Don’t be daft, there are obviously spoilers ahead for all six episodes of A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder!! They didn’t make YA shows like this when I was a teenager, I’ll tell you that much. I went into A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder expecting a cute little whodunnit story; instead I got murder, rape, suicide, grooming, and a dead dog!!! Yeah, they seriously pulled the dead dog card. That said, this was one of the best mysteries I’ve watched in a long time, and as a fake Brit myself, I can’t even find fault with Emma Meyer’s flawless posh accent. But in case you binged all six episodes in a night like I did (social life, who she?), and need an explainer for the A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder ending, I’ve got you covered.
What is A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder about?
Episode one starts in 2019 when an injured Andie Bell is wandering the streets before disappearing. Then we flash ahead to five years later and meet our quirky, tiny heroine: Pip. She decides to investigate the murder of Andie Bell for a school project — which everyone rightly points out is WILDLY INAPPROPRIATE. Everyone believes Andie was killed by her boyfriend, Sal, who confessed in a text message and then killed himself. But our plucky little Nancy Drew believes differently because Sal was nice to her… did someone have a lil schoolgirl crush? She teams up with Sal’s younger brother Ravi to solve the case, and basically disrupts everyone’s lives in the process.
As expected, the mystery turns out to be way bigger than she expected, and she gets death threats yada yada yada. But the real kicker is when the anonymous person threatening her kills her dog!!! WHO DOES THAT? Also, it takes Pip so long to realize her dog is missing, first she checks on Ravi and then her lil brother. Why is the dog not the first thing you check?? Especially when they mentioned that they got Barney the sheepdog because it was scared of sheep… I SOBBED!!!
Anyway, the murder-suicide, that’s what people really care about, right? (RIP Barney)
What was wrong with Sal’s alibi?
Andie’s boyf told the police he was with his besties (Max, Naomi, and a third we never even meet in person) playing Super Mario Party (iconic). They first agree with this version of events and then recant their statement, saying he left at 10:15 when the pizza came. The false alibi is the main thing the police had against him, as Sal didn’t get home until after midnight, and Andie was killed during that time.
But it turns out that Sal WAS with them until after midnight. This is proven by a photo that Naomi vaguely leads Pip to, which was obviously taken by Sal that night and shows the time of 12:06. So why did they lie?
Naomi admits that the trio, minus Sal, had been involved in a hit-and-run on New Year’s Eve, and Max had called someone to deal with it and keep them from being involved. This turned out to be Dan Da Silva (brother of Andie’s bestie Nat, who was kinda pointless, and a police offer), who he was blackmailing for having a relationship with Andie when she was 15 — can anyone spell statutory rape?
Why does this matter? STAY WITH ME. So the group received a letter threatening to reveal the hit and run if they didn’t lie to the police about when Sal left the house. Naomi is wracked with guilt for this, as she believes it led Sal to kill himself.
Who was the “Older Guy”?
But who was blackmailing them about this? Not Dan Da Silva, the only person to know about the accident. Except Naomi put it in her diary, and her dad, Elliot Ward, read about it. Elliot blackmailed the crew to make Sal seem guilty, BUT WHY?
The most shocking reveal of this shocking show. So early on, we discover Andie had been seeing an older guy, but that her besties never knew who he was. They went to a fancy hotel together and signed in as “Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan” (SUCH AN ICK) with a specific phone number. Pip tries to call the number but has no luck, so she just saves it.
Then after her doggo is deado, she suddenly receives a call from that number. Huh?? It’s Naomi!! Okay, quick side note: At this point, I was like ANDIE AND NAOMI WERE FUCKING HOLY SHIT YAY QUEER STUFF. No, I had gotten a lil ahead of myself. Naomi reveals this is an old phone of her dad’s that she found. Then Pip looks at the printer history at the Ward’s and discovers that he had left the threatening note she found while camping.
Cara and Naomi’s dad, Elliot Ward, was the older guy Andie was sleeping with. He had been tutoring her, and they started shagging, until she called it off. She came to him the night she died and demanded £5,000 (get that cash money, girl). He refused, they argued, and he shoved her against a wall. She was bleeding profusely, so he went to supposedly call an ambulance (and how would he have explained her presence??), but she quickly left.
So Elliot Ward thought he was responsible for her death and that she had died somewhere. He blackmailed the group so that Sal would seem guilty instead.
Did Sal kill himself?
So we initially believe that Sal killed himself after sending a confession text. But Ravi shows Pip the text, and the first thing she notices is the perfect grammar and spelling. Ravi says that Sal was the smartest person he knew but the worst texter. I have to say, I can formulate Shakespearean-level texts and yet tend to write like a feral rat living in the gutter, crawling over my iPhone. I feel like maybe Sal would’ve stepped up his punctuation game for a confession, but who knows?
WELL I WAS WRONG OBVIOUSLY, as the text was legit written by an English teacher, yep fucking Elliot Ward AGAIN. Blackmailing Sal’s friends out of the alibi wasn’t enough. He then drugged him, suffocated him and used his phone to send a confession, before leaving him in the woods. Sir, r u good????? So even though Elliot didn’t mean to kill Andie/didn’t really, he became a fully-fledged murderer when it came to Sal. Oh, and let’s not forget abduction hahaha! Moving on to…
What was up with the woman in the attic?
When Pip follows Elliot to his old house and gets the whole Andie confession from him (up to the point where she left him), she keeps hearing a tapping on the pipe. Smart girlie follows the sound and finds a woman in the attic. ANDIE!!! Nope, not Andie, although she says it’s not the first time someone has mistaken her for Andie. Then less-smart girlie Pip gets herself locked in the attic with random non-Andie. It’s giving a Charlotte Bronte novel.
Non-Andie is Isla, and she was abducted by Elliot. Now time to clear up a hilarious translation faux pas I’ve been seeing. Isla explains she was living “rough,” which publications have been explaining as having a rough time. No, this is a Brit term for being homeless, actually! Isla was homeless, Elliot offered her a place to sleep for a night and explained he has daughters himself. That night, Isla came down, and he was drinking. Basically, he admitted to murdering Sal, and then when Isla tried to run away, he locked her up. This is likely where he’s been going whenever he is “tutoring.” Also when his daughter complained about them being poor, he said he has “many mouths to feed”…. INCLUDING ISLA… YIKES.
Police arrive as Pip had notified Ravi before she came, and the girlies are freed. Elliot is arrested, and Cara’s life is basically ruined. Thanks a lot, bestie!!
Who murdered Andie Bell?
This is all well and good, but we’re here to discover what happened to Andie fricken Bell. So basically, it’s very 13 Reasons Why, everyone is involved in her death, after school special energy. Only one person is way more involved, or maybe make that two.
Did I mention that Andie was a drug dealer? Yeah, she hid drugs in her stuffed bunny and was saving up to move away from her shitty dad. She sold some casual ketamine, weed, roofies, etc. Often she’d sell at this crazy rave called Calamity, which was what I thought parties would be like as a young teen, before they turned out to be sharing lukewarm beers in someone’s basement. Well, Andie’s younger sister Becca came to Calamity and got roofied and then raped. When Andie came back from getting her head bashed by Elliot, Becca wants her to come to the police with her and report her rapist, Max Hastings. The very same creepy Max we’ve been seeing this whole time. But Andie won’t help her because she’s the one who sold him the roofies!! Then Andie chooses this perfect moment to tell Becca she is leaving tomorrow, so Becca will be alone with their shitty dad.
Becca loses her shit and shoves Andie hard into the wall, which further fucks up her head injury and makes her seize and throw up. Becca is shocked and upset, and watches Andie die. “It was awful,” she recalls to Pip as she confesses all. I felt so bad for her at this point and was thinking Pip couldn’t possibly report the girlie — hasn’t she been through enough? Then Becca offers to show her where she put Andie and says, “drink up,” and I KNEW. I KNOW A BAD BITCH WHEN I SEE ONE.
She leads Pip to the site of Andie’s body and basically says yeah, you’re gonna rot here, too, I roofied you. They struggle, and then luckily, Ravi and Cara turn up (find my iPhone ad right there) and save the day.
Most importantly: Who killed the dog?
Let’s talk about the innocent victim of this all. So I already mentioned Elliot gave her the threatening note, but what about those text messages? Did he send those, too? Obviously not, the Boomer wouldn’t manage that, he still used a burner phone. Nope, Becca was the one texting her as she feared she was getting close to it.
When Pip posted a TikTok saying she was going to share everything, in an attempt to entice the killer into revealing themselves, the blackmailer murdered poor, innocent Barney. Justice for Barney.
So yeah, that was um A LOT. And I don’t know what to do with my life now. I think I’ll just go cry about Barney some more.
