(Credits: Netflix)

The Guinness family finally stood together, and then the gun went off. That’s how Netflix’s House of Guinness closes its first season on the edge of disaster, with Arthur Guinness stepping into his biggest moment yet.

But all that only to find himself in the crosshairs of a Fenian assassin. This is exactly the type of ending that makes you wait for answers that never come. Arthur, who has spent most of the series juggling between fear and duty, arrives at the rally as a changed man. He looked confident, determined, and ready to lead. But as he stood before the crowd, he did not look like a hesitant heir but like the face of the Guinness legacy.

His siblings Edward, Anne, and Benjamin, all of whom have betrayed or disappointed him in their own ways, sat around him. But for once, they were united and looked like they were willing to risk their lives on stage to show the family stands as one.

The problem here is, unity doesn’t erase enemies. Patrick Cochrane, leader of the Fenians, smoothly slips through the crowd with a gun in hand. He is determined to take Arthur down. Even Ellen, his sister and Edward’s former lover, can’t hold him back. And watching from the sidelines is Sean Rafferty, the family’s foreman and fixer. The only problem with his loyalty to Arthur is that it clashes with his secret love for Arthur’s wife, Olivia. In that moment, every thread of the story falls apart.

The final seconds of House of Guinness leave viewers with nothing but a flash of gunfire. Patrick takes aim and fires into the rally, and the screen cuts. No reveal, no resolution. Did Arthur survive? Did someone else take the bullet? The show doesn’t say, and that silence is what makes the ending so sharp.

Who fired the shot, and who might have been hit?

Patrick’s assassination attempt is the moment everything has been leading to. For him, the act is political, but it is also personal. Killing Arthur would strike at both the Guinness empire and the brother who betrayed him through Ellen. His sister’s last-minute attempt to stop him adds even more tension.

Rafferty complicates things even further. He is the man hired to protect Arthur but also the man Arthur forced Olivia to leave. Publicly, Olivia ends things with Rafferty. Privately, she tells him in Gaelic that they will never really be apart. So when Rafferty positions himself between Patrick and the Guinnesses, his motives are impossible to read. Is he there to save Arthur or to let the bullet reach him?

The finale gives us no answers. The shot could have killed Arthur, Edward, Benjamin, or even Rafferty himself. The ambiguity leaves every possibility open just as it pulls the family’s fate into the unknown.

How did the Guinness siblings end up here?

Arthur and Edward’s relationship cracks quite early in the series, when Edward conspires with Ellen and the Fenians to pressure Arthur at his own wedding. That betrayal drives Arthur into isolation, while Edward chases business dreams in America. His deal with Byron Hedges and New York’s Fenians falls apart. And that exposes him as reckless and desperate. Even his affair with Ellen ends in heartbreak, as he retreats into a safe but passionless marriage with cousin Adelaide.

Arthur’s own marriage to Olivia begins as a calculated arrangement but grows into something far more tangled. He develops feelings for her, only to be consumed with jealousy when she falls in love with Rafferty. By the finale, Olivia is still at Arthur’s side, but her heart belongs elsewhere. That triangle acted like the fuel at the uncertainty of the final rally, where all three characters (husband, wife, and lover) stood in the path of danger.

When it comes to Anne, she quietly struggles with illness. Her body weakens even as her commitment to charity and social good strengthens. Benjamin, on the other hand, embraces gambling, affairs, and self-destruction. His brief marriage to Henrietta doesn’t save him, and by the finale, he’s once again entangled with his mistress, Christine. Together, the siblings arrive at the rally carrying all their fractures, mistakes, and even ambitions. But for once it was a good look as they presented a united front.

House of Guinness ends not with resolution but with questions. Did Arthur’s newfound courage cost him his life? Did Rafferty’s contradictions turn him into a saviour or a traitor? Did the Guinness family survive their first real moment of solidarity, or was it shattered before it even began? The season leaves us hanging, and all we have to do is wait for Netflix to renew it for a second one.