Here’s What’s Going on with ‘Sacred Games’ Ending

Few shows start by threatening a major city and implying that said threat is the work of god. Then again, Netflix’s Sacred Games isn’t most shows. Over the course of eight hourlong episodes, Netflix‘s Indian original walks the line between being a gritty cop drama, a warning about the coming apocalypse, and a religious-leaning fable. It’s a crazy series, and it has an insane ending to match.

Based on Vikram Chandra’s 2006 novel of the same name, Sacred Games follows Inspector Sartaj Singh (Saif Ali Khan), a cop who just wants to do a good job. But at every turn his morality is punished by a corrupt system. That changes once Sartaj comes in contact with Ganesh Gaitonde (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), a crime lord responsible for the deaths of hundreds. After tracking Sartaj down, Gaitonde offers him a riddle. If he can find Gaitonde’s three fathers he may be able to save the city that he loves from impending doom 25 days from now. Gaitonde then ends his own life.

The series is filled with blood, betrayal, and boobs, so yeah: it’s a fairly typical installment of prestige-leaning television in 2018. But there’s also good reason why the show’s final scene likely made you pause. Here’s what we know about Sacred Games‘ finale, theories about what actually happened, and the possibilities for a Season 2.

What happened in Sacred Games‘ ending?

Gaitonde started the series by making a pretty clear promise to Sartaj. If Sartaj didn’t figure out the crime lord’s riddle in 25 days, everyone in Mumbai would die save for Trivedi (Chittaranjan Tripathy), one of Gaitonde’s complicated father figures. In Sacred Games‘ final episode, with only a a day left and with a dead partner, Sartaj finds the base of the attack.

After putting together the final clues left by Gaitonde, he discovers an underground bunker filled with enough gas masks and supplies to survive a major attack. It looks like Gaitonde’s attack on Mumbai is going to be a nuclear one. That’s when Sartaj finds something more shocking than evidence of a nuclear attack — Trivedi’s dead body. If this man can’t survive Gaitonde’s wrath, what hope do Sartaj and Mumbai have?

Is Trivedi really dead?

From the beginning, Gaitonde made it clear that Trivedi wouldn’t die. So either something went horribly wrong, or he really isn’t dead. Some sleuths on Reddit have pointed to the room’s water, gas mask, packaged food, and what seems to be an air supply line as evidence that Trivedi is actually alive. If he’s faking his death, how long will he fake it? And when will he wake back up?

Others think that, yes, Trivedi really is dead. Either Gaitonde tricked the man to submit to his own death, or Gaitonde didn’t plan on killing himself. Gaitonde ending his own life set off a chain reaction which resulted in Trivedi’s death. Based on the latter theory, Gaitonde presumably tied up and tortured Trivedi. He then left the older man in the bunker, intending to return to him at a later date. But since 11 days have passed since Gaitonde shot himself and Sartaj finds Trivedi in the bunker, there’s a good chance the “safe” man died of starvation.

Is Gaitonde really dead?

Despite Sacred Games‘ trippy first episode, it seems like this crime lord really is dead.

When Gaitonde first shot himself, did he think that he could come back after death as a sort of god? Possibly. But since the only supernatural motif the show explored was Gaitonde’s wink after his death — something that could have been imagined by Sartaj — it feels safe to say that he’s gone for good. All of these plans to possibly start a global war are being executed posthumously, not unlike a better version of Jigsaw.

Will there be a Sacred Games Season 2?

At the moment it’s unclear. But there’s certainly a big enough cliffhanger for Netflix to consider making another season.

Stream Sacred Games on Netflix