Credit: Netflix

The Marked Woman, AKA La Desconocida, has straight-up sent Netflix viewers on the edge of their seats and for good reason. Based on Rosa Montero and Olivier Truc’s eponymous novel, the thriller is about the discovery of an unconscious woman inside a shipping container with no memory whatsoever of her identity or past.

The Spanish thriller opens with a woman named Lucia Melgar’s video testimony against Qique Zárate, alleging harassment by him in return for information about the criminal underworld. After a while, she’s ordered to board a bus by a mysterious man called Gaston. But before taking the bus, she slips into the washroom to reunite with a woman, informing her that she’s skipping town while leaving a number with her just in case.

Shortly after, a guard dog leads authorities to a shipping container and the same mysterious woman is discovered inside, gagged and barely alive. But when she does gain consciousness, she neither remembers her identity nor her past. Enter Detective Anna Ripoll, who’s desperate for a comeback. So, when the woman’s case is assigned to her, she starts digging deep, going as far as considering the possibility of a human trafficking ring working low.

A second attack on the woman’s life at the hospital during recovery clarifies that she’s quite important to whoever held her captive. And right then, Officer Zárate reveals she’s Lucia’s missing sister, Alicia Garone, AKA Clara. With danger trickling down every lane, Clara, Anna, and Zárate decide to go into hiding. But what happens to Lucia?

What happens to Lucia in The Marked Woman?

When the trio go into hiding, they realise their suspicions about Manuel Horvat, who was around the shipping yard during the torture, are a gambling house operator with Gaston. Although the cops waste little time tracking him down, Clara’s capture in the meantime lets Manuel escape. What becomes clear from the cat-and-mouse chase is that Manuel and Gaston are hunting Clara due to a crypto wallet code she seems to have memorised.

Ripoll and co save her just in time. However, Gaston, AKA police chief Falco, flees the scene, free to regroup and rescheme. While the motive becomes crystal clear, The Marked Woman culminates with the answer on everyone’s mind: what exactly happens to Lucia? It turns out that she has been dead for a long time, and for those wondering who to point fingers at, it’s Falco.

Clara and Zárate are misled into believing otherwise throughout the thriller. However, when Lucia’s identity as an informant was exposed, she was killed right at that point. From her fake testimony against Zárate to her skipping town, everything was part of her plan to delay the inevitable. Then again, Clara’s exchange with Lucia indicates that she still had hopes of starting anew.

Lucia promised Clara that she would leave the darkness of her past behind. So, when Clara learns of the truth, her life turns upside down. During their bathroom conversation, Lucia passed a number to Clara, convinced it would serve as the only helpline in times of emergencies. But the number was none other than Gaston, AKA Falco’s, which puts the bird right into the cage.

Since Clara memorised the code, Falco understood well before that he couldn’t kill her. And for Clara? The only thing that kept her alive was her conviction that she would reunite with Lucia. However, with her only purpose now gone, The Marked Woman ensures the plot boils to a bombshell climax, which, of course, we’re not here to spoil.