Hunting Alice Bell on Channel 4 ending explained: Who was the real Alice Bell and what happened to her in tense whodunit thriller?
Did you guess the identity of the real convicted criminal?
Hunting Alice Bell, Channel 4’s thought-provoking psychological thriller, has come to a dramatic ending with the identity of Dr Jason Nash’s former lover finally revealed…
The six-parter posed a very timely question. Does a convicted criminal deserve a fresh start after serving their time? And do online vigilantes have any right to try to expose their new identities?
Comedian and writer David Baddiel came up with the idea for the drama after watching a documentary about real women who had been mistaken for Maxine Carr.
And the result was this gripping “whodunnit with shades of family drama and social satire”. But more importantly, it was an entertaining thriller that kept us guessing until the very end.
Here’s the ending of Hunting Alice Bell unpacked, including the real identity of the convicted criminal…
***Warning: spoilers from the ending of Hunting Alice Bell ahead***
What happened in the ending of Hunting Alice Bell on Channel 4?
The identity of Alice Bell was finally revealed in the finale of the Channel 4 thriller Hunting Alice Bell. But not before the death of one of the ‘Not Alice Bell’ suspects, all of whom seemed to be lying about something.
Channel 4 promised a “story for our times: about misogyny, justice, the psychosis of the mob, and about how rumours spread and the devastating effects they cause”.
Viewers met wife and mum Fran Da Silva, who was leading a ‘normal’ family life until she was accused of being convicted criminal Alice Bell. Alice was a trained nurse and former lover of serial killer Dr Jason Nash, aka The Sandman, who had murdered 14 patients and blinded a young boy.
Alice had been found guilty of falsifying operating theatre records, providing an alibi for her anaesthetist boyfriend Jason Nash. While he was sentenced to life for his crimes, Alice was released after serving her time, and given a new identity.
However, as “Britain’s most hated woman”, online vigilantes weren’t prepared to let her get on with her life. True crime podcasters, including Ralf Little’s Graham Hunter (pun presumably intended), were intent on tracking the real Alice Bell down and exposing her.
And it wasn’t just Fran who’d been targeted. There were several other ‘innocent’ women who had been exposed as the real Alice Bell. They subsequently joined together in solidarity. But viewers soon discovered that one of them was actually the real Alice Bell, hiding in plain sight.
Did she deserve to lead a new life under a new identity? Well, that’s up to you to decide.
Who was the real Alice Bell?
Fran Da Silva was the real Alice Bell. Yes, sweet, doe-eyed little Fran, who had (rather stupidly) appeared on TV in a news segment for the sports centre she worked in. As she advertised the centre’s new wave machine, she unintentionally opened the door to Graham Hunter’s True Crime Buster who saw her and believed she was the real Alice Bell. Turns out he was right. But what right did he have to expose her?
After six episodes of Fran insisting she wasn’t the real Alice Bell, she was finally caught out in the finale. And it was all down to her own husband Nick who was horrified to discover the truth about the mother of his baby. His wife Fran Da Silva had been lying to him for years. She had not been sectioned after suffering from suicidal thoughts. She’d actually been in jail. No friends or family? He didn’t ask questions… Still grieving his dead first wife, he fell for Fran and didn’t question why she seemed too good to be true.
How did Nick find out the truth about Alice Bell?
Fran tripped herself up and exposed her own identity in one final meeting with the ‘Not Alice Bells’. After Charlotte’s funeral, the four remaining women met up one last time to “process” what had happened. And during an impassioned speech, Fran said she “didn’t care who was Alice Bell”. She said: “I don’t care if she’s still alive, and still here now. Maybe she was a young woman who fell in love with the wrong man, and paid a terrible price for it.”
She then quoted Alice Bell’s statement to the press. She said: “I too deserve a home. I too deserve some peace, and I too deserve a life without fear.”
None of the other women noticed something crucial about the speech – but Jay was filming it for his college documentary. And, when Nick later watched it back, he realised Fran had known parts of the speech that were never aired on live TV. Only the real Alice Bell would have known the full statement…
When confronted, Fran admitted she was Alice. Faced with her husband’s anger, she called witness protection to say her cover had been blown. They sent someone to her house to pick her up immediately.
Hunting Alice Bell ending: Was she a monster?
Fran told her husband Nick that she’d been the victim of a coercive control relationship. It’s certainly true that Dr Jason Nash was older than Alice, who was a young nurse when they met.
She told Nick: “I believed everything he told me. I did everything he told me. I changed his name for someone else’s on the operating theatre log. That’s all I did. I was so frightened of him. I thought I loved him.”
On paper, she was another one of Dr Jason Nash’s victims. If her version of events were correct… While the courts found Nash guilty of murder, he insisted she’d been the mastermind behind the killings and not just an accomplice. But he would say that, wouldn’t he?
She told her husband: “I am not the monster everyone thinks she is.”
Well, it depends on whose version of events you want to believe. If Fran – as Alice Bell – had helped Dr Jason Nash cover his crimes, then she deserved her 18 months in jail. But then did she have a right to live in peace, when his victims and their families never would? It’s a huge moral question, and there’s no neat black and white answer.
It’s worth mentioning, though, that at no point did Fran apologise for her part in the crimes. She played the victim, but showed no remorse after Nick confronted her.
However, Darius, the young boy blinded by Nash, forgave Alice Bell. And he had more reason than most not to.
What happened to Alice Bell?
In the closing minutes of the Hunting Alice Bell ending, a car arrived to collect Fran. As a protected person, she was entitled to police safety and a new identity.
But she didn’t want to give up on her life. She told Nick: “I don’t want to leave you. I love you, I love this family.”
Moving scenes saw her kiss her baby daughter Maisie goodbye. Did Nick forgive her and tell her not to leave? The ending was left ambiguous. Her fate was left in Nick’s hands, but viewers didn’t see what he decided.
Did Alice Bell deserve to live a new life with the new identity of Fran? Does anybody deserve to after serving their time in jail? Every crime is different, but surely – apart from those who cannot be rehabilitated – we must give people the chance to make amends?
‘The world tries to make everything black and white: good and evil’
Talking about the ending of Hunting Alice Bell, creator David Baddiel said: “People will probably discuss the revelations at the end. But I also hope they think about how it’s an unusual way to make a thriller. Because it’s trying to say more complicated things about how we live now, and how the world tries to make everything black and white: good and evil.
“The conversation about Alice Bell is intentionally obscured throughout the show. Later, it’s suggested that perhaps she isn’t the monster we thought she was and, ultimately, that’s the moral of the story.”
What else happened in the ending of Hunting Alice Bell?
- We discovered that Ros had a secret of her own. She was the daughter of Jason Nash’s first victim Shelley Gold. She joined the ‘Not Alice Bell’ group to find the woman who was the last person to see her mother alive. She didn’t want vengeance, she wanted closure. Alice subsequently gave Ros the peace she needed. She told her Shelley did not suffer.
- Police arrested Graham Hunter for his continual harassment of Fran.
- Of course, the youngest woman accused of being Alice Bell was Charlotte. A mixed up woman, her dad had killed himself, leaving her with a largely absent mum. After the ‘Not Alice Bells’ became “their own mob” and turned on her, she took her own life. It was a needless waste of a young life, but one that started with her being wrongly accused of being Alice Bell in the first place.
- Julie was in debt up to her ears, which explained the half a dozen fake credit cards in different names. After winning a vast sum on the lottery, she blew it all and then set up new accounts to keep up the lifestyle. Essentially, she was spending her way to happiness – she was gay and had never opened up to it. In the ending of Hunting Alice Bell, Julie left her husband and children after her affair with Ros.
- Lastly, Vanessa had also lied about her identity. But not for the same reasons as Alice Bell. Vanessa’s dad was notorious gangster Vincent Patton, who was in jail for murder.
- As for Dr Jason Nash, last we heard of him he was in a coma. He was beaten up on Alice’s orders in prison before he was about to expose her. How on earth she had the contacts to pull that off wasn’t explained.
Is there a series 2?
Channel 4 has not confirmed if there’ll be a series 2 of Hunting Alice Bell. But we’re treating it as a limited series, with no follow-up.
Although the series ended on a cliffhanger of sorts, it felt appropriate with such a thorny subject. There was no happy ending here for anybody.
The viewers got to decide Alice Bell’s fate.
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