Directed by Ashley Way, The Guest, the captivating suspense drama, will definitely keep the audience hooked throughout. What makes this 4-part series stand apart is that, as much as it focuses on the thrill and suspense, it allows us to delve deep into the characters’ complicated personalities and understand their motivations. So, let’s find out what happened in The Guest and how things ended for various characters.
Spoiler Alert
How did Ria meet Francesca Sharp?
Ria Powell was finding it hard to earn her livelihood. She worked as a cleaner, and she was fired from her job because, apparently, she was charging a comparatively higher rate than her competitors. Ria’s boyfriend, Lee, was also unemployed, and that wouldn’t have been such a big problem had he been actively searching for jobs. He told Ria every day that he’d applied for jobs, but the reality was that he didn’t do anything and just sat playing games in the house. Ria loved him, but he was becoming a burden for her. One day, Ria walked into a supermarket, and she saw some food items set aside for charitable purposes. But the moment she picked up one or two items, the store security staff came and accused her of theft. There was a woman standing there who saw the entire argument unfolding. She went and gave Ria the offer to work as a temporary cleaner for her. Francesca Sharp, aka Fran, was no commoner: she and her husband, Simon Sharp, were well-known business tycoons who were dealers of high-end furniture and other luxury items. Ria was not very keen to take her offer, but she was in such a dire situation financially that she ended up visiting Fran, and she was literally spellbound when she saw the huge mansion she lived in. I don’t know if Ria, as a person, was easily influenced or not, but Fran had a huge impact on her. Fran, on the first meeting itself, quite profoundly told her that she shouldn’t think of herself as not being worthy of happiness. Fran told Ria that sometimes you are born privileged, and sometimes you have to snatch what you feel you deserve in life. For the first time, Ria felt she amounted to something. There was something very suspicious about Fran: the way she favored Ria and the way she looked after her from the get-go made it very difficult for her to believe that Fran didn’t have any ulterior motive behind her actions.
How did Mike die?
Ria started working for Fran, and she enjoyed the brief conversations she had with her. Fran told her that if she was not happy with Lee, and she was just staying with him out of habit, then she should definitely think about her life choices. That subtle and passive brainwashing had a huge impact on Ria, and she decided to take her chances and go on a date with a guy she had connected with on some dating app. Michael Rice, aka Mike, was a good-looking and successful man, and Ria enjoyed her first date with him. We got to know that Ria often didn’t hesitate to lie, as she very comfortably told Mike that she was an entrepreneur who had a furniture business. Basically, whatever Fran told Ria about herself, she repeated. Then, one day, Fran was going out of town, and so Ria wanted to seize the opportunity and call Mike over to Fran’s mansion. Mike came, and Ria told him that the house belonged to her parents. They drank, got intimate, and even snorted drugs, and then Ria realized that, apparently, Fran had forgotten her keys and she was coming back to pick them up. Ria got paranoid, and she asked Mike to leave. Mike felt insulted, and he was able to figure out that Ria was a cleaner and not a wealthy entrepreneur. He was inebriated, and he lost his temper. Both of them got violent, and Mike started chasing Ria through the entire house. It did feel like he was going to hurt her if he caught hold of her, and so Ria, in self-defense, pushed Mike, and unfortunately, he fell off the staircase and succumbed to his injuries. Fran came back, and she was shocked to see what had happened. But even in that situation, which could have potentially damaged her reputation, Fran didn’t leave Ria’s side. Fran made sure that Ria lied to the police and told them that Ria had just acted in self-defense and it was all an accident. Fran knew that if they held their nerve, the police wouldn’t be able to incriminate Ria.
Mike’s death might have seemed like an accident, but it wasn’t, because he worked for Fran, which we came to know later. Mike’s sister, Gemma, tried to get in touch with Ria, as firstly she was angry at her and attacked her, but then, after understanding what was really happening, she wanted to warn Ria and tell her to run away from the mansion. Fran and Mike were old acquaintances. Mike’s job was to bring in girls for Fran, whom she could use for her own purpose (which I have discussed in the next sub-heading). Before Ria, there was a girl called Anna who worked as a cleaner for Fran. Mike had taken her out on a date, and he had followed the same modus operandi as he had with Ria. I personally don’t think that Fran had any role to play in Mike’s death. I think it was just an accident, though Mike surely would have known from the beginning that it was Fran’s mansion. I think he just lost his cool after Ria asked him to leave; apparently, he wanted to get physically intimate with her. I had a thought that probably Fran wanted to get rid of him, which is why she let that entire meeting play out the way it did, but I guess that’s quite a far-fetched speculation, as nobody could have foreseen what happened with Mike that night.
Why Did Fran Kill Simon?
Fran was a complicated human being, and she had her own set of insecurities and vulnerabilities. She might have seemed like a vicious predator who didn’t think twice before throwing someone under the bus, but she had a layered personality. Fran had an extramarital affair with Richard, who helped her and Simon out in their business, and Richard’s father, Derek, also worked as a gardener in the mansion. Derek was suffering from the early stages of dementia, and he said things that at times didn’t make any sense. But one thing was clear: he knew something about the Sharp family that nobody else did. He tried to warn Ria many times from his end, asking her to leave as soon as she could.
We got to know that the furniture business was just a front, and the Sharp family smuggled drugs, which was where they got all their money from. Simon made deals with pharmaceutical manufacturers in foreign countries, Fran looked after the entire import chain, and Richard took care of the sale and distribution side of things. They sold prescription drugs to people who probably couldn’t afford high-end recreational drugs available on the market. Fran wanted to get rid of her husband and make things official with Richard. Richard already had a wife and kids, and so both of them knew it was not going to be easy for them. Also, Simon was a dangerous man, and Fran was kind of terrified of him. Simon often assaulted Fran and locked her in a small storeroom if she didn’t follow his orders. Fran had become sick and tired of the man, and she couldn’t wait to be with Richard. I don’t think Fran was ever able to overcome the traumas of her childhood. Her father was convicted of a crime, and he took his own life in prison. Her mother, too, had passed away, leaving Fran and her sister to fend for themselves. While Helen, Fran’s sister, married a decent guy and had a good family life with two kids, Fran was never really able to leave the ghosts of her past life behind. Probably, she married Simon for money, and soon she realized that she had committed a blunder.
In The Guest’s ending, Simon gave Fran a surprise by returning from his work-trip a bit earlier than his due date. It was quite obvious that it was more of a shock than a surprise for Fran. That night, Simon told Ria to come and drink with him and Fran. Simon was a lecherous man, and he made Ria extremely uncomfortable. Simon assaulted Fran, as that was how he treated her. But that day, Fran just couldn’t hold back. Her bottled-up emotions came out like a raging fire. She picked up a hammer, and she bashed Simon’s head in. Simon succumbed to his injuries, and then Fran spiked Ria’s wine and framed her for the murder. Ria woke up in an inebriated state the next morning, and he found Simon lying in a pool of blood. Before the police arrived, she escaped from Fran’s mansion because she knew that if she got caught, she wouldn’t be able to prove her innocence.
How did Anna end up with the crypto key?
Ria found a diary, which belonged to Anna, her predecessor, hidden underneath the bed in the guest house. She found a phrase, “Lonely Girl Lost,” written in it, and for the longest time, she didn’t know what it meant. When Ria met Gemma, she realized that the last word of that phrase was not “lost,” but “last.” Gemma had seen a receipt that Mike had, on which the same phrase was written. Ria knew that it was some kind of code that could be linked to a particular location. She found out that the code was the address of a storage facility. Ria went there and found a crypto hardware wallet and a pen drive. She found out how the Sharp family laundered their money and why they needed girls like her to work for them. The girls were sent to Dubai and other places to cash out and turn the black money into cryptocurrency, thereby making it secure.
It came to be known that Fran never killed any of the girls, but with Anna, she had found out that she was stealing from her. Through her multiple visits to Dubai and other foreign countries, Anna had eventually figured out how the entire money from the smuggling of prescription drugs was laundered. She knew that Fran and Richard maintained a crypto account, and all the black money was put into that. She had also been able to figure out that the crypto hardware device was stored in a locker, and it could be accessed through a secret digital password, which was known as the crypto key. Ria had gone to visit Anna’s father to figure out what could have happened to her. There, she saw a picture of Anna with Mike, and she discovered the crypto access key written on its back. Anna probably had left such clues because she knew that, by betraying Fran and Simon’s trust, she was putting her life in danger. And that is exactly what happened. Once Simon and Fran figured out what Anna was up to, they had her killed. I believe it was Richard who carried out the act and killed her in the basement, where Derek, Richard’s father, often went. Derek knew about what had happened, which was why he told Ria to escape from the mansion as fast as she could. I wouldn’t be surprised if we got to know that Fran and Richard were making Derek consume drugs to make him mentally unstable. They knew that they couldn’t afford to have any loose ends, and had Derek not been Richard’s father, they would have definitely killed him too.
Did Simon have access to the storage facility?
Well, I believe Simon had knowledge about everything that was happening because he was the mastermind of the entire plan. He would have been the one who ordered Richard to kill Anna, as I feel Fran wouldn’t have wanted to hurt the girl. Also, I think Simon didn’t have any clue about what was happening behind his back. He had no clue about his wife’s affair with Richard, and they made sure to keep their tracks covered and be very cautious about whatever they did. I think Richard did not give Simon any reason to question his loyalty. That could be one of the reasons why Richard had access to the storage facility. Also, Simon was a powerful man, and he would have known that nobody would dare to go against him. The question that came to my mind was, did Richard and Fran at any point in time have the intention of stealing that money from Simon? Well, I think so long as Simon was alive, Richard didn’t entertain that thought. He was too scared to even think of going against him. As for Fran, she too didn’t plan on killing Simon, I guess. She had acted in the heat of the moment, and then, considering she had access to the crypto, she knew that she could start afresh together with Richard.
Is Fran Dead Or Alive?
Richard, at the end of The Guest, got hold of Ria when he found her right outside the storage facility and took her to the mansion that Fran owned, which was located on the coastline. Richard had made up his mind to kill Ria, but Fran never wanted to do that. She liked her as a person, and she saw herself in her. Fran always sympathized with her because she knew how difficult it was to survive in those kinds of circumstances. According to Fran, she gave these poor girls an opportunity to turn their fates around, but instead of seizing that chance, people like Anna tried to act smart and steal. When Fran told Ria to grab the entire loaf, what she meant was to seize the opportunity, make trips to Dubai, help her out, and make her life better in turn. So when Richard was trying to drug Ria, Fran came all guns blazing and assaulted him. Ria escaped from that godforsaken place, and two weeks later, we came to know that Richard was being sent to jail for the smuggling of prescription drugs. Fran, on the other hand, was still missing, and while Sharla, Ria’s friend, believed that the authorities would catch hold of her, I don’t think she would be caught so easily. I believe that Fran definitely has a plan in mind, and though she was a mess, she still had enough contacts to conceal her identity and stay a step ahead of the authorities. I believe Dubai could be one place where she could go since she already had a good network there. I wouldn’t be surprised if Fran pays a surprise visit to Ria in the future. I believe that, with Ria having the money now and Fran being on the run, both the women had the opportunity to start over again. Fran had realized that neither Richard nor Simon loved her. She had thought that she could start a new life with Richard, but at the last moment, he showed his true colors and decided to stay in his perfect life with Eleri. At the cost of romanticizing the situation, I imagine both women reuniting on the Amalfi Coast (a place Fran once urged Ria to visit), setting up a small business, and staying there together in peace, away from the complications of the world.
