Frauds ending explained: Did Bert and Sam pull off the heist of the century in ITV series?
Bert and Sam's art heist was as mucky as it gets, with a Caitlin revelation blowing everything up in the Frauds finale
Frauds ending on ITV was twistier than a sailor’s knot. It showcased a power duo in Suranne Jones and Jodie Whittaker who’ll almost certainly be back for more after THAT Caitlin shocker.
The toxic friendship at the heart of the show consists of con artists Roberta ‘Bert’ Mancini and Martha ‘Sam’ Samuels. They’re reunited after 10 years when the former is released from a Spanish jail on compassionate leave.
Bert tells her old friend that she has incurable liver cancer (but does she?) and guilt-trips her friend into co-orchestrating one last criminal hurrah. That’s to steal Salvador Dali’s The Great Masturbator from a Madrid art gallery.
They’re aided by a magician’s assistant, a talented forger, a security guard, and Sam’s streetwise ‘daughter’. And there’s plenty of inner-company fallouts and revelations to navigate through along the way.
So how did the big heist unfold, what is Caitlin’s game, and how does the Frauds ending on ITV suggest it’s not a one-and-done? Here’s everything you need to know about the crime drama.
***Warning: spoilers for Frauds ending on ITV ahead***
Frauds on ITV key plot points
Before Bert’s timer ran out of sand, she was hellbent on pulling off “the heist of the century”. She stole the idea from her prison cellmate Isabella.
Enter Jackie Diamond, the bored magician’s assistant looking for a way out of the mundanity of playing second fiddle to her husband The Great Diavolo. Bilal the Bradford-based genius who owed £100,000 to money lender Carl ‘Deegs’ Degan was there too.
Spanish waitress Caitlin, who was “given up for adoption” by mum Sam in her teens, eventually joined them.
Bert identified Celine as a potential buyer for Dali’s questionably-named artwork, which resided in the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. First, she had to sneakily return a crown of thorns relic to a local cathedral to show off her skills.
Convinced by the sell, Celine agreed to the deal – as long as the eclectic gang could successfully swap the real Great Masturbator. It would earn them €10,000,000.
Of course, it wasn’t going to be that simple though. While sneaking off with the crown, Bert also stole the watch of rich guy Carlos Perez.
Coupled with an earlier crime that saw Bert run off with a priceless 300-year-old matador costume, this brought Bert to the attention of the Spanish authorities.
Blas the prison guard had an important part to play in the heist (Credit: ITV Pictures)
The plan went kaput
One of Bert’s prison guards, Blas, made a nuisance of himself by turning up halfway through preparation for the heist. He threatened to inform the crew that Bert wasn’t really living with cancer… What did he want? To be paid off.
Blas subsequently proved himself useful by getting a job at the Reina Sofía after the initial plan was unwittingly sabotaged by protestors. They’d defaced Pablo Picasso’s Guernica painting at the very same gallery, forcing a tightening of security around The Great Masturbator.
The new plan saw Jackie building a rig – kitted out with magnetic alarm disruptors – to get Bilal’s fake into position. Caitlin and Miss Take (more on her later) had to create a distraction to tempt witnesses away from the scene.
Bert and Sam were present as “service workers”, while Blas handled security.
Why had Bert been in prison?
Back in the day, Bert and Sam were hired to take something from a safe for a particular client, but this resulted in a turf war.
“Bert ended up on the wrong side, it was a mess,” Sam later explained to Caitlin. “We were both arrested but Bert kept me in the dark on a lot of it. She took the rap because it was her rap to take.”
In subsequent flashbacks, we learnt that Sam was wired up on the night and purposefully incriminated Bert. She feared that her accomplice would inevitably bring them both down with her reckless antics.
One way or another Bert discovered the truth, yet never grassed Sam up.
Why did Bert lie about having cancer?
During another heated argument between Suranne and Jodie’s partners-in-crime, the truth was finally given oxygen – that Bert’s terminal cancer scam was revenge.
“Why would you lie about that? Oh my God you’re deranged!” stressed Sam. “No I’m smart, I am so much smarter than you!” replied Bert. Of course, she’s known that a tall tale was the only way back into Sam’s life.
“I took pills so that you thought I was sick, which made me sick and that was actually really fucking inconvenient at times! I played the long game and here I am, that is so much better than any con.”
This was Bert’s way of paying Sam back for that act of betrayal a decade ago.
Caitlin’s ‘adoption’ explained
Sam ultimately learnt that Caitlin was her daughter by reading secret letters between her and Bert. Such was Sam’s fury, she punched Bert in the swimming pool.
Sam revealed that she wanted Caitlin to have a better life than she could have provided at the time.
“I was really young, I didn’t have any family support,” she added. But the terrible reality was that Caitlin was instead passed over to “religious nuts” and fled her adoptive family at 16.
Caitlin got involved with the con after being tracked down by Bert (Credit: ITV Pictures)
Frauds ending on ITV: Deegs and Bilal’s violent dynamic
Self-described “venture capitalist” Deegs was still waiting for his £100k off Bilal when we first met him. Coincidentally, they were both heading to the same sunny location at the airport; Deegs to build a money-laundering gym empire and Bilal to paint his own Great Masturbator for the female cons.
When Bert and Sam could only provide their forger with £10k up front, this caused Deegs to take drastic action.
Heading to Bilal’s apartment to pay the rest of his £100k fee, Bert, Sam and Jackie found him in the midst of a physical beating. After a standoff, Deegs took off with both Bilal and the sack of money. But Caitlin had savvily slipped a tracker into the bag.
Dreaming up a rescue plan involving faulty air-conditioning, the fraudsters managed to get Deegs arrested at his hotel, thus bringing Bilal back into the fold to finish off their con-depending artwork.
Deegs was released on bail and attempted to blackmail his victim once again – previously making threats towards Bilal’s mum’s life. But Bert stepped in and left the nasty piece of work tied to a chair in an abandoned church in the middle of nowhere.
Who was Miss Take?
Spanish club owner Miss Take shared a long and colourful history with Bert. When Bert’s mother – who co-owned the club way back when – ran off with a man never to return, Miss Take took care of the youngster.
She had Bert working the floor on busy nights, sneaking cash out of customers’ pockets. Bert invited Miss Take onto the Great Masturbator heist, but it was a tough sell.
Her arm was twisted by Sam, though, and their dysfunctional family was whole again.
Frauds ending on ITV: Did Sam and Bert get away with the heist?
On the day of the heist, the crew had less than eight minutes to pull off their high-wire art swap. Caitlin was armed with crying-baby noises through her phone and a double pram housing Bilal’s fake painting.
She managed to get the main security guy to show her the breastfeeding facilities. Blas swapped the CCTV feed to old footage, while Miss Take staged another gallery protest. Jackie offered direction through earpieces, too.
In the clear, Bert and Sam dismounted the original Dali before swapping in the fake. Caitlin returned for her pram – the genuine artwork now safely inside its secret pouch – and everybody made it out undetected. That’s despite a last-minute Deegs-related headache.
Was Caitlin really Sam’s daughter?
After the artwork was sold off to Celine in a wooded clearing, all hell broke loose. It turned out that Caitlin was NOT Sam’s daughter. She was actually the daughter of Bert’s jail nurse Maria, whom she owed money.
Caitlin had even added a telling birthmark to her skin to convince Sam of the lie. She held Bert and Sam at gunpoint before driving off with the cash. We then saw Caitlin – real name Sara – pick up Maria after her shift while the bruised cons plotted their retaliation.
Will there be a series 2 of Frauds?
Although there’s no official announcement from ITV yet, the Frauds ending certainly left the door wide open for a return.
There were plenty of loose ends left hanging in the series 1 finale.
Depending on the success of the first six episodes, it’s very likely Frauds will get a series 2. Watch this space for more info about the Jodie Whittaker drama when we get it.
