The <i>Black Rabbit</i> Finale Ends With a Shock for the Friedken Brothers

Spoilers below.

The first episode of the new Jason Bateman and Jude Law two-hander depicts a robbery gone wrong at the titular fictional lounge in Lower Manhattan, so it’s only right that the finale takes us back to the moment they decided to go all-in on the business. In the eighth and final episode of the Netflix miniseries Black Rabbit, “Isle of Joy,” we meet a younger and more naive version of brothers Vince (Bateman) and Jake (Law) Friedken just as the idea for the bar is forming. The flashback that opens the episode is a reminder of who these two are at their core—Jake is pragmatic, worried about leaving his lucrative job to take a chance on this operation, while Vince is cocky about their prospects—and also serves as a recruitment montage as they convince Anna (Abbey Lee) to join as a bartender and lure Roxie (Amaka Okafor) in with a promise that she can cultivate her own menu.

The memory is from simpler times, and when the series returns to present-day after the title card, it’s a stark reminder of how far the Friedkens have fallen. Jake is in custody with the crime boss Joe Mancuso (Troy Kotsur) and his underling Babbit (Chris Coy), forced to answer for their missing money and Mancuso’s son Junior’s (Forrest Weber) death from earlier in the season. Knowing that Vince is the true culprit, Jake calls him just as he’s planning to skip town for good. Unaware that Mancuso and Babbit are listening in, Vince tells his brother that he’s heading to their old haunt The Plank before leaving, and asks that Jake ensure his daughter Gen’s safety. Before hanging up, Vince apologizes for getting him into this mess and cryptically says he won’t see him again. He drops his phone into a trash can on the NQR subway platform at Times Square and gets on the train.

Having the information they need, Mancuso and Babbit let Jake and his niece Gen (who was being held in another car) go, and they speed off towards The Plank. Jake, sensing his brother’s fate hanging in the balance, tries calling Vince back to no avail and gets in his car with the same destination in mind. While the road race is happening, Black Rabbit follows Jake to the bar, ignorant of Mancuso and Babbit’s eventual arrival. But still, when he arrives at The Plank, he has his gun out and ready to shoot anyone who steps out of line—including his friend Matt, who accidentally comes downstairs without announcing himself.

It’s not long before Mancuso and Babbit make their entrance and hold Vince at gunpoint. Babbit translates Mancuso’s sign language, reminding audiences of the string between these men: Mancuso was not only there the night Vince killed his father, he helped cover it up by throwing his already dead body down the stairs of this very bar to stage his death as an accident.

Vince, ever the sweet talker, asks for one last drink or bump of cocaine before he succumbs to his fate. Mancuso obliges and while he’s fixing a drink for his adversary, Vince senses this as his opportunity to escape. He shoves a fistful of cocaine into Babbit’s face and takes off running with the duffel bag. Jake arrives at the opportune moment and Vince hops in just as Mancuso comes outside with his gun, shattering the windows of the getaway car.

Even in this high-stakes predicament, these characters act like siblings. Vince needles Jake for putting his family in danger, while Jake scoffs at his brother’s audacity. When they stall out near the beach, Vince tries to wrestle the keys away from Jake and leave him in the dust. But, ever the loyal brother, Jake is hyperfocused on how to get Vince out of this jam. He plays the only card he has: He calls up Campbell, who handles the affairs for the renowned artist Jules Zablonski, with a threat. Campbell will get Vince out of the country in exchange for tapes of Zablonski roofieing Anna at the Black Rabbit. If he doesn’t comply, the tapes will be released. He’s initially hesitant but Campbell eventually gives in, allotting Jake one hour to get the tape to them and destroy all copies.

Their seemingly foolproof plan hits a snag almost immediately—an emergency alert is blasted on phones deeming Vince a dangerous criminal, and his face is plastered on screens playing the news across town. The brothers’ drive towards the Black Rabbit is anything but pleasant. They get caught behind a delivery truck blocking the street, and their rage in the form of honking and screaming draws more attention to them. Once they realize that they’re stuck, the Friedkens take off on foot only to be tailed by a cop that recognizes them. The chase takes them through buildings in Chinatown but eventually they lose the police.

The Black Rabbit is surrounded by cops and caution tape given the fatal robbery, but the brothers are able to sneak inside without a trace. Inside, Vince finally begins to realize how much havoc he has released upon his brother’s life. He deems Jake “good” while calling himself “bad news.” His characterization is rooted in his guilt from killing their father when they were kids, even though his father was abusive towards their mother. But Vince surprises him—he admits he’s known about Vince dropping the bowling ball on their father’s head since the night it happened. “It’s a bad thing that happened, but you’re not a bad person,” Jake pleads with Vince.

Still, with this final confession off of his conscience, Vince decides to bid farewell. He draws Jake up to the roof, calls the police to tell them where he is, and jumps off of the building to his death. Jake witnesses his brother’s suicide, frozen in shock. A short time later, Jake goes to pack up his brothers’ mementos and pauses while looking at a childhood photo. Suddenly there’s a gun at his neck—Mancuso has come back to collect what he’s owed. But the sight of Jake’s face crumpling as he sobs about his dead brother softens Mancuso. He wordlessly removes the gun, hugs Jake, and leaves.

Vince’s funeral is small and he’s buried next to their parents. Gen places a rose on her dad’s casket, Jake’s ex-wife and son hug him, and Jake’s brief fling (and former girlfriend of Jake’s friend Wes, who is killed during the armed robbery) Estelle waits for him outside. They tell each other that they’ll be okay after their big losses, and part ways.

Picking up an undisclosed amount of time later, the final sequence of the episode acts as an epilogue for not just Jake, but all of the Black Rabbit characters big and small. Gen seems lighter while hanging out with her Aunt Val on the boardwalk; Jake delivers a hard drive to the police and Zablonski is arrested at his gallery; Roxie opens a restaurant in Anna’s name and Estelle moves on to another interior design job.

Jake, too, seems to have found happiness. Ella Fitzgerald’s “Isle of Joy” (the namesake of this episode) plays in the background as we see Jake be more involved with his son’s life, dropping him off at his dance class, and trading his crisp suit for a bartender's uniform. “The city’s glamour can never spoil / the dreams of a boy and goil,” Fitzgerald sings, pinpointing the draw of New York’s ever-changing energy and the opportunities that inspired the Friedken brothers in the first place. The grief of losing his brother still lingers, but as Black Rabbit concludes, Jake is embracing a new chapter.