The Asset’s ending was about Ashley getting the choice to either leave the life of drugs and violence in the rearview mirror or dive headfirst into it. Ashley was the wife of Miran, a notorious drug peddler with a penchant for bloodshed. They had a daughter named Sofia. Ashley and Miran’s relationship was rocky, but as long as she covered for his illicit activities and he kept giving her all kinds of expensive stuff, they stayed together. Things were going relatively fine until Miran’s brother, Bambi, sniffed out a rat–who was a PET (Politiets Efterretningstjeneste) agent–and had him killed in public. This compelled PET officers Folke, Jensen, and Yasin to send in a new agent, named Tea. Now, instead of directly infiltrating Miran’s operation, Tea was tasked with getting into the good graces of Ashley as Sara, a jeweler, and manipulating her in such a way that she’d confess to the PET in order to get out of her abusive relationship with Miran. To further influence Ashley’s decision, child protective services were sent to take Sofia away from her parents under the pretext of shielding the child from her problematic family. On top of that, Miran was in a mess of his own making, as he had killed Erik, his chief financier, after he had killed Bambi for the delay in his shipment, thereby giving the PET a good excuse to go after Miran. So, did Tea manage to get Miran arrested and then reunite Ashley with Sofia? If so, what can we expect to see in the yet-to-be-announced second season of the show? Let’s find out.
Spoiler Alert
Ashley Got Miran’s Confession
After Ashley learned about Tea’s real identity, she questioned everything she knew about her. So, Tea made it clear that, while she had changed her name and faked her profession, her backstory about her mother and her abusive boyfriend was true, which was why she empathized with Ashley’s plight instead of just treating her like an asset. After venting about how betrayed she had felt by Tea’s actions and how she had hurt the innocent Sofia, who genuinely saw Tea as a part of her family, Ashley said that she was ready to tell the PET everything she knew about Miran’s business ventures, but only if she was put in front of Tea’s boss. Realizing that she had finally hit a breakthrough, Tea rushed to Folke and requested that he arrange a meeting with Ashley. Folke was hesitant at first, because everything he knew about Ashley was second-hand, while Tea’s knowledge about Ashley was first-hand, and he was not sure if he’d be able to get into her mind as easily as Tea would. However, since Ashley was distrustful of everyone at that stage, it didn’t quite matter if it was Tea interrogating Ashley or Folke.
Anyway, Ashley confessed to all the crimes she had committed while staying with Miran, and she agreed to get tangible evidence regarding Erik’s murder if she was allowed to see Sofia at least once. Folke arranged for that, and once Ashley had confirmed that Sofia was safe and sound, she went back home to get a confession out of Miran. Since Miran didn’t know that the PET was listening in on his conversation with his wife, he ended up revealing that he had killed Erik, the man who had killed Bambi. Now, all that Ashley had to do was move out of the house so that Folke could get the necessary warrants and arrest Miran. But instead of doing so, she went into Sofia’s room, called up Tea, and began whining about how Miran was a good man and that he didn’t deserve to be arrested. Miran heard all that, and when he checked Ashley’s phone and saw a recent video of her and Sofia, he realized that Ashley was working for the PET. Fearing the worst, Folke, Yasin, and Tea rushed to get ahold of Jensen, attain the warrants, and mobilize all available units towards Ashley’s house.
Miran Surrendered
Tea was shocked to learn that since Ashley had helped Miran with his criminal activities, Folke wanted to arrest her and send her to jail too. Ashley had literally risked her life to get Miran to confess to his crimes, but that apparently didn’t matter to Folke, because he hadn’t seen what Tea had seen, and hence, he didn’t empathize with Ashley. Since Tea disagreed with Folke’s decision to arrest Ashley, she tried calling her in order to tell her to make a run for it before SWAT got there. However, Ashley stayed put and gave Miran the chance to escape. The SWAT team even reached Miran’s workplace, but he was not there as well. Where was Miran? Like an omnipresent entity, he had appeared before Tea to forcibly take her on a road trip, along with Niko, to the container port and have an uninterrupted chat about her backstabbing and Sofia’s fate. Well, it wasn’t much of a chat, because right after learning that Sofia wouldn’t get to go home if both of her parents were in jail, Niko began choking Tea out, while Miran looked on.
Tea somehow managed to convince Miran that if he surrendered to the police and agreed to reveal everything about his operation, he could ask for Ashley and Sofia’s freedom in exchange. Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed, and Miran gave himself up to the PET, confessed to killing Erik, and even revealed the location of Erik’s body. He even accepted that he had used Ashley’s fear of him against her and made her work for him, which essentially helped clear her of any wrongdoing. The only thing that he didn’t reveal was the location where he had stashed the coke. Instead of getting too greedy, Folke cut his losses, sent Miran to jail on murder charges, and after one month, he allowed Sofia to reunite with Ashley. After settling into their new home, the mother-daughter duo ran into Tea. While Sofia was glad to see Tea, Ashley didn’t really hold back as she blamed Tea for the predicament that she and her family were in. Tea apologized, but Ashley rejected it, and they parted ways with the intention of never meeting each other again. However, it was apparent to everybody that Tea and Ashley’s destinies had been permanently intertwined after this whole incident.
Tea Almost Died
In The Asset’s ending, Miran’s father paid Ashley a visit and vowed to take care of her and Sofia. Ashley was under the impression that she had moved on from that life of violence and drugs, but here was Miran’s father forcibly bringing the mother-daughter duo under his wing because Sofia was the only family he had left. Bambi was dead, Miran was in jail, and he didn’t consider Ashley a part of his family because she had worked with the police. She was useful to him as long as she took care of Sofia. If she failed at that–which we know she won’t, because Ashley loves Sofia–Miran’s father insinuated that he will kill her. That wasn’t all, though. After Miran’s father left, Ashley found a key in one of Sofia’s toys, which led her to a storage unit where all the cocaine, which Miran hadn’t revealed to Folke, was kept. In case you are wondering who had kept the key in Sofia’s soft toy, it was obviously Miran, as that was the last place the police would search for clues, and the first thing that Ashley would notice (because she had a good idea of which toys Sofia usually played with). And as Ashley examined those packages of cocaine, Tea and Yasin were attacked by a couple of armed bikers at a traffic stop. Yasin sustained a few scratches here and there, but Tea was hospitalized. When she woke up, Folke asked her if she got a look at the faces of the assailants. Tea said she hadn’t, but Folke assured her that they’ll get to the bottom of this assault.
Now, allow me to break down what all of these revelations mean. For starters, Tea was so traumatized after this whole “covert” operation that she didn’t want to join PET. But I suppose that this attack has left her with one option and one option only: accepting Folke’s offer, joining PET, and taking down what’s left of the drug operation that Miran was only a part of. As evident from the first episode itself, Tea wasn’t like all the other cadets. Her superiors just called her different, but over the course of the 6 episodes, we learned that the element that separated her from the rest was her ability to empathize. She didn’t treat Ashley and everyone associated with her as assets or targets. She saw them as living, breathing human beings. So, even when they refused to show her mercy, she continued to be reasonable with them. That’s why only Miran ended up getting jailed, and Ashley got another chance at life with Sofia. I guess Tea would have stepped away from this realm of crime and justice and, I don’t know, turned one of her hobbies into her next job. However, the attack has forced her hand to keep fighting the good fight until Denmark has been rid of drug dealers and hired assassins altogether.
Season 2 Theories
Amongst the many questions that a potential Season 2 of The Asset needs to answer, the one on the top of the list is who could be behind the attempted murder of Tea? Well, it’s pretty obvious that it’s either Niko or Miran’s father. While Miran rots away in jail, they must be handling the business. They must be focused on stabilizing the cocaine operation after Erik’s death and Miran’s imprisonment, but I suppose in their free time, they were coming up with ways to kill Tea because she was the biggest reason behind their setback. But why would Niko or Miran’s father want that kind of heat on them while they’re still recovering? When Bambi messed up by killing that PET agent on the plane, Miran reprimanded him for not being discreet. And then to shoot not one but two officers at a traffic stop seems a little out of character. Which makes me think that the assassination attempt might’ve been orchestrated by Ashley. Yeah, I’m speculating that there’s some timeline manipulation going on, and although it seems like Ashley discovered the cocaine stash after Tea was hospitalized, I don’t think that that is the chronology in which the events actually happened.
I feel that Ashley found the cocaine first, set up her own cocaine enterprise to rival the one being run by Miran’s father, and then ordered the hit on Tea, knowing full well that the PET will suspect Miran’s father or Niko before even thinking about Ashley. If that’s truly the case, then it’ll be truly tragic for Ashley because, as mentioned before, she never wanted to be associated with drugs and violence. But just to keep her daughter out of Miran’s father’s clutches, maybe she’ll need to dip her toes into the Dark Side. And the thing about that darkness is that it infects you completely, and maybe that infection has robbed Ashley of her ability to forgive Tea, thereby prompting her to kill Tea. It’s a very complicated situation if you think about it. If Tea wouldn’t have done the things she did to put Miran in jail and “free” Ashley and Sofia, maybe both of them would have become the victims of Miran’s rage one day. However, by “saving” Ashley and Sofia, she put them on Miran’s father’s radar. So, yeah, maybe Tea did deserve to get shot. But now that she has survived, hopefully, she’ll be able to do right by Ashley and Sofia in Season 2 of The Asset. Anyway, those are just my thoughts on the show. If you have any opinions on the same, feel free to share them in the comments section below.
