‘Surface’ Ending Explained: Will There Be a Season 2 of the Apple TV+ Series?

This article contains spoilers for Surface on Apple TV+.

From start to finish, Apple TV+‘s psychological thriller Surface is a wild ride.

The series, produced by Reese Witherspoon’s company Hello Sunshine, follows Sophie (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) in the aftermath of her suicide attempt. As she suffers severe amnesia, she slowly assembles the mysterious pieces of her old life while struggling to know who to trust.

With the exception of one super satisfying flashback episode, Surface did a borderline infuriating job of keeping viewers as in the dark as Sophie throughout the season. Though the finale left us with a slew of new questions, it also delivered a fair share of answers. Read on for Decider’s breakdown of Surface‘s plot summary, ending explained, and what we know about a potential Surface Season 2.

Warning: Major Surface spoilers ahead. We’re serious.

What is Surface About? Surface Plot Summary:

Apple TV+’s Surface is an eight-episode Hello Sunshine-produced series led by Gugu Mbatha-Raw. The actor plays Sophie, a woman who’s searching for the truth after an alleged suicide attempt wiped her long-term memory. As Sophie sets out to piece together her past she encounters all sorts of suspicious roadblocks from those closest to her, including her husband James (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), her best friend Caroline (Ari Graynor), and her former flame Officer Baden (Stephan James).

By the time we reached the finale, Sophie knew about her affair, James’ affair, the fact that she tried to leave James, that she was to blame for his money problems, and more damning details. You may think there’s nothing left to address in Surface‘s finale, but this show knows how to pull twists out of thin air.

Surface Season 1 Ending, Explained:

Season 1’s penultimate episode ends with Sophie and James learning of Baden’s murder. Since James and Baden fought hours before he was killed, Sophie assumes he killed him. Is that true? We’ll find out soon.

The finale opens with Sophie running (up that hill) three weeks after Baden’s death. She runs past his apartment and breaks down crying, and when she arrives home she hears James talking an SFPD inspector who’s following up about the crime. He asks about the physical altercation between James and Baden hours before his death, and Sophie admits she and Baden were having an affair. The inspector asks to speak to Sophie alone and reveals Baden investigated her incident before he died and found a witness from the boat who claims she was “calm,” “focused,” and seemed to be “waiting for the right time” or “a specific location” when she jumped. “Did you ever ask yourself why you were on that boat? Why you were going there?” he questioned. “If I were you, I’d go right back to the beginning and retrace your steps. Maybe Baden was right. Maybe there’s more to the story.”

When the inspector leaves, James asks Sophie if she’s okay, explaining, “You leave in the dark, you come home looking like you’ve been crying, I’m sure you can understand why that’d worry me.” Sophie says she knows everyone’s always worried about her, but after everything that’s happened James isn’t her biggest concern, implying once again that she feels he killed Baden. “I was trying to protect you,” James replied, seemingly confirming her suspicions.

James storms into Harrison’s (François Arnaud) office and asks if he’s seen the cops. “I just had a lovely chat with a local inspector about a shooting that happened a few weeks ago. Turns out when a cop dies people ask a lot of questions,” James says. Harrison acts worried and asks what they know. “That my wife was fucking the guy and I had a fight with him 5 hours before he died,” James said. “I told you not to get involved in this and now look where we are.”

We see Sophie taking a bath and having flashbacks to her suicide attempt. She donates a bunch of her belonging to charity and tells James, “I’m just thinking about what’s important. Things in my life that really matter.” She gives him hope for their relationship and for a moment it seems they might have a shot at recapturing normalcy. Sophie visits her therapist and explains she’s finally coming to terms with her suicide attempt. “I know my life wasn’t perfect. I hurt people and they hurt me,” she says. “I feel like I can see a path forward.” She thanks her therapist, but it sounds more like a goodbye than anything.

Time passes and we see James and Sophie at another fancy event. Sophie makes amends with Caroline and gives another heartfelt farewell-sounding speech. Then Sophie heads to the bar where she has a long-overdue verbal throw down with Harrison.

The day after the party Sophie asks James if she can borrow the car so she can do errands and go for a run. He says yes and tells her he loves her. She doesn’t say it back. She grabs a backpack, puts her wallet and watch inside, and drives to the Golden Gate bridge. She parks, goes on run, and James’ secretary gets a call from the police who found Sophie’s stuff near middle of bridge and believe she jumped.

James returns home crying and to keep his déjà vu streak going he finds another note from Sophie on his desk:

“I know this must be hard for you to understand, but it feels like it’s all happening again. But just for one second let yourself admit that maybe I was right the first time. Maybe this is what was supposed to happen. A man died, James. Because of us. Because of what you did. And we can’t come back from that.”

He tries to tell Caroline and Sophie’s therapist he doesn’t think she killed herself, but they’re convinced and think he’s in denial. James goes to a bar and Harrison tries to take him home. The two have a fight outside and James says, “You took my wife from me. It’s why she did this. It’s why she’s dead, because she thought I was the monster, but it was you.”

“You’re the one who had [Baden] followed, Harrison… You pulled the trigger. He told those fucking criminals he was a cop. I told you not to out him and you did it anyways. He was a cop, Harrison. And you killed him,” James said. Harrison asks why he didn’t tell Sophie the truth and he says he did it to protect Harrison from going to jail. The two part ways with expletives and James calls Caroline to keep him company. Caroline tells James she needs to heal from the trauma and learn who she is without him. Before she goes she says, “You paid me back the loan. It’s time for you to take care of yourself. $3.1 million — let’s call it even.” James seems confused by her statement, and the next day he rushes to the bank to empty Sophie’s account under the name “Tess Caldwell.” He’s told it doesn’t exist and he realized she emptied it a few weeks ago. Now more than ever, he’s convinced she’s still alive.

At home James starts rifling through Sophie’s desk. He grabs her iPad, but still needs her Apple ID password to access her files. He looks at his notebook of password attempts and finds the matchbook she left him. He tries variations of words from the matchbook as a password and finally gets in. There’s a video from Sophie waiting for him. In it, she says the following:

“If you’re watching this I’m guessing you couldn’t let me go, even if I gave you every reason in the world to do it. We aren’t good for each other James. Look at what we’ve done. An innocent man died because of what you did. I know you’re probably angry with me — furious for doing this. But don’t you think in some weird way you deserved it? This is what you did to me, isn’t it? I woke up and you told me a lie. I thought my life was something it wasn’t. I guess now you know how that feels. Honestly it’s easy to make people think you’ve killed yourself when everyone thinks you’ve already tried.”

Before the video ends we flash back to Sophie in the bathtub. When she dunks her head below the surface she recalls being wheeled into the ER, where someone made a remark about the cost of her shirt. She retrieves the bag of her belongings from that night at the hospital and finds a key to a storage unit. She retraces her steps, which leads her to a storage facility, where she finds a duffle bag with cash, a charger, a passport, and a phone with a single contact for Eliza Huntley, whose address is in London.

Sophie closes the video by saying, “You always said it felt like I was trying to run away. Well I finally found out where I was going. Now I need to find out why. I guess I don’t know what else to say except goodbye. I’ll see you on the other side.”

We see Sophie, or Tess Caldwell, at a UK airport and later walking through London at night. Meanwhile, James leaves her a voicemail to say he’s not the bad guy she thinks he is and he won’t give up on them.

“I don’t know where you are but I do know this: Your past? It’s a dangerous place to be, so be careful, okay? You take care of yourself until I get there,” he says. Once Sophie reaches her destination she peers through the window and sees a girl, presumably Eliza, the same girl from her flashbacks throughout the season. Sophie stares at her for a while, then leaves, but Eliza runs outside and screams, “TESS! I know it’s you. What are you doing here?”

Will There Be a Season 2 of Surface?

Apple TV+ has yet to officially renew Surface for Season 2, but at this point it would almost be cruel not to. Though the writers neatly (if you can call it that) wrapped up Sophie’s life in San Fransisco, we have so many questions left about James, not to mention zero answers about Sophie’s past as Tess Caldwell with Eliza. If Surface were to return for a Season 2 it would likely focus on a look at Sophie’s life pre-James, and perhaps we would also see him track her down. Decider will update this piece when Surface renewal news drops.