The Last Murder at the End of the World

Emory wakes up from curfew and sees smoke billowing from the warehouse. As she runs through the exercise yard, she sees that someone trampled the flower beds. Abi tells her that someone is in the warehouse, so Emory rushes inside. Emory finds Niema’s body lying under a beam that appears to have crushed her skull.

Clara wakes up and sees that Hui is not in bed. Magdalene tells her that Emory found Niema’s body in a burning warehouse. Clara notices numbers written on her wrist, but she does not remember writing them. Clara finds Emory kneeling over Niema’s body as the villagers put out the fire. Emory shows her a wound in the middle of Niema’s chest.

Two farmers named Shilpa and Abbas find their fields filled with putrid vegetables. Shilpa cannot find her boots, which she finds strange. Abbas shows Shilpa that the storehouse for the village is empty.

As the villagers excavate the warehouse, they discover six bodies in the rubble. Clara notices that every villager has cuts on them, and she wonders where Hui has gone. Abi tells her that Hui is disconnected from her mitochondrial network, which means that Abi cannot hear her thoughts.

Thea wakes up and realizes that she has bruises all over her and is missing a fingernail. Abi tells her that she wiped the memory of everyone on the island after last night’s curfew. The storehouse is empty, the fields are diseased, and Emory found Niema’s body in the warehouse. Clara finds Thea and says that Abi cannot read Hui’s thoughts anymore. Thea concludes that Hui is dead because the only other explanations would be that Hui developed a neurodegenerative condition or took a strong sedative. Thea tells Clara that she needs to go take samples of the soil to discover what happened to the crops.

Adil wanders through the village, tossing a glass ball. Adil watches as Thea announces that Niema died in the fire with the other villagers. Suddenly, Emory tells them that Niema has a wound in her chest that is wide enough for a blade. The villagers are shocked, and Thea tells Emory to be respectful. Abi tells Adil that Emory is the only person capable of discovering what happened to Niema.

Emory goes to Niema’s room and discovers a partially burned letter written to Hephaestus. In the letter, Niema apologized to her son about betraying him. Emory flips over the paper and finds “5:5” written on the back.

Emory goes to the pier and sees the metal contraption that Hephaestus wore the day before in the water. Emory returns to the exercise yard and notices that all the instruments on the stage are out of place and that someone has moved the bird bath.

Clara tells Emory about Hui, but Emory concludes that they would have found Hui’s body if she were dead. Emory thinks that Niema performed an experiment at the lighthouse, then came back and woke up the villagers. Abi explains that it was dangerous for Niema to wipe everyone’s memory: All the people in the warehouse except for Niema died of memory wiping.

As Hephaestus mourns for Niema, Thea remembers how he rescued Ellie from the apocalypse and brought her to the island. She thinks about how Hephaestus also rescued Thea on the night the fog infiltrated Blackheath. Hephaestus says that when they first arrived at the island, Niema implemented a dead man’s switch because she wanted to make sure that the same violence on the mainland never broke out on the island. If anyone killed Niema, the barriers would lower, and the fog would overtake the village. Hephaestus tells her that the alarms for the fog were going off that morning, which means that the barrier is down.

Abi cannot bypass the dead man’s switch protocol. Hephaestus tells Thea that Niema said that she was going to wake the villagers after curfew and tell them the truth about the island. Hephaestus thinks that the villagers must have killed Niema. Hephaestus thinks that they should move their supplies into the cauldron and then kill the villagers. Abi says that she cannot allow them to kill the villagers because they are the future of humanity. However, Abi explains that the dead man’s switch has a loophole. If they can prove who murdered Niema and execute the murderer within 48 hours, the barrier will turn on again. Thea does not think they can find the killer if no one remembers anything, but Abi suggests that they speak to Emory.

Hephaestus and Thea find Emory and Clara, who have discovered a large bloodstain underneath the bird bath. Clara gathers the bloodied soil for testing, and Emory greets the elders because Abi informed her about the barrier and their agreement to find the killer. Hephaestus leaves, saying they know the villagers killed Niema.

Meanwhile, Clara finds two broken syringes in the dirt. Emory asks Thea about the metal box that Hui brought back and that Niema took it to the lighthouse. Thea explains that it is filled with cuttings from the garden. Emory tells Thea that she wants to keep investigating the murder because she is good at asking questions. Thea allows her to oversee the investigation.

Clara tests the blood samples by the bird bath. She discovers that the blood is a mixture of Niema and Hui’s blood.

In the cauldron garden, Thea shows Emory large dewdrops hanging from a vine. Emory sees that there is a child inside the dewdrop, and Thea explains that this is where the villagers come from. She explains that the villagers are not human but a product that Blackheath created and sold. Niema sold versions of the villagers as soldiers and made her fortune through the production of these “simulacrums.” Emory reels from the information because Niema always told them that they were the last group of humanity. Thea confirms that she and Hephaestus are human, and that 149 humans still exist in stasis pods in Blackheath. Thea says that after curfew, Abi uses the villagers to maintain the equipment keeping the humans alive. She says that the simulacrums will rebuild the world for them, and afterward, they will be humanity’s servants.

Emory tries to make sense of what she has learned while she and Thea walk back to the cable car. Emory senses Thea’s disgust and tells herself that she still has value, even if she was created in a different way. Thea says that Niema originally programmed the villagers for violence, so one of them could easily have killed Niema. Emory should interview Adil because he discovered the truth years ago and tried to kill Niema. Thea says that she will give Emory freedom to investigate, without a curfew.

After Thea leaves, Emory explains everything about their origin to Clara. Magdalene arrives and tells them that she found Ben drawing advanced math equations in the dirt. Emory tells Magdalene that she is going to visit Adil. Magdalene says that the morning Adil attacked Niema, he went to the school to speak to Niema, and he asked her to give something back to him before he attacked her.

Clara and Emory go to the farms, where they find the crops shriveled. Shilpa says that someone took her boots and a cart while she slept. Emory recognizes her shoeprints in the mud, and they follow the tracks toward Adil’s cottage.

Clara and Emory find Adil’s shack, and they see the missing cart from the farm outside his house. Searching the premises, Emory finds a schedule of Niema’s movements the day before.

During Niema’s postmortem, Thea discovers that someone crushed Niema’s head repeatedly and that Niema has a thumbnail embedded in her cheek. Thea removes the thumbnail and tests the blood from Niema’s shirt, discovering that it is Niema’s blood. Thea destroys the thumbnail and leaves the shirt to discard later. Abi tells her that she should not impede the investigation, but Thea says that it is not enough evidence to prove that she is the killer. Thea does not think that the simulacrums are worth saving, but Abi reminds her about Hui’s ability to create a concerto. Thea knows that there was nothing about Hui’s performance that suggested that she was mimicking anything. Nevertheless, Thea believes that she must only focus on saving the humans in Blackheath.