Netflix’s Ripley Ending Explained: Does Tom Ripley get away with it?

 The highly anticipated Netflix adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s 1955 character Tom Ripley has finally landed on Netflix, and viewers have been left on the edge of their seats. 

Ripley is written, directed and executively produced by Academy Award winner Steve Zaillian and sees Andrew Scott portray the infamous con man as he takes a thrilling journey around Italy.

The series follows Ripley as he is hired by a wealthy businessman to convince his son, Richard “Dickie” Greenleaf (Johnny Flynn), who is currently living in Italy, to return home to America. When Tom arrives in Italy and sees the extravagant life Dickie is living, his plans change, and he will do whatever is necessary to keep living the lavish lifestyle he’s become accustomed to. Thus, he begins a life of deceit, which takes him on a nail-biting journey. 

But despite all his criminal efforts, does Tom get away with murder, fraud and all the other crimes he’s committed along the way? Here’s what happened at the end of Ripley and where Tom Ripley is now.

Warning! There are spoilers ahead...

Netflix’s Ripley Ending Explained

In the final episode of the series, we see Tom living a lavish life in a villa with a butler and maid in Venice, all financed by the plans he put in place before he left Palermo. Realising the police were on to Dickie as Freddie’s killer, Tom made it seem like Dickie had committed suicide. He asked the hotel receptionist about a ferry to Tunis, making it seem like he planned to flee the country, but when there was no record of him on the ferry or arriving in Tunisia, it allowed the police to conclude that he had 

thrown himself overboard during the night. His death was was further supported by the letter he wrote to his landlady Signora Buffi (Margherita Buy), telling her he would no longer be needing his apartment as he wouldn’t be returning to Rome. 

While in Venice, Tom reassumes his own identity and visits the police station under his real name, saying he heard that Inspector Ravini (Maurizio Lombardi) had been looking for him. The inspector tells the police chief in Venice that he will come the following day to speak with Tom. Knowing that the inspector may recognise him because he’d previously spoken to him while he was impersonating Dickie, Tom has grown significant facial hair. Also, he manipulates the lighting in the room to be darker so that the inspector can’t get a good look at his face. His plan plays off, and the inspector believes that Tom had no idea the police were looking for him because he was in small villages around Italy. When asked why the boat they rented in Sanremo was covered in blood, sunk with rocks and never returned Tom says they did return it, and the keeper must not have kept accurate notes. 

After the inspector leaves, Tom goes back to attending parties where people speculate about where Richard is and what happened to Freddie. However, once again, Tom has some unexpected visitors in the form of Marge (Dakota Fanning) and Richard’s father who comes to Italy to meet with the police, accompanied by the private detective who first found Tom in New York. 

Marge is initially suspicious of Tom, even more so after she finds Richard’s ring among his things. But after he tells her that Richard gave him the ring because he was afraid it would be stolen, she concludes that he gave it to Tom because he knew he was planning to end his life. This is a lucky assumption by Marge as Tom was about to kill her with the same glass ashtray he used on Freddie, thinking another person had discovered his secret. She convinces Tom they need to share this with Richard’s father, who reveals that he gave Richard the ring for his 21st birthday. 

Mr Greenleaf’s private investigator asks to speak with Tom privately. He asks Tom to reveal everything he knows about Dickie. Tom reveals that Richard could never love Marge because he was in love with him, which he confessed to him in Sanremo. He says that’s why Richard took him there, not Marge, “to tell me he wanted to live with me.” 

Tom continues his lies by saying that he told Richard he found him pathetic and wanted nothing more to do with him and that he wishes he hadn’t said it as harshly. He adds he can no longer be sure that Richard didn’t kill Freddie Miles (Eliot Sumner), and he’s afraid he may have killed himself. This is confirmed by Tom reading to Marge and Richard’s father the letter he had written as Dickie to Signora Buffi, where he tells her that she can throw out all of his belongings and says that he has no idea where he’s going but thanks her for being kind to him saying “you’re one of very few who has been.” Thus further cementing the melancholy state of mind, he’s in. 

Marge and Richard’s father leave Italy, leaving Tom Ripley in the clear. Tom gets a new forged passport under the name ‘Timothy Fanshaw’ given to him by Reeves Minot, played by John Malkovich, who played Ripley in an adaptation of Highsmith’s third novel Ripley’s Game. 

The new identity allows Tom to recollect Richard’s Picasso painting that he had shipped to himself under his new, suggesting he had set this plan up all along and knew it would succeed. However, we later see Inspector Ravini get a copy of Marge’s book, where he sees a picture of Richard, making him realise that Tom had been acting as Richard the whole time.