The real monster in Eric, the emotional thriller from playwright and screenwriter Abi Morgan (Shame, The Hour, The Iron Lady), isn’t a big, blue beast. It’s something much more sinister. 

The series, starring Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar shorts, The Power of the Dog) as a puppeteer named Vincent looking for his missing young son in ’80s Manhattan, explores the scourges of structural inequity, the AIDS epidemic, white collar crime, and addiction terrorizing the city. 

“This is a drama and a quest of a man who goes in search of his son and goes on that journey deep into himself, but also deep underground into the underbelly of New York’s economic underclass, which has been ignored, abused, and corrupted,” Morgan tells Tudum. 

Vincent’s journey to find 9-year-old Edgar (Ivan Howe) — and face his alcoholism and deteriorating marriage to his wife, Cassie (Gaby Hoffmann) — pairs him with Detective Michael Ledroit (McKinley Belcher III) of the NYPD’s Missing Persons Unit. Throughout the series, Ledroit is also searching for another missing child, Marlon Rochelle, a Black teen who disappeared 11 months prior but whose case has not been out of the public spotlight. The detective is also contending with hiding his sexuality at work and caring for his long-term partner, William (Mark Gillis), who has AIDS, at home. 

As Vincent tries to keep up with his work as the creator of a successful children’s TV show, Good Day Sunshine, while searching for his missing child, his mental health fractures. He starts imagining and conversing with a large, blue puppet named Eric, who stems one of Edgar’s drawings. 

Looking for his son plunges Vincent into New York’s underworld, where marginalized communities populate subway tunnels and back alleyways. “I was playing with this idea of, ‘Where are the safe spaces in New York?’ ” says Morgan. “ ‘Where are the places to be feared? The real monsters aren’t under the bed — where are the real monsters hiding?’ ” 

By the end of the series, Vincent’s quest turns into obsession, but does he actually find Edgar? Let’s explore the final episode of Eric. 

Is Eric based on a true story?

No, the kidnapping at the center of the story isn’t based on a particular news story, but the series was inspired by Morgan’s time working as a nanny in ’80s New York, against the backdrop of homophobia and the AIDS epidemic. “When I first arrived, I stayed in this really run-down hostel and it was this strange place filled with international backpackers, low-income families, and drug addicts,” she says. As a nanny, she navigated the city with children and experienced urban challenges through their eyes.  

One day, Morgan says, she watched as parents and their kids lined up outside what appeared to be a television studio, waiting to be in the audience at a taping of a children’s show. Decades later that memory ended up inspiring Good Day Sunshine and is even a scene in the finale. 

Was The Lux a real place?

While The Lux nightclub wasn’t a real place, Morgan found inspiration from the edgy ’80s nightlife of New York and London. “There was this very dark, desperate side of New York at the time. There was also this incredible energy and excitement, and you could feel that when you went to the club,” she says.

In Eric, Morgan wanted to “sensitively explore” what it actually meant to witness the discrimination and the impact of AIDS on the LGBTQ+ community. “I grew up in a very liberal environment where being gay was very acceptable, but I knew outside of that world, it wasn’t,” she says.

The Lux is a tribute to the fringe clubs where everybody, particularly queer people, could feel free. “This community was being vilified, ignored, [and] had this disease rampaging through its numbers. Where would you go for solace, but a place in the shadows?” she says. “That’s what The Lux [nightclub] is about. It’s about a community and a home for people who have to live in the shadows.”

Much of production took place at a studio in Budapest, utilizing a New York set left over from Guillermo del Toro’s film Hellboy II: The Golden Army. Series director Lucy Forbes says the dilapidated environment had the perfect exterior for The Lux. “I really liked the idea of it being an old cinema,” she says. “Budapest hasn’t been hugely modernized, [so we also] found some really, really beautiful period interiors.”

Did unhoused people really live in the subway tunnels?

Morgan and Forbes were influenced by the 2000 documentary Dark Days, in which filmmaker Marc Singer spent years living with a community encamped in the abandoned Amtrak tunnels that stretch from Penn Station to north of Harlem. 

“The subway is the skeletal backbone to [a] city,” says Morgan. “It made absolute sense that in ’80s New York, [the subway] would become a place where people could find sanctuary in a way.” 

Does Vincent find his missing son?

When the final episode begins, Vincent is literally at his lowest point, passed out in the subway tunnels where he’s been searching for Edgar. He’s had a “real psychotic breakdown” and lost his way, says Morgan. As he wakes up, he sees an image on the wall and recognizes it as a drawing by his son. 

“[For Vincent,] this episode is really about him having to face who the real monster is,” says Morgan. He meets Yuusuf (Bamar Kane), the man who Edgar originally followed underground. When Vincent sees Edgar’s drawings in the tunnels, it reignites his drive to get Eric the puppet on TV so that Edgar will see him and come home.

After his realization, Vincent goes to the studio and steals the Eric costume. He puts it on, and runs to a large protest where he’s able to get in front of a camera and appeal to his son, while in character as Eric. “We see the full weight of Vincent’s psychological breakdown, but we also come to see that this is a man who’s starting to make sense of his own role in his son’s disappearance,” says Morgan. 

As the crowd chants, Vincent takes off the Eric head and makes a plea to the television cameras. “He sends out this message to [Edgar], ‘Race you home,’ which is a code that father and son [used with] each other,” says Morgan. “He comes to realize that he would never let Edgar win, and that was a key thing he learned through the journey: It’s time to try and let Edgar win.” 

Does Edgar live?

While eating French toast at a diner, Edgar sees Vincent’s performance as Eric on live TV. When Edgar hears the message to race his father home, he bolts out the door. Vincent also runs homeward, still wearing most of the Eric suit. 

“[Vincent was] a man reaching the end of his odyssey by running half in that outfit, and half not in it,” says Cumberbatch of the difficult task of sprinting in the Eric suit, which was worn by puppeteer Olly Taylor during the rest of filming. “You're sitting in this bucket harness to hold up the thickness and the width of the legs,” explains the actor. “You can’t use your own gait to run. You have to twist your hip into each step. I just really, really, really went out for that. Try doing that in June in New York.”

Just as Vincent’s coming around the corner, Edgar is also racing home — and father and son are finally reunited. “This episode is really about Vincent very narrowly losing his son, but in regaining his son, he also regains himself,” says Morgan. “There’s a key line when he says goodbye to Cassie, preparing to go into rehab, where he says, ‘I’m that toxic thing. It’s me.’ While everyone else was looking for the monsters, for the motivation for what had happened to Edgar, the motivation and the monster is within [Vincent] — he’s Eric.”

Do Vincent and Cassie end up together?

Once home, Vincent admits to Cassie he’s the problem and leaves to get help. Cassie moves on from Vincent to be with her new love Sebastian (José Pimentão). “Ultimately she loves [Vincent], but she just cannot be with him anymore,” says Forbes. “They do not bring the best out of each other. They bring out the worst of each other. She wants to be the best mother that she can be for Edgar. And she’s not going to do that if she remains with Vincent.” 

Cassie’s pregnant with Sebastian’s child, and after everything has settled down, Vincent seems to be happy for her when they meet again at a taping of Good Day Sunshine. “She has managed to fulfill this dream,” says Forbes. “It’s ridiculous [to her] that she could be a mother again. She just realizes ‘Edgar’s going to be OK, and I can be a better mom, and we can exist in this new dimension.’ She could be happy without the drama of living with a narcissist.”

Ludovic Robert/Netflix

What’s the story behind Good Day Sunshine’s name?

After going to rehab, Vincent reaches out to his father (John Doman) to meet in Central Park where he can “say goodbye to the shackles of being his son,” says Forbes. “His father is never going to give him the things that Vincent so desperately wants of him.”

They meet on a bridge and Vincent shares a memory from his childhood. “You start to realize that Good Day Sunshine has been built on the very mythology of a period when he used to go with his father to have French toast — which is very key in the show,” says Morgan. “They would walk through the park and his father would say, ‘Good day sunshine.’ ” 

Vincent goes on to tell his father he no longer admires or respects him, before saying goodbye to him, seemingly for good. 

“It’s such a powerful moment, because even when Vincent [says] ‘I remember this thing and now I’m letting you go,’ his father still can’t go, ‘I’m sorry, I love you,’ ” says Forbes. “He’s trying to break his dreams again, just constantly.” 

The bridge they stand on is replicated in the Good Day Sunshine set, but shooting there in real life was a challenge. While many interior scenes were filmed at the Budapest studio, this scene was shot on location in New York. “We’d been inside for months, and suddenly we were outside, and we were outside with Dr. Strange and Sherlock Holmes — we were outside with Benedict,” says Forbes. “And we had lots of [photographers] following us around. But, in terms of those two men, I just think it’s such a powerful moment — and a pretty simple scene. It’s just two men standing on a bridge.”

What happened to Marlon Rochelle?

As Ledroit also attempts to find Edgar, he uncovers a larger conspiracy of sexual exploitation, spanning from the underbelly of nightclubs to the police force itself. Fourteen-year-old Marlon has been missing for 11 months, but didn’t get nearly the same media attention as Edgar.

After working with his former lover and The Lux proprietor Alex Gator (Wade Allain-Marcus), Ledroit acquires a VHS security tape that cracks the case. “The Gator and Ledroit relationship is bubbling under the whole series,” says Forbes. “They both have these incredibly strong, nostalgic emotions for each other. I think they remind each other of home, and remind each other of their childhood.” 

Morgan says Ledroit discovers that the missing Marlon, a high school student and  basketball player, was “just a New York kid who is coming to terms, probably, with his sexuality,” and had been turning tricks at The Lux nightclub.

Ludovic Robert/Netflix

Who was the man caught on the surveillance video with Marlon?

In looking through CCTV and examining it through his relationship with Alex Gator, Ledroit recognizes the man who was involved.

“Gator gives Ledroit that kick that he needs to believe in himself, to fight ‘The Man,’ ” says Forbes. “[He’s] put his neck on the line [giving] Ledroit this tape that’s instantly going to tear him apart.”

Turns out Deputy Mayor Costello (Jeff Hephner), a key civic leader, played a role in Marlon’s disappearance. The video shows Marlon taking Costello down an alleyway to engage in a sexual act. It’s not long before two passing NYPD cops, Nokes (Ryan Hunter) and Kennedy (Bobby Schofield) — corrupt vice officers who skim money from the club and occasionally blackmail customers — happen upon them. They don’t like the fact Marlon didn’t go through them to meet Costello, so they attack and beat him to death. They are caught by a surveillance camera which reveals that Nokes in particular is responsible for the brutal murder.  

“To cover this up, they make this Faustian pact with Costello,” Morgan says. “[Costello] calls his brother-in-law, Bruno (Gerard Monaco), who runs the Hudson Sanitation Company and says, ‘You’re going to have to help us clean up a body,’ and in return for Costello’s silence, the NYPD will not bring up the fact that this leading light of the City Hall has been caught.”

Who was No. 8?

During the search for Edgar, the Marlon case unfolds: Ledroit investigates a possible connection to the seedy dealings at The Lux, and someone the corrupt cops called “Eight.” “Initially, he thinks it’s connected to Edgar, but actually he realizes when Kennedy and Nokes refer to ‘Eight,’ what they’re referring to is not Edgar,” says Morgan. Turns out “Eight” is the name they gave Marlon on the night he was caught with Costello because the teen wore a No. 8 basketball jersey when he was killed. “It became a dark, gallows humor nickname,” says Morgan. 

In the finale, Ledroit plays the tape (or the “smoking gun in VHS form,” as Forbes calls it) Alex gave him to all his colleagues — including department head Matteo Cripp (David Denman), who has been obfuscating his investigation. “What’s great about this scene is [that it’s] the first time that Ledroit can stand up to Cripp and Cripp has nowhere to go,” says Forbes. “It’s a real transference of power. Ledroit has been fighting to be heard, fighting to be seen, fighting to solve this case for so long, and then it’s just this wonderful power switch between him and Cripp and face-off just before he goes to make the arrests.”

Ludovic Robert/Netflix

What happens to Lennie?

A TV news story announcing the arrests of the NYPD officers reveals the high profile connections to The Lux sex ring. Vincent’s co-worker Lennie (Dan Fogler), who was implicated years before at another of Gator's clubs and is thrust back into the spotlight, takes his own life by jumping out of his apartment window. Cripp gets investigated, Nokes is imprisoned, and Costello is ousted. 

Toward the end of Episode 6, we see Edgar back safe in the Anderson apartment. The song “These Days” (by Velvet Underground and Andy Warhol collaborator Nico) scores the scene. Music co-supervisor Danny Layton says while the Velvet Underground songs of the soundtrack speak to the dark side of Vincent, the Nico song represented something else. “It was such an optimistic piece: Cassie with Edgar at home and the curtains are open and it’s daylight,” he says. “We are above ground, the kid’s back, and she’s moved on.”

But Forbes says the song has another side. “It wraps everything up because it’s happy,  it’s tragic, and it’s sad. [But with] all the emotions of that montage, [we remember]: ‘Oh my God, Edgar’s come home, but Marlon hasn’t.’ ”

Do they ever find Marlon’s body?

Towards the end of the episode, we see Ledroit standing with Marlon’s mom, Cecile (Adepero Oduye), looking out over a massive landfill just outside of New York City, knowing that her son is buried somewhere amongst it all.

Later, Cecile stands before the 27th Precinct and gives a heart-wrenching speech. “As long as I am alive, I will not give up on love, I will not give up on hope. My son deserved to live in a city that loved him. … For my son, for all of our sons, for Marlon. Please do better.” Forbes thinks that, for Cecile, “justice will come in proper change. You’re left at the end of the series hoping change will happen. It’s a bittersweet thing.” 

How does Eric end?

In the series’ final scene, we watch a newly sober Vincent thrive in his new role wearing the Eric costume. Cassie, Sebastian, and Edgar are in the audience for the taping of Good Day Sunshine and Cassie and Sebastian have a cordial meeting with Vincent afterward. Cumberbatch says Vincent, at the beginning of the series, “has obliterated the connections to his wife [and] the connection to his son. So to see that reverse at the end, I think it’s a beautiful, beautiful fairy-tale ending, but [also] a painful, raw, and honest first step in Vincent’s moon landing.”

Afterward, Edgar walks across the set’s bridge wearing the Eric costume. “He’s created something out of his child’s imagination and then Edgar is taking ownership of it again,” Cumberbatch says. “It is Edgar’s to have. I think [that’s] a very profound token of what fathering is: handing the baton on.”

And in the balcony, Eric the imaginary monster watches over them both. 

Watch Eric now on Netflix.

Watch the Eric Trailer