This post contains spoilers for the end of Behind Her Eyes. By now you've had a chance to watch Netflix's Behind Her Eyes (if you haven't, stop reading now); process that off-the-wall double twist ending (or continue to be haunted, confused, and distraught by it); and begin to obsess over clues that may have given away the truth in earlier episodes (No? Just me?).
Because the plot of this deranged show has made me lose more sleep than I'd like to admit (enter lucid dreaming and/or astral projection joke), I analyzed the show's promotional poster for Easter eggs. And lo and behold, the Rob-of-it-all is right there, staring at us in our cold, dead eyes.
'The truth. Was here. All along.'
The promotional poster heavily features the trio at the center of the show's messed-up love triangle: Louise (Simona Brown), Adele (Eve Hewson), and David (Tom Bateman). There's also a green streak, which at first glance, just seemed to indicate a rift between the characters—apt for a story that is supposedly about an affair gone wrong.
But after you finish the show, it's evident that the green mark is much more mystical, likely representing an astrally projected soul. (Consider the moments in later episodes when you see Adele, Rob, and Louise's souls, represented by colors, flying around.)
'Rob in season 1 of Behind Her Eyes. '
Now if you're wondering, Is that it? No! Draw your eyes to the bottom of the Netflix poster and you'll see a faint figure walking into the woods, a mysterious place that gets referenced often throughout the series. It's Rob! And here it is, the Easter egg that should've told us everything we needed to know: The green "astral soul" is literally snaking its way out of Rob's body and circling Louise's eye. Rob is literally behind Louise's eye...a.k.a. the final twist at the end of the show. Furthermore, the green aura lingers over David, because Rob is so obsessed with keeping his eyes on David and keeping him all to himself.
In an effort to make sure I didn't start to sound as unhinged as the end of Behind Her Eyes, I reached out to Netflix for a comment on my theory. The streaming service confirmed yes, my observation was correct and the poster was, in fact, subtly alluding to Rob's deep dark secret.
There are, of course, several other clues director Erik Richter Strand snuck into the show to hint at Rob's nefarious involvement. There's how much Rob-Adele cooks for David—remember, the first time Rob met David, he cooked for him and David was blown away by his abilities, while Adele didn't seem to be able to make anything from scratch. There's also Rob-Adele's heroin use—Rob was the one with an addiction problem, not Adele, so her using the drug is a clear sign she's not being herself. Not to mention, it only fits that Adele would have Rob's diary if she were not actually Adele and, in fact, Rob's soul in hiding. (Same with the wooden box that Adele was shown giving Rob. She doesn't keep the box after his death, Rob-Adele just takes the gift he was given, even though he did murder the person who gave him the gift.) And consider how Adele's body language and literally language changes after her body is taken over by Rob. Suddenly she's reserved and nervous around David, instead of carefree and affectionate, and she begins to talk about her past life as "shitty" and "nasty." Audiences, at first, believed this was because Adele was in shock over Rob's death or upset about her parents' death, but really it was just Rob's experiences and persona breaking through.
Astral projection is also hinted at throughout the series, most notably in the strange, aerial camera angles that indicate Rob's soul's perspective. It also explains the scene when Rob-Adele tours Louise's flat; she needs to memorize the space to return there in her dreams. And in one of her flashbacks, Adele even hints, "sleep is different for me."
Buzzfeed also notes how colors play a major role in hinting at the big reveal—the characters even wear clothing that matches their aura hue. When Rob and Adele first astral project together, Adele's aura is pink while Rob's is blue. But when Rob-Adele is seen floating around, it's blue, not pink, indicating the soul-switch. (There's even a blue orb in the opening title sequence, per Buzzfeed, suggesting Rob's presence from the get-go.)
It's not entirely shocking that the series went to painstaking efforts to queue up that unbelievable ending. Sarah Pinborough, who wrote the book the Netflix series was based on recently told The Guardian how important it was to her that the ending held up to scrutiny. "The clues had to be there," she said. “Everything had to have dual meaning so that no one could say this character lied. I would have hated that.”
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