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This article contains spoilers for the UNDER THE BRIDGE series finale.
Hulu’s Under the Bridge, which is based on Rebecca Godfrey’s (portrayed by Riley Keough) book, tells the real-life story of the 1997 murder/killing of 14-year-old Reena Virk (portrayed by Vritika Gupta). The cast, led by Lily Gladstone and Keough, does an extraordinary job handling the subject matter respectfully while all giving remarkable performances.
To get some more insight into the adaptation, Den of Geek spoke with showrunner/executive producer Quinn Shephard and executive producer Samir Mehta about how they approached Kelly’s (played by Izzy G.) trial and the show’s last scene.
The Missing Pieces
The final episode opens with some early scenes from episode one, leading to a new moment with Kelly and Josephine (Chloe Guidry) on the phone with the former threatening to “break [Reena’s] bones with a bat and burn her at the stake, and cut off her toes.” What’s more disturbing is the fact that her mother is listening to the conversation, which ends with Kelly adding that they could bury her alive, and saying absolutely nothing.
Before the party, we see Jo do a blood oath with Dusty (Aiyana Goodfellow), officially letting her into CMC. This is solely to ensure Dusty stays silent about what is going to happen to Reena, Jo telling her that they will initiate the other girl tonight, which is a lie. Later, during the confrontation, Dusty fails to stand up or take Reena’s side, which is the source of her guilt, but that failure is out of fear. Reena then apologizes, but it’s too late. The girls roughly beat her with no hesitation, many watching and not offering any help.
Kelly’s Trial
Since Jo refuses to testify at Kelly’s trial, the only ones there to speak are the girls who jumped Reena and eventually Warren (Javon “Wanna” Walton). Each of the girls shared their account of that horrible night and how Kelly was acting with Dusty adding that Kelly actually confessed to the crime when she discovered Reena’s boots there in Kelly’s closet. Naturally, the defense tries to paint them all as unreliable, even going as far as to try to blame them for the murder.
Once Warren is on the stand, he finally shares the full story. Kelly started by telling Reena to take off her shoes before beginning to hit her. He joined in until she was on the ground, both kicking Reena all over her body and head. He admits it was a release for him. After that, the two of them dragged her by her legs over to the water and Kelly held Reena’s head under. There was no mercy, they knew they were going to kill her. Warren then apologizes and says he will be sorry for the rest of his life.
Finally, it’s Kelly’s turn. She begins to talk in a British accent, which Samir Mehta shared actually happened. “She really did speak in a British accent, that’s real,” he told Den of Geek. Quinn Shephard added: “And she did have a breakdown screaming. I mean all of that we pulled from real life, and all of Warren’s testimony was pulled from a mixture of his court transcripts and his confession to the novelist Rebecca Godfrey. So we kind of tried as much as we could with the trials because we had all of the records to just not fictionalize and to keep everything very true to fact.”
As for the rest of her trial, Shephard explained: “We went back and forth in the writers’ room for a long time because the book covers two of Kelly’s trials and obviously, in real life, she had three different court experiences and we kind of cherry-picked the most interesting and memorable moments from her trials, from two of them and combine them for the sake of the show into one. I think we wanted the finale to feel quite sobering. I think a lot of the show is very visually dynamic and we tried to be thrilling, and I think that the finale is really just about sitting with the truth and so for us, not going into flashback and just being with the characters as they reckon with all that they’ve done was what felt the most appropriate to us.”
Kelly ends up being convicted but only sentenced to the minimum sentence of five years because she “has an extraordinary and diverse network of family and friends” and has achieved “good marks in school.” It’s extremely frustrating, to say the least.
The Story Never Ends
With Seven Oaks shutting down, Cam (Gladstone) is called to pick up her adoption file from when she stayed there, and it has a pretty huge revelation in it: AIM, a program that takes Native kids away from their families, had the cops take her to Seven Oaks. So, she was not abused or given up by her birth family, who is only a ferry ride away, as she was previously told. This causes her to resign from the police force, ready to go find and meet her family.
The trial is clearly taking a toll on Suman (Archie Panjabi), who won’t even get out of bed for dinner. However, when Rebecca drops off a copy of her chapters on Reena, it seemingly results in Suman deciding to visit Warren in prison. During this scene, Panjabi gives an emotional speech, expressing every emotion that her character is feeling and how Warren has taken away her chance to fix things with her daughter. The only way to get rid of this poison is forgiveness, so she forgives him. She wanted to see Kelly as well, but her lawyer would not allow it.
The series ends with Reena’s parents putting the door back on her room and playing her favorite Biggie Smalls song, which she was dancing to in the opening moments of the finale and beginning scenes of the show. After everything, it’s nice to see them laughing, even if it’s only for a moment. While they stare into the mirror, sitting side by side on their daughter’s bed, we then see Reena watching them at the doorway.
Mehta opened up about why they decided to close the story this way, expressing, “I think we always wanted to end with a moment with Reena and the Virk family, and we wanted to demonstrate just a slight bit of growth. Like, if anything can come of the experience, you know, nothing good but if anything, an incremental change can come of it. t would just be such a beautiful gesture that the least they could do is put on the music that she loved. The framing of seeing Reena in the mirror, which is what her name means (looking glass), and then framing the doorway with her absence felt like kind of a perfectly poetic way to visually end the story.”
Epilogue
Before the credits, some real-life facts are shared with viewers. Jo went on to work as an exotic dancer in biker bars after serving a year in juvie. Her sentence was extended after she escaped twice. Dusty has spoken openly about her regrets of the crime to the press, stating, “We should have got more time. We were monsters.” Warren devoted his life to restorative justice and was ultimately granted parole in 2010 after Suman and Manjit (portrayed by Ezra Faroque Khan) advocated on his behalf. He also connected with the Métis Nation and his Native heritage.
Kelly appealed and was granted two additional trials but was ultimately sentenced to life. The legal battle would span over a decade. After consistently denying her involvement in Reena’s murder, which was presented on the show during her trial, she finally took responsibility in 2016 while seeking day parole. She now had two children.
Rebecca passed away weeks before filming began in 2022 but was very involved in its development. She kept in touch with Warren for over twenty years. The Virks have become symbols of anti-bullying activism across Canada. Manjit additionally wrote a book about his daughter, which was included in the development of Under the Bridge. Suman passed away in 2018.
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