The Glass Dome’s ending was all about understanding why Valter was kidnapping young girls with brown hair for what seemed like decades and why he had returned to doing it after a pretty long break. So, all the way back in November 2002, the protagonist of our story, Lejla, was kidnapped in Varby, Stockholm. For 9 months, the police looked for her, until they eventually found her in Granas. During this period, Milena, Lejla’s mother, had allegedly died by suicide because she was unable to deal with the fact that she couldn’t protect her only daughter. So, Valter, the police officer who had found Lejla, and his wife, Ann-Marie, adopted Lejla, and she grew up to be an expert in decoding the psychology behind child kidnappings.
In the present day, Lejla returned to Granas to attend Ann-Marie’s funeral with the intention of returning to the USA as soon as possible. But when Louise was found murdered in her home, and Louise and Said’s daughter, Alicia, was nowhere to be found, Lejla stayed back, only to find herself in the middle of a political tussle regarding a mine construction, a copycat kidnapper named Daniel Frick, and more. Eventually, after hitting a bunch of dead ends, Lejla remembered that she had been to Granas right before her kidnapping to attend Walpurgis Night. After checking the records of the place that she and her mom had stayed at, she saw that Tomas Ness, Valter’s brother, was there too to attend his mother’s funeral. Naturally, Lejla assumed that Tomas was the perpetrator. Sadly that interpretation of the facts led Lejla right into Valter’s trap. Did she escape? Did she rescue Alicia? Did she understand Valter’s MO? Let’s find out.
Spoiler Alert
Valter Was The Serial Kidnapper
In The Glass Dome’s finale, Lejla confronted Tomas, thinking that he was Ecki, i.e. the man who had kidnapped her in Stockholm and brought her all the way to Granas. On top of that, Tomas had had an affair with Louise prior to her death. So, when Lejla found Louise’s cell in Tomas’ house, all the alarm bells in her head started ringing and she bolted out of the place to seek refuge in her own house. Concerned for her safety and mental wellbeing, Tomas went after her. But since Lejla was convinced that Tomas was Ecki, she hinted at Tomas’ involvement in Louise’s death and Alicia’s kidnapping, and then went on the run again. That’s when Lejla was drugged and thrown into the glass box that she had found herself in almost 20 years ago. And along with her in that cage was Alicia. Lejla used Louise’s phone to contact Valter, thinking that she was calling her savior. But when Valter revealed that he was Ecki all along, Lejla’s world shattered.
This wasn’t as big of a surprise for me as it might’ve been for Lejla, or a lot of the people watching the show, because the thought that Valter might be Ecki struck me in the second episode when Lejla was going through the footage of her younger self being interviewed by Valter. The information about Milena’s death by suicide and the manner in which Valter was comforting Lejla had me convinced that Valter was the perpetrator. There was even a scene in the 4th episode where Lejla theorized, right in front of Valter, that the reason Ecki might have resumed his work after a 20-year-long hiatus was because something traumatic must’ve happened in his life. She said that when she was in Ecki’s glass box, she used to play mind games with him and trick him into thinking that he was in power. Because every time she would ignore him, he’d act out. In Valter’s case, he was dealing with the loss of his wife and Lejla was in America. When she came to Granas, she intended to leave immediately. So, in that scene, Lejla was shining a spotlight, albeit unintentionally, on the fact that Valter had kidnapped Alicia and killed Louise to prolong her stay in her “hometown.”
Valter Explains His MO
What I didn’t see coming was the revelation that Valter or Ecki was using the hair of his victims to make bait that he used for fly fishing. Yes, please, feel free to draw a parallel between using organic human hair to catch trout and organic human connections to kidnap girls. Coming back to the plot, Valter’s tormenting of Alicia and Lejla was interrupted by Tomas, who had come searching for Lejla because she had taken Louise’s phone from his house. Tomas intended to hand it over to Jorun, his colleague at the police department, now that everybody knew that he had had an affair with Louise. And on that note, he left, instead of personally meeting Lejla and hearing what she thought of him, because Valter had convinced Tomas that Lejla was in no mood to talk and that she intended to leave for the USA as soon as possible. So, Valter went back to the basement in his barn, which was where he was keeping Alicia and Lejla, to explain why he kept Lejla all to himself but not the rest of his victims.
Well, according to Valter, Lejla was different, fascinating, and made him experience emotions that he hadn’t felt in a long time. So, based on what Tomas had said about his and Valter’s relationship with their parents, their father was abusive and their mother had never defended her sons when her husband whaled on them. While both the brothers blamed their mother for being cowardly, Valter satiated his hatred for his mother by killing all the girls who looked like her. That said, when he saw Lejla, he discovered a sense of comfort and belonging that he didn’t get from his mother. Hence, when Lejla escaped from “Ecki,” Valter acted as her savior and kept her close to him longer than he could’ve with the help of his glass box. Given how meticulous Valter was, I am willing to bet that he actually let Lejla go so that he could become her foster father later on. Valter’s turn as a serial kidnapper also showed the importance of doing thorough psychological evaluations of a city or town’s law enforcers because you never know when the savior can turn into the abuser. Sure, Valter eventually became an expert liar. He wasn’t that good when he was a budding kidnapper, and if somebody had managed to profile him properly, a lot of lives could’ve been saved.
Valter Was Arrested
During The Glass Dome’s ending, Tomas returned to Valter’s residence because he didn’t want to let Lejla leave Granas without having a proper conversation with her. When he found poor Bjorn’s dead body in Lejla’s room, he knew that something was wrong. He started searching the grounds for any signs of the killer and made his way to the basement where Alicia and Lejla were being held. Meanwhile, after pretty much confirming the fact that he had killed Milena (to kidnap Lejla), Louise (to kidnap Alicia and also maybe because he knew that she was having an affair with Tomas), and even Frick (for copying Ecki’s methods), Valter was moving forward to the climax of his latest opus by strangling Alicia to death.
In a desperate bid to stop Valter from killing Alicia, Lejla began banging her head against the glass box until she started bleeding. That did get Valter to shift his attention from Alicia to her, probably because his savior complex kicked in. Lejla had thoroughly studied Valter’s psyche when he had captured her as a kid, and she had dedicated her whole life to deconstructing the mindset of those who kidnap children. She knew that, unless the kidnapping had any sexual undertones, the kidnapper was playing out a parent-child fantasy. In Valter’s case, he had literally seen Lejla grow up before his eyes, and she knew that he couldn’t see her get hurt because of him. So, Lejla exploited those sentiments to save Alicia, and it worked, thereby giving Tomas the opportunity to intervene.
Throughout his life, Valter had undermined Tomas, and he goaded his brother to kill him so that he would end his career as a police officer on a disgraceful note. Yes, Valter was the one who had ruined his reputation. But the issue was that he didn’t care about all that fluff. He knew what he was and he was okay with dying, knowing that everyone would eventually find out that he was kidnapping and killing little girls because of his mommy issues. In fact, dying was better than paying for his sins, which was why he wanted Tomas to pull the trigger. However, he underestimated Tomas’ resolve because, instead of killing Valter, he arrested him. Alicia was reunited with Said, Lejla got out of her glass cage, and Valter was sent to jail.
Valter And His Connection To The River
In The Glass Dome’s ending, Lejla confronted Valter and requested that he reveal the location of his victims because the families of those girls deserved closure. Valter reminded Lejla that, regardless of how far she gets away from him and no matter how much therapy she receives, he’ll stay in her mind and she in his; something that’s hauntingly visualized through a shot-reverse-shot where Valter’s face merges with Lejla’s because of the glass shield between the characters and vice versa. Once Valter felt that he had gotten under Lejla’s skin, he indicated that the bodies of his victims were at their favorite fishing spot near the river. Given how Valter depended on the river’s depth to hide the bodies, it’s possible that he had paid Adde to poison the waters of Granas, thereby prompting the mining operations to stop and preventing the river from drying up and revealing the dead bodies. No, I don’t think he cared about the environmental condition of his town; he just wanted to protect his secret.
I mean, what can one do really? No amount of punishment will get Valter to see the error of his ways, or make him feel the pain that his victims and the families of those victims had felt. It’s pointless to get the police authorities to do better because, in the 21st century, if they are still being proud of the fact that some of them are efficient, while the rest are a bunch of idiots, there’s no hope for change. People at large are becoming more and more divided for political or religious reasons, and hence they’re not looking out for each other, thereby leading to an uptick in crimes. Survivors like Lejla know that better than anyone else and she knows that the only thing one can do in a world that’s so volatile and hostile is prepare. She can educate and train girls to not break down if they find themselves in a sticky situation. She can give detectives and the police the information they need to profile potential kidnappers. She can request the general populace to stand united. And then we can all hope for the best and brace ourselves for the worst. Anyway, those are my thoughts on the ending of The Glass Dome. What did you think about the limited series? Let me know in the comments.
