‘No Good Deed’ ending: What really happened to Jacob?
Warning: This story contains spoilers for “No Good Deed.”
Letting go of your family home is hard — but when the house still holds potentially explosive secrets, it becomes a lot harder.
Such is the case in the new Netflix show “No Good Deed,” starring sitcom legends Lisa Kudrow, who played Phoebe on “Friends,” and Ray Romano, who played Raymond on “Everybody Loves Raymond.”
Liz Feldman’s first show since “Dead to Me,” the dark comedy chronicles Lydia (Kudrow) and Paul (Romano) Morgan, a long-time married couple who are looking to sell the gorgeous Los Angeles home that they raised their two children in.
“This show is inspired by my search for a house,” Feldman tells TODAY.com. “I started thinking of the idea during the pandemic, when we were all locked down, when suddenly our homes became our everything. At night, I would search on Zillow and just like, look at houses and fantasize about being anywhere other than this place that I was just constantly in. That was sort of the original inspiration.”
As she started looking at homes, she said the process inherently involved drama. “There’s somebody selling that house for a reason, and not always a good one. And I just thought it was really good fodder for a show,” she says.
Indeed, in the show, the Morgans’ home is visited by prying neighbors and competitive buyers who are eager to know everything about the home — especially details of the fatal break-in that happened three years prior.
Who gets the deed in “No Good Deed”? Read on.
Who killed Jacob? The break-in at the Morgan home, explained
The first twist: The break-in wasn’t actually a break in at all — it was Lydia and Paul’s son, Jacob (Wyatt Aubrey), trying to get inside.
When Jacob starting banging on the door and windows, his sister Emily (Chloe East) thought it was a break-in. Understandably so: Her brother was in a burglar uniform. He had taken to robbing other people’s houses.
Fearing for her life, she reached for the family’s gun. For three years, Emily thought she killed her brother. The guilt and regret tore her family apart, leading to estrangement from her parents.
Then comes the second twist, which is revealed in the finale. The bullet that shot Jacob wasn’t from Emily’s gun — instead, it was from a gun that belongs to the Morgans’ neighbor Margo Starling (Linda Cardellini).
Turns out Margo and Jacob were likely having an affair, though Margo denies it). In the present day, Lydia confronted Margo, who said Jacob only had a “crush.”
But it’s likely their ties went deeper, given how desperate Margo was to keep Jacob silent. Plus, Jacob said they were “in bed” the week before their final fight.
Jacob had taken to stealing from the neighbors’ houses and gave his stolen luxuries to Margo. The night he died, he raided Margo’s drawers and took everything home.
As he left, Margo took her husband’s gun and trailed him home, threatening him if he spoke out. She fired as he tried to get into the house.
Meanwhile, his sister also fired her gun — understandable, considering Jacob was wearing his burglar outfit. Since the family had kept the autopsy sealed, they never knew the truth.
Who buys the Morgans’ home?
Leslie (Abbi Jacobson) and Sarah (Poppy Liu) walk away as the victors — and it was all thanks to a little bit of manipulation.
Dennis (O-T Fagbenle) and Carla (Teyonah Parris) were also after the house and actually had their offer accepted. When Carla was giving birth, her doctor — who happened to be Sarah, due to a last minute change — filled her in on the Morgan home’s gruesome history. Carla decided she wants a different house.
When the series ends, Sarah is pregnant and a new family has officially taken over the Morgan home.
Do Lydia and Paul stay together?
The end of the show sees them reconnecting as a couple and finally working through the distance that plagued them since Jacob’s death.
By the end of the episode, they’ve also reconciled with their daughter. Her parents sit in the audience as she sings a song about healing. Meanwhile, a light flickers — a sign from their son.
Kudrow and Romano, who have both been in decades-long marriages, say they drew on their own relationships for the role.
“I think being in a long term marriage is sort of at the core of this couple, and there are ups and downs in there and periods where you’re not communicating well,” Kudros says.
Romano says being married and having children made this role easy to tap into.
“I drew on how, if this was really happening, what would it do to me?” he says.
What happens to the other characters?
Carla and Dennis find a home, but it’s not the Morgans’. They are preparing to build a house on Margo and JD Campbell’s property after their original house burned down.
Carla and Dennis’ future is complicated, too. Dennis used the gift that Carla’s billionaire father sent them upon the birth of their baby. Carla, who doesn’t want to do with her father, isn’t aware and thinks he got the money from his third book advance — tension, perhaps, for a potential Season 2 to explore.
As for Margo and JD? They’re split up — and one might be headed to jail. In her last appearance, Margo, scarred from the fire, gets arrested. JD, meanwhile, is thriving and has a job on a Western.
Cardellini, speaking to TODAY.com, relishes the “micro twists” that happen on Feldman’s shows (she also starred in “Dead to Me”).
“Every time you read the script, there are all these sort of micro twists that happen to you and to other characters that are part of the peeling of all the layers — and onion of layers of people’s personalities and secrets,” she says.
