‘The Chestnut Man: Hide and Seek’ ending explained: Who is the killer?
If there’s something we have learned from the Nordic noir thrillers on Netflix, it’s that it never goes out of style, irrespective of the season. So, when The Chestnut Man returned with its second season this week, titled Hide and Seek, hell was sure to break loose, and so it did.
The first season of The Chestnut Man premiered in 2021, based on Søren Sveistrup’s novels, telling the chilling story of a sinister serial killer who left chestnut figurines at crime scenes. While police detectives Naia Thulin and Mark Hess solved that case, Hide and Seek reunites the pair for a brand-new case.
Since viewers last saw Thulin and Hess, the duo became romantically involved, although it didn’t last, with Hess leaving Copenhagen. However, they’re forced to join forces when single mom and divorcee Zara Solak goes missing on her way back home. Like the debut season, The Chestnut Man: Hide and Seek commences with a past crime that is crucially linked to the new case.
When the detectives discover the dangerous texts sent by an unknown stalker on Zara’s phone, mimicking children’s rhymes, the connection between an unsolved case from two years ago, concerning Marie Holst’s daughter, Emma, is finally in place. But the burning question is: who is the actual killer? What is their motivation?
Who is the killer in The Chestnut Man: Hide and Seek?
The penultimate episode of The Chestnut Man: Hide and Seek comes with a jaw-dropping discovery when the DNA under Emma Holst’s nail matches Thøger Staal’s, the notorious serial killer from the 1990s, who kickstarts the instalment. However, it’s been three decades since Thøger’s passing, which means someone blood-related to him must have done the crimes.
It’s also discovered that the DNA actually belongs to a female, which directly casts the eye of suspicion on Thøger’s daughter, Thea, who changed her name to shield herself from the identity of a killer’s child. But who actually is Thea? As it turns out, Thea is Signe, Marie’s closest confidant, and it is the latter who uncovers that Emma was having an affair with a married man.
She joins the dots to understand it was Signe’s husband with whom Emma was romantically involved. However, before Marie can react, Signe puts the taser on her.
As Hess consults Signe’s old teacher, he comes to learn that she was an exceptionally bright student, who was part of the class that discovered the dead body her father left. While her teacher was suspicious that Signe knew all about her father’s crimes, what she also felt suspicious about was that the child even crucified one of the victims – a clear indicator that she was disturbed since she was young. Additionally, Signe was a therapist at the Agency for Family Law, which directly connects her to the other murder victims, Zara and Andreas.
For those unaware, she worked with their offspring in therapy and in one of the footage uncovered from Signe’s sessions, the police found how she blames a mother’s infidelity for the breaking of families. This clarifies her motive that she wants to get rid of anyone and everyone who destroys families – a trauma she carries from her father’s misgivings, which left her without a foster family. This is also why she murdered Emma, since according to Signe, she destroyed the family that she searched for her entire life.