It is an undeniable fact that the production value of Lifetime movies looks extremely neat. It feels like they’ve paid all the attention to those details because, except for that, everything else is clumsy beyond explanation. Speaking of A Podcast to Die For, we didn’t have high hopes for the film, but to our surprise, it was quite engaging. The acting was bad, as is standard for Lifetime films, but the screenplay, to some extent, was quite gripping. But yes, the family values they tried to preach at the end of A Podcast to Die For were quite disturbing. However, before coming to that, let’s have a quick breakdown of the film and explore what all happened in the end.
Spoilers Alert
Who Is Lacey’s New Case?
Lacey Wilson is a true crime podcaster who runs a channel named “A Voice for the Silent.” She achieved fame in the community after solving some cold cases that the local authorities failed to solve. As we enter Lacey’s life, we find out that she has recently married a guy named Cam and is pregnant with his baby. Cam already has two daughters, Kira and Maddie, with his late wife, who, according to him, died of cancer. From the looks of it, the four seem like a happy family, but there has been a lot going on, which slowly unravels on screen.
At the office, Lacey’s assistant, Valentine, informs her about a cold case involving two murders in the past six years. Both of these murders happened close to town and had eerie similarities between them, which made Valentine realize that they could be the next big thing for their podcast. The first murder was of a woman named Sarah Mitchell, while the second one was of Marisa Hunter. According to Valentine, both Marisa and Sarah were stabbed to death in their house, and their dead bodies were discovered by their boyfriends. Additionally, in both cases, some personal items had been missing from the bodies, which implied that it might have been the work of a serial killer who took these items as trophies.
Soon after Lacey gets the information about the new case, an anonymous social media user called “Eyeseeyou” starts sending threatening texts and warns her not to take up Marisa Hunter’s case. Lacey believes that it is the work of the serial killer who is trying to scare her. Someone even sends her a scratched photo of herself and her sister, Jocelyne, who was murdered 20 years ago. Lacey starts to suspect that the serial killer may have some connection with Jocelyne’s murder and that the person convicted for the crime may be innocent. As the confusion and tension start to build, Lacey comes across some earth-shattering revelations that turn her life upside down.
How Did Valentine Die?
During the Pembroke Podcast Festival, Lacey came across an old friend named Tanedra, who quickly recognized Lacey’s new assistant Valentine and told her about her obsession with her previous employer, Mary, who disappeared mysteriously without a trace. According to Tanedra, Valentine had a traumatic childhood. Her parents had abandoned her and left her with her aunt, who raised Valentine. The two of them moved around a lot, and because of this, Valentine could never form lasting relationships. After her aunt’s death, Valentine struggled with a severe lack of affection and validation and would cling to anyone who would give her a little bit of attention. Her obsession with Mary had become toxic. She didn’t want Mary to get pregnant, as she felt her love for Valentine would be divided. At some point, Valentine even tried to end Mary’s pregnancy, perhaps because of which she disappeared in order to save her child.
As Lacey found out about Valentine’s true history, she decided to stay away from her as much as possible. She believed that Valentine had become obsessed with Lacey and would try to harm her kid too. During this time, Cam got worried about Lacey’s well-being and asked her to stop her podcast until she delivered the child. Lacey had a minor accident at the house, which she believed was staged by Valentine. The accident could have cost her the life of her baby, and thus she decided to bid farewell to her listeners for the time being.
One night, Valentine texted her and asked her to come over to her house. She had some important information for her related to Marisa Hunter. Lacey couldn’t kill her curiosity and thus ended up at Valentine’s house, only to find her dead. Everyone believed that she killed herself out of fear of being caught, but it was just a diversion so that Lacey would stop chasing the truth.
Who Was Behind The Murders?
During the investigation of Marisa Hunter’s murder case, Lacey interrogated her neighbor, Helen, who had lived in the neighborhood for some 40 years. After Valentine’s crimes came to light, Lacey believed that she might have killed Marisa too. Lacey went to Marisa’s house one last time, where she met Helen again. Though it was all very convenient, on the second meeting, Helen gave Lacey a photograph of Marisa with her boyfriend, Aaron Blake, and his two daughters. Yep, Cam was Aaron, who had changed his name because everyone believed that he had killed his own wife. Well, that was the story Cam wanted Lacey to believe until Lacey opened the box of evidence that Valentine had left for her. Inside the box, she found pictures of Sarah Mitchell with her boyfriend Charlie, who once again was none other than Cam. So, was Cam the killer? No, but he was the one protecting the real killer.
During A Podcast to Die For‘s ending, Lacey went inside Marisa’s house, believing that Cam had been holding his daughter hostage inside it. Helen had previously told Lacey that she witnessed some shadows moving inside the house, which made Lacey certain that Cam used to visit the house from time to time. Inside the house, Lacey and Bianca (Lacey’s other assistant) were attacked from behind, and when Lacey woke up, Cam tried to feed her a story to make her believe that he was the killer. Again, it was all a lie. What Cam tried to establish at this point was that his first wife died in a car crash, and after the accident, it was his duty to look after his kids. He tried to imply that the next two women tried to harm the kids, and thus he killed them as a protective father. I mean, he did try to tell a lie to Lacey, but at least the writers could have come up with a better one.
Nevertheless, Lacey knew that both Sarah and Marisa were pregnant at the time of their murder, and Cam wouldn’t have tried to kill his own child. So, who did it? Before we could even put our conspiracy theorist minds to use, Cam spoiled it all. He looked at his elder daughter and said, “Kira, how could you be so careless?” I mean, what? Was he running a murder training camp for his child? We understand that he was trying to protect her and was ready to take the fall for her, but wouldn’t good parenting have been to get her some much essential professional psychiatric help? Kira has killed three people (including Valentina), and as a good father, Cam should have really done something to stop her instead of protecting and enabling a serial killer.
A Podcast to Die For Ending Explained: Why Did Kira Become A Killer?
Kira’s reason for killing Sarah and Marisa was that she believed that the new women in her father’s life would have tried to distance the kids from their father. Now, we are not sure if Sarah and Marisa tried to do that or if it was just Kira’s fears. She thought the new child in her father’s life would take away all the attention and leave them without a parent’s affection. Yes, she was paranoid and mentally unstable. Her reason for killing Valentine was that she wanted to put all the blame on her and get away with it. Kira did get successful in her mission until Helen, the old lady with a fading memory, rained on her homicidal parade. In the end, like all good killers, Kira told Lacey how she found out about Sarah and Marisa’s pregnancy and her reasons for killing them. She also tried to attack Lacey with a wrench, but she failed to kill her third mother. Finally, some sense got into Cam’s head, and he stopped Kira before she could murder Lacey. But what if she had committed the third murder? Would Cam try to hide that too, and move to another place with a new identity to marry and endanger a new woman? I mean, this father’s protection against a serial killer is really disturbing.
In the end, we heard some police sirens, and finally, the serial killer was arrested. The police arrested Cam, too, for lying to them and withholding evidence. A Podcast to Die For jumps a year forward, where we find out from Detective Campbell that Jocelyne was indeed murdered by the person whom they had arrested. During the course of the film, Lacey was struggling with the dilemma that, in her fear, she had put the wrong person behind bars, and thus she needed some confirmation on that part. Probably it was Kira who had sent Jocelyne’s picture with her face scratched off to Lacey to threaten her into staying out of Marisa’s murder case. The film doesn’t really speak about it but our wild guess is that it was Kira who might have orchestrated the whole plan from the beginning and had also sabotaged the railing to kill Lacey and her unborn child.
Lacey gives birth to a beautiful daughter and lives a peaceful life with Maddie. From time to time, the two of them pay a visit to Cam and Kira in person because Lacey believes they are still family. However, the most disturbing part is that Lacey knows that someday they are going to come out of prison and might need their support. Was she ready to accept them even after so much? Also, Maddie sounds much more sensible than Lacey when she says that she doesn’t think Kira is ever going to come out. But for some very odd reasons, Lacey wants her to believe that she is still her sister and that they can help her live a normal life. I mean, it is possible, but it involves a lot of psychiatric evaluation, and I don’t think a Lifetime movie would want to take up that path. So yes, it’s a happy ending, I guess. Afterall, Lacey did solve the case and was able to protect her child in the end.
