Secrets We Keep ending explained: Who killed Ruby?

Netflix's Secrets We Keep (Reservatet) is a six-part crime series from Denmark that strips the veneer off the affluent Copenhagen suburb to expose the corruption festering underneath. It is developed by Ingeborg Topsøe (Wildland, Hanna) and Per Fly (Borgen).

The show features Marie Bach Hansen, Simon Sears, Danica Curcic, and Lars Ranthe in a tale that explores the moral and emotional breakdown of a tight-knit society following the disappearance of a young au pair named Ruby. With its slow-burning pace and morally ambiguous characters, the series explores how silence, power, and privilege converge in the wake of a tragedy.

The story revolves around Cecilie and Mike Winther-Jensen, a family of two children and a loving Filipino au pair called Angel. Their friends and neighbors, Rasmus and Kat Hoffman, also have an au pair, Ruby, who is very close to Angel.

But when Ruby goes missing after confiding in Cecilie that she wants to quit her job, the vanishing act triggers a suspenseful series of events. As each day passes and Ruby's body is found, secrets start to unravel, pointing to the very individuals Cecilie believed she knew better.

In Secrets We Keep, Ruby is killed by Kat, who murders her to protect her son Oscar after discovering he r*ped and impregnated the au pair.

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Who is responsible for Ruby's murder in Secrets We Keep?

Ruby's demise is finally a product of Katarina Kat Hoffman's desperate act to save her son, Oscar. While early suspicion focuses on the men—Rasmus (Kat's spouse) and Mike (Cecilie's spouse)—DNA testing clears them as Ruby's baby's father.

To everyone's surprise, Rasmus' DNA shows up as the grandfather, revealing the truth: Oscar, Hoffmans' 15-year-old son, raped Ruby, resulting in her pregnancy.

Ruby had attempted to rectify the situation after dinner one evening, initially seeking advice from Cecilie, who had asked her to confront her employers herself. Following that advice, she approached Kat, which resulted in an explosive confrontation. Suffocated by the danger this threatened to her family's reputation and her son's future, Kat probably murdered Ruby.

Though the deed is never depicted overtly, her suspicious actions, participating in search parties, hovering around the investigation, and disposing of possible evidence, present a disturbing story in Secrets We Keep.

Unlike others who squarely deny partaking, Kat is chillingly calm when questioned, never refuting the claim, tacitly affirming her guilt by not speaking.

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What does Cecilie do in Secrets We Keep?

Cecilie, who is initially unwilling to become involved, is the force behind finding the truth. Filled with guilt for not believing Ruby's warnings, she takes it upon herself to search for her disappearance and death.

As more facts are revealed, such as her husband's clandestine messages with Ruby and Rasmus's rumors of past actions, Cecilie searches deeper, peeling away the layers of lies that shroud her in Secrets We Keep.

The tide turns when her son, Viggo, comes to confide in her, telling her that Oscar had played him a video incriminating him in Ruby's attack. Cecilie goes straight to the police with this information, but Kat has already acted, destroying the video on Oscar's phone and dismantling the nanny cam in Ruby's room.

With the proof destroyed and Ruby dead and no longer able to tell her tale, Cecilie is left with nothing but suspicions and moral conviction. She ends up being one of the few spokespeople standing up for Ruby, although even she is impotent against the systemic failure to dispense justice in Secrets We Keep.

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What happens to Oscar in Secrets We Keep?

Even though he is the father of Ruby's unborn baby and the r*pist, Oscar is never brought to any criminal justice. The cops cannot prosecute without concrete evidence. The video that Viggo saw has been deleted, and without Ruby's witness statement or forensic evidence of coercive s*x, the authorities can't charge him.

And then there's the complicating element of age: Oscar, being a minor, might even be turned into the victim, while Ruby, an adult, would be turned into the aggressor—a nasty twist that serves only to dehumanize her further.

The worst Oscar endures is getting kicked out of school and being shipped off to boarding school. His parents, particularly Kat, will do anything to keep him safe, even if it involves impeding justice. To Kat, saving her son's future is more important than the life that's lost in the process. The system, geared to protect the powerful, lets them off scot-free.

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Interested viewers can watch Secrets We Keep only on Netflix.