Posted by Fatal Seduction, the TV series produced in South Africa and landed on Netflix in the summer of 2023, has defined a long, complex journey into crime, love relationships, and individual responsibility. The series starts with the death of a girl, Brenda, and we try to understand what happened for the whole set of episodes. Who killed Brenda? What’s Jacob’s responsibility? And how did Nandi, Vuyo, and Leonard play a role? The ending arrived in streaming in August 2023, and it definitely needs to be explained: let’s explore it together.
You can watch the official trailer for Netflix’s Fatal Seduction here on Youtube.
Fatal Seduction ending explained: who killed Brenda?
We explained part 1 of the Fatal Seduction plot in this article: Brenda dies, and it doesn’t seem right to believe she committed suicide, so Vuyo starts investigating. He soon discovers that Jacob was there that night. Jacob has a motive, theoretically: Brenda’s testimony was the one who condemned his father to prison years before, ruining his family. Jacob also acts with questionable behavior, episode after episode, so it’s easy to suspect him.
However, as we get closer to the ending of Fatal Seduction, we start seeing that things are more complicated. True, Leonard framed Jacob’s father years before with the help of Brenda’s testimony. Leonard was also cheating on Nandi with Brenda. But his actions toward Jacob’s father resulted from the minister’s blackmail. He had to do what he did. And he needed to have Vuyo shot to stop him from investigating. It wasn’t supposed to be a permanent injury, though, and that made him feel guilty for his whole life.
That doesn’t make Leonard a good character, of course. Nobody in Fatal Seduction is authentically good. Leonard and Nandi hid from Vuyo that Zinhle was his real daughter. Jacob used many people to get revenge. Brenda is dead. Leonard was with her that night, and they even had sex. This raises all the questions: Who’s really responsible for what happened? Who actually killed Brenda?
The answers are explained at the ending of Fatal Seduction. Although Brenda had a relationship with Vuyo, she always loved Leonard. Seeing Leonard so committed to his relationship with Nandi was destroying her. Besides that, she could no longer deal with the responsibility she had toward Jacob’s father. That night, Brenda called Leonard to tell him all this, adding that she wanted to tell the truth to the world about her false testimony. That meetup didn’t fix anything; after that night, Brenda couldn’t handle all that anymore. Nobody killed Brenda: she really committed suicide, leaving a message to Vuyo before taking her own life. Nobody could understand why because nobody knew her whole story until we discovered it in the last episodes.
Vuyo discovers all this before us. But at that point, he dramatically resents Leonard for what he did to him years before and for his relationship with Brenda. So, he catches this opportunity to frame Leonard with Jacob’s help. Vuyo will also poison Leonard and force him to sign the power of attorney so that he can decide on his behalf. With his actions, Vuyo will complete his revenge plan: Leonard’s life will be destroyed, and Zinhle will end up living with him again. Vuyo will give Nandi a chance to save herself, expecting her to confess about Zinhle, but Nandi won’t talk. After that, Vuyo frames Nandi, too, placing evidence on her home that will lead police to accuse her of poisoning and attacking Leonard.
There is no happy ending in Fatal Seduction, as the last scene has explained. Nandi is imprisoned, Leonard is over, and Jacob leaves the country. Vuyo lives with his daughter Zinhle. But Precious, the woman who has blackmailed everyone on behalf of the minister, is still a threat, and she has her eyes on Vuyo. Nobody is safe, nobody is perfect, and everybody suffers more than they deserve.
