'Vladimir' Ending Explained: Breaking Down What Really Happens in Netflix's Ambiguous, Sultry Series

The Netflix dark comedy Vladimir explores the distinction between reality and fantasy. While those lines blur and it’s hard to understand what is really unfolding, by the finale, the eight-episode series reveals its truth as a “do it for the plot” send-up of writers. Centered on an unnamed protagonist played by Rachel Weisz, who regularly breaks the fourth wall a la Fleabag, the erotic dramedy follows Weisz’s tenured English professor who becomes obsessed with a younger colleague. Her direct-to-camera confessions reveal her fantasies about Vlad (Leo Woodall), while her real life begins to unravel when her husband John’s (John Slattery) inappropriate relationships with younger students are exposed and escalated.

In its first episode, the Netflix original, adapted from Julie May Jones’s novel of the same name, teases Vlad’s inevitable kidnapping—but it’s not until the end that it’s revealed how he wound up being held hostage in a cabin. And while much of the relationship between Vlad and The Protagonist is via imagined hook-ups and flirtatious texting, it doesn’t fully take the plunge until the final episode. But how exactly do they get there? And what does it mean, given the show’s sleight-of-hand final twist? Read on to find out exactly what goes down in the twisted love triangle of Vladimir.

Do Vladimir and The Protagonist act on their flirtation in 'Vladimir?'

Yes. As teased in the opening moments of the series, the finale brings us back to The Protagonist’s cabin, where Vlad is drugged and tied up in a chair. He’s led to the cabin after having lunch with The Protagonist to discuss their books, thinking they’re going to spend time writing together. However, while they’re drinking, things take a turn, and she acts on her desires questionably by adding crushed medication to his beverage and tying him up so that he won’t fall over.

When he comes to, he suspects his older colleague of lacing his drink, but takes her at her word when she denies it, saying that he was drunk and wanted to try BDSM before he passed out.

She also informs him that her husband, John, is having an affair with his wife, Cynthia (Jessica Henwick), which angers him.

Were Cynthia and John having an affair in 'Vladimir?'

Vladimir and the unnamed lead’s dalliance is interrupted by John, who arrives at the cabin and informs everyone that he and Cynthia weren’t having an affair; they were just 2 a.m. writing buddies. Even though she saw them together late at night, John explains that they were writing together with the aid of drugs like adderall. This revelation sends Vlad into a rage, as Cynthia is an addict whom John was enabling.

After Vlad comes to terms with the fact that he cheated (and not that he was taking revenge on Cynthia, as he initially seemed to frame it in his mind), he approaches The Protagonist with an offer: Meet him here at the cabin once a week. But having gotten what she needed out of this relationship—that is, fodder for her new novel—The Protagonist chooses herself and “burns” both of her sexual partners in the pages of her new book.

What happens with John's hearing and trial in 'Vladimir?'

Looming over the series is John’s legal hearing, as many of his former students have brought forward their complaints of his misconduct. The Protagonist argues in class that the relationships were consensual, and the judge agrees: The complaints against John are dismissed. He loses his ability to teach again, but keeps his pension.

John and The Protagonists’s daughter Sid (Ellen Robertson) serves as John’s lawyer in court, and after the trial, John confesses that he regrets involving Sid. The series doesn’t interrogate this further, simply expressing that John thinks he “fucked it up for a while.”

Do John and The Protagonist stay together in 'Vladimir?'

After the affair and John’s trial are settled, he asks his wife if they should reconsider their agreement. “We’re not getting any younger,” he reasons, though The Protagonist likes the idea of having agency in her life for the first time. She doesn’t fully commit one way or another.

What happens after the fire in 'Vladimir?'

Weisz’s character cures her writer's block after the affair—and becomes satisfied with feeling like the men in her life see her as a character in theirs. As she’s working on the end of her novel, she falls asleep on the couch and wakes up to a faulty space heater that’s started a fire in the cabin. It’s unclear whether it’s one of her fantasies or really unfolding—but she saves her manuscript, instead of John or Vlad. The Protagonist attests in a voiceover that she called 911, and everyone made it out alive (though the truth remains to be seen).

Does The Protagonist finish her book in 'Vladimir?'

In the end, it was all a writing exercise. The tongue-in-cheek show ends with The Protagonist realizing that the fantasy of Vlad was more enticing than actually having the affair, and all of it was really just fodder for her next book. In an epilogue of sorts, Weisz’s unnamed character tells the camera that her book about an obsession with a younger coworker was a success, while Vlad’s—which also took inspiration from their tryst as he wrote about an affair with an older professor—didn’t live up to the hype of his first. She reasons that hers “speaks to a certain need” before insinuating that she chose herself over the two men in her life. And with that, Vladimir reveals itself as a commentary on writers, who will find inspiration anywhere, even if it renders them delusional along the way.