This Passenger ending explained feature contains spoilers... It's been a roller coaster ride of dark secrets and more mysteries than you could shake a loaf of bread at, but finally this psychological drama has reached an end.
As the finale begun we had more questions than a jumbo puzzle book and while we got some answers, there was plenty left unexplained, which makes a second season a distinct possibility.
The series began when Katie Wells went missing after bumping into a strange creature in the woods. But what connection did her case have to Nina Karlsson, a Swedish tourist who went missing from the village a few months back?
The creature was subsequently recovered by a crack team from the Pangaea Initiative, who we assume were paying Derek and Kane Jackson to look after it for them. We also know they moved Mehmet's body to the fracking site after he disappeared near their factory.
But what is Pangaea up to and what does it have to do with the Passenger video game that Mehmet and Nina were playing before they disappeared? And how is that all connected to the attack on fracking site boss, Jim Bracknell? We thought Eddie Wells was responsible for that but it seems not!
We need answers "like yesterday" as Riya would say...
Passenger ending explained...
At the garage, Jakub tells Riya what happened on the night Jim was attacked. He says it wasn’t him or Eddie who stabbed Jim with a bottle, but he can’t say who did and had no choice but to keep his silence for the last five years.
Meanwhile, news that the Jumbo Bread Factory is closing is starting to spread around the town. It's a development that takes Derek Jackson by surprise and as he walks through his deserted shop floor, he’s smashed over the head by a man in a balaclava...
When he wakes up in a church a mysterious woman tells him she "gave him the opportunity to spin gold" and he ruined it. The man who helped catch the creature in the woods is also there (presumably it was him who bopped Derek on the head) as she tells the bread boss how high the stakes are. “I’m closing the factory with immediate effect.”
She then lists Derek’s mistakes and claims that Katie’s disappearance and Mehmet’s death were all down to him, because he didn’t "follow protocol". Derek admits to planting Mehmet’s body at the fracking site in a bid to frame Jim and get the site closed, like she's always wanted. “You’ve let too many people get too close to the truth,” she says. “We had a chance to take our anxiety-ridden youth and give them purpose. Entice them with the prize and then recruit their minds.”
She then offers him a deal. He can keep his factory if he goes down there and “faces it himself,” yet admits it “could kill you.”
So this woman has been running the Pangaea Initiative, in a bid to give youngsters a purpose and recruit their minds, yet people are coming from far further afield than Chadder Vale to play the game, as Nina can attest.
Part of the game is obviously defeating this mysterious creature, which escaped in the woods, but why was it being transported on the night in question? Also, how many of these creatures are there? Mehmet was killed at the bread factory while the creature was on the loose in the woods, so is there another one? Or many many more? Scary.
Either way, we know it's a life-or-death game because Mehmet died after finding his way inside the Pangaea Portal. That wouldn't have been a problem for the corporation as he knew the risks and signed a waiver, however, we assume the bodies of dead players are usually carefully disposed of in machines like the one sitting unused at the Jumbo Bread Factory.
Derek was furious to find out that Kane hadn't been using it and was instead hiding whatever remains were left of the dead players in bins. The game must turn these bodies into that "strange liquid" Riya was mentioning, because there were no bones found in those bins.
Something obviously didn't go to plan when Mehmet died as his body remained intact, but ditching his corpse at a fracking site for the police to find was a serious break of protocol for the Pangaea Initiative.
But what does Pangaea want to recruit the minds of youngsters for in the first place? And how does it explain away the disappearance of the young people who go missing? Or do they simply return to their lives afterwards, appearing to be normal, but actually "recruited"? And what happens to those who win the game?
Why did Tony attack Jim?
“Nothing is what it looks like in this town,” says Jakub down at the police station when Riya asks him what really happened to Jim. “They said the attack was part of something bigger.” When she promises to protect him from the dark forces that are clearly at work in Chadder Vale, he finally reveals it was Tony Corrigan who attacked Jim. But why did he do it?
We know the Pangaea Corporation has always wanted the fracking site to be closed down, so we can only presume it paid Tony to assault Jim in a bid to do just that, which is the "something bigger" Jakub is referring to. If Tony is in league with Pangaea, that would explain why he's so hostile to Riya.
Elsewhere, the guilt of Eddie's wrongful conviction is too much for Riya and she decides to depart for Manchester, leaving her colleagues Nish and Ali devastated. However afterwards, Nish tells Ali about the ‘Passenger’ video game and how there’s a more dangerous version on the dark web that you need codes to access. He found a load of codes in Nina’s stuff and can’t break them, but maybe Ali can?
Eventually they manage to access the Pangaea portal, with the website believing them to be Nina. “Start your journey to a better life,” says the site, giving them coordinates to the bread factory. In the basement they find a secret Pangaea office.
Who is 'Kid on Wall'?
At the forensics lab, Derek tells Terry of how he "took certain steps" because the factory was failing. She tells him that although he says he was desperate to make it all a success for her, in reality, he did it for himself. But we still don’t know exactly what it is he’s done.
He heads to the factory with a can of petrol to burn it all down (it seems he didn't fancy his chances against the creature!) but he has no idea that in the basement, Nish and Ali have accessed the Pangaea office. Inside, the woman from the church appears on a TV screen beckoning the pair to head through a little door, where it seems they either win a better life for themselves… or die.
“Only those who are prepared to face their darkest fears will make it out the other side,” she says. Nish and Ali call Riya to tell them what they’ve discovered, yet when they try to escape they find they’re locked in. “You have sixty seconds to take what you need and make your way to the start,” says the sinister woman, but Ali is keen to take on the challenge.
The game believes them to be Nina, which would suggest the young Swedish woman discovered the secret to the Pangaea portal, yet decided not to come and play the game. But why? Intriguing.
Meanwhile, back in the village, we follow the lad who’s been lurking in the background for the whole series (he’s referred to as ‘Kid on Wall’ in the credits) inside his house where it seems a heated argument is going on. However, it’s just a recording he’s been playing on a stereo!
He opens a trapdoor in his living room, which leads into a control centre, where Nish and Ali are seen on CCTV screens. This lad is obviously in league with the sinister woman from the church and the men who caught the beast in the woods, as part of the Pangaea Initiative. But who is he? Is he the brains behind the operation or simply a cog in this dark machine?
Either way, it sounds like Nish and Ali are in trouble, because on the phone, the last thing Riya hears is Ali scream…
Bring on season 2!
