Posted by Presented as a horror-comedy TV series, The Horror Of Dolores Roach is probably one of the freshest productions released in the summer of 2023. It’s based on the popular Spotify podcast by Aaron Mark, who developed the idea for the TV series as a writer for Amazon Prime Video. The plot is exciting and full of suspense, and the ending leaves the spectators puzzled: who opened the door to Dolores? Will she find Dominic, and what happened to Luis? Some answers can be explained, especially knowing what happens in the podcast: let’s find out.
You can watch the official trailer for The Horror of Dolores Roach here on Youtube.
The Horror of Dolores Roach plot & ending explained: who’s at the door?
In the plot of The Horror of Dolores Roach, we follow Dolores’s life after spending 16 years in prison: she was arrested because she was helping her boyfriend Dominic, who was a weed dealer. Dominic disappeared with no trace, though, and when she’s released, she looks for him. Dolores never mentioned his name in prison, protecting him.
While the series evolves, the plot has explained to us many key elements of The Horror of Dolores Roach. We discover that Dominic set Dolores up: he sent the feds to arrest her instead of him, knowing that she would not betray him (which was precisely what happened). Dominic even staged his own death, and he’s probably living peacefully somewhere, hidden. Obviously, Dolores is enraged by what Dominic did to her, and she desperately wants to find him. Meanwhile, she lives with Luis, who owns an empanada shop, and she ends up killing several people, for one reason or another, while she works as a masseuse in the basement. Luis helps her get rid of the bodies by trying new exclusive recipes for his empanadas: nobody ever tried human flesh in street food, and apparently, it’s a huge success.
The problem is that they constantly need to cover up for Dolores’ murders, and every time, the easiest way is by killing the suspicious person. This leads Dolores to kill Marcie, Ruthie, and Hector but creates more problems because more bodies need to be disposed of. Police start investigating, and Luis has the idea to report Nellie for all murders. Nellie gets arrested, but Dolores cannot accept living with that responsibility: she kills Luis, the empanada shop is set to fire, and she escapes.
Coming closer to the ending of The Horror of Dolores Roach, many elements need to be explained. Months later, she tells her story to the actress impersonating her in a popular Broadway musical. She attacks Caleb, the podcast producer who transformed Dolores’ story into that musical. Before she kills him, he reveals he knows someone who can help Dolores find Dominic. That’s what we see at the ending of The Horror of Dolores Roach: Caleb leads Dolores to an elegant house, Dolores rings the bell, and someone opens the door. The series doesn’t show who it is; we only see Dolores’ shocked face and her instinctive reaction to strangle the person before her.
Who was at the door at the ending of The Horror of Dolores Roach? Many theories have been formulated on the Internet, with multiple possibilities. But using logic, we can safely exclude many options. It’s unlikely that it was Dominic: Caleb had no reason to say he knows “someone who knows where Dominic is” if he actually knew Dominic’s location. It would have been much simpler to say, “I know where Dominic is”: shorter and more effective, especially if you are almost dying. And it cannot be a character we don’t know: Dolores’ face is shocked, so she knows who’s in front of her, and we know all the people she knows from the series.
Excluding all the people who died, one possibility is much more likely than the others: the person who opens the door at the ending of The Horror of Dolores Roach must be Georgina Bellyard, the Professor who was Dolores’ best friend 20 years ago. Dolores already suspected her when Dominic’s grandma revealed that a person with an Australian accent brings her a Christmas card every year: Georgina is Australian, and she introduced Dominic to Dolores years before. There aren’t many other chances that Dominic met another Australian woman in these years. When Dolores confronted Georgina, she simply answered that she hadn’t seen Dominic in years, immediately convincing Dolores. But it could easily have been a lie. Also, being a prestigious Professor at the University, she would easily own a fancy residence like the one we see in the last scene.
This explanation also matches how the original podcast created by Aaron Mark evolved (you can listen to The Horror of Dolores Roach podcast here on Spotify). The plot of the original podcast is a bit different than the TV series, but in the last episode, Dolores Meets Georgina for the first time in years; Georgina invites her to her home, proposing a dinner with Georgina’s son, Henry. And the podcast ends with Dolores entering Georgina’s home and noticing Henry’s shocking resemblance to Dominic. That would imply that Georgina had a child with Dominic after Dolores went to prison.
Both the podcast and the TV series The Horror of Dolores Roach have an open ending, and a Season 2 is totally possible. Aaron Mark has time to develop the plot further, allowing us to see what Dolores will do now that she knows who can tell her where Dominic is. If she didn’t kill that person before, of course.
