There’s this thing with the narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths. They convince themselves and others around them that their gruesome crimes are in the interest of the greater good. They come with this savior complex and want the world to see them as heroes. They assure you that they only got their hands dirty so they can cleanse the society and help those who are too afraid to pick up arms themselves. But we all know that’s just a tale they often tell themselves to validate their sick desires. And the antagonist of The Beast in Me, Nile Jarvis, was no different.
Spoiler Alert
Some four years ago, Agatha “Aggie” Wiggs lost her young son, Cooper, in a tragic car accident. A car rammed into her vehicle and took away Cooper’s life. The man behind the vehicle was a young lad named Theodore “Teddy” Fenig, who lived in the same town as Aggie, and throughout these years, Aggie lived with the belief that Teddy was responsible for her son’s death. She believed that he was drunk on the day of the accident, and should be charged for murder, but the court didn’t find any such evidence against the boy and released him without any further investigation. Aggie failed to come to terms with Cooper’s death, and would often attack Teddy both verbally and physically. The situation escalated so much that Teddy’s mother, Lorna, had to file a restraining order to protect her son from Aggie.
In the present time, when Aggie met her new neighbor for lunch, Nile Jarvis, she told him that Teddy Fenig lied through his teeth and blamed her for the accident. He told the authorities that Aggie was driving erratically which actually was true but Aggie had been in denial because she didn’t want to take the responsibility of her son’s death. It’s true that Aggie held a grudge against Teddy but she never asked Nile to help her or bring justice to her son, but Nile got himself involved anyway. As soon as Aggie left, Nile followed Teddy and abducted him, leaving a suicide note in his car. Everyone in the Oyster Bay believed that Teddy drowned himself, but the truth was Nile had kidnapped him so Aggie wouldn’t have seen the face of his son’s murderer ever again. He locked him up in one of his properties, tortured him for his own sick pleasure.
It’s quite difficult to understand why exactly Nile kidnapped Teddy Fenig. Was he really helping his new neighbor because he believed he owed her a favor? Or was it because Nile believed that by attacking Teddy he would be making the young lad pay for his karma and the crimes he had committed? It could be possible that Nile kidnapped Teddy because he wanted to have some kind of leverage upon Aggie who was slowly becoming a part of Nile’s inner circle. He knew that someone like Aggie couldn’t be trusted completely and therefore might have taken away Teddy so he could frame Aggie if she dared to turn against him. Or Teddy’s abduction was simply one of Nile’s impulsive and rash decisions that he had been making his whole life. His first wife, Maddie had told Special Agent Brian Abbott that Nile Jarvis was an agent of chaos, and whoever dared to upset him would face his wrath and disappear in thin air. He was accused of killing his camp counselor at the age of 17, and later kidnapping a domestic worker in Paris in 2010. None of these crimes were ever tied to Nile, but Maddie knew that Nile was responsible for these mysterious disappearances.
Well, whatever the case might be, in The Beast in Me’s ending, Nile did pin the entire blame on his neighbor. Aggie was getting too close to solving Maddie‘s murder, and therefore to put an end to her investigation, Nile suffocated Teddy to death and planted his corpse in Cooper’s room to frame her for Teddy’s murder. I know he didn’t do this alone, and enlisted the help of his uncle, Rick, but the reason I believe it was Nile who killed Teddy is because Rick wouldn’t have harmed a young boy who had no connection with the Jarvis family or had harmed them. You see, Rick wasn’t just a random thug working for Nile. He was just protecting his brother’s son, so his legacy wouldn’t be ruined. So what might have happened, after killing Teddy, Nile would have called his uncle and told him about the situation. And it could be possible that it was Rick’s idea to plant the body in Aggie’s house as she had a history with Teddy and the police would rule her out as the prime suspect without a second thought. And that was what actually happened. Aggie might have gone to jail if Nile’s second wife, Nina, hadn’t decided to help her and record Nile’s confession to get him arrested.
Teddy Fenig’s murder further confirmed the fact that Nile Jarvis was nothing but a sociopath who spilled blood for his pleasure. When he killed Maddie, Rick was of the opinion that he committed the crime in the heat of the moment, but Teddy’s murder made him realize that people like Nile couldn’t be cured and he would keep on killing people if he wouldn’t be put behind bars. This was the reason why Rick himself killed his brother so that he wouldn’t have to see his legacy going down the drains. Rick became a state witness and gave the authorities enough evidence to put Nile in a cage, but Rick knew that Nile would remain a threat to his brother’s other children as long as he was alive, and therefore to put an end to the evil, he called in a last favor and got Nile killed in prison so he couldn’t do more damage to anyone. And with that, the era of Nile Jarvis finally came to an end.
