and trod the path that he’s trodden and then chaos will ensue."
In the aftermath of the shooting, Taylah drives Ed away from the scene and he expresses guilt, saying that he should have pulled the trigger on himself. When sirens begin to close in on them, Taylah tells Ed to leave and run away in the nearby field. He sprints away from the impending arrival of the authories and watches from a distance as Taylah gets arrested. Ed's now a fugitive on the run with unbelievable power at the palm of his hands.
The Prime Target ending does leave you wanting more because it makes you wonder what Ed will do. He's still hiding in plain sight, watching the fallout of the NSA on the news and teasing us with the use of his code on his phone. But it's also a full circle ending that tells a complete story. Continuing this story and unraveling this moment insists on Ed facing consequences. No matter how in the right we might feel that he his, he would still need to be held accountable for his actions.
Of course, that's if he ended up getting caught in a potential second season. But how much fun would another season be if he's constantly on the run? Prime Target was frequently a lot of fun and very cerebral, though the series could get lost in its own world and toe the thin line between a slow burn and just plain boring. It's quietly engaging but won't be one of 2025's highlights. All in all, the series left us with an ending for Ed that wasn't predictable but made the journey worth it.
Watch Prime Target only on Apple TV+.