Is Jamie guilty in Adolescence? Here's what happens at the end

18 March 2025, 14:50 | Updated: 18 March 2025, 14:56

Is Jamie guilty in Adolescence? Here's the ending explained. Picture: Netflix

By Capital Buzz

Is Jamie guilty in Adolescence and what happens at the end of the show? Here’s the answer to those questions about whether he killed Katie.

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Adolescence has sent viewers and critics wild with praise since it landed on Netflix as fans have applauded the show’s crucial message and its outstanding performances, especially from the lead Jamie Miller, played by first-time actor Owen Cooper.

It follows the arrest of 13-year-old Jamie Miller who has been accused of killing a girl at his school and the worrying effects of misogynistic radicalisation online.

Jamie's act as an innocent teenager is convincing from the word go as viewers are initially lured into the belief that the schoolboy has been wrongly arrested.

But is Jamie really guilty in Adolescence and what happens at the end of the show? Here’s everything about the plot and its ending explained. Adolescence spoilers below!

Read more: Netflix's Adolescence includes devastating hidden detail in final song
Read more: Is Adolescence filmed in one take? How episode 2's drone shot was filmed

Did Jamie really kill Katie in Adolescence? . Picture: Netflix

Was Jamie the killer in Adolescence?

There’s been a growing debate online about whether Jamie really killed Katie in Adolescence since the show landed on Netflix.

Some have theorised that Jamie’s friend Ryan, who we meet in episode 2, is the true culprit and he’s covering for his friend, while others have suggested that the conspiracy theorist Wainwrights worker in episode four is the killer.

But we’re here to put the debate on whether he is guilty or not to bed, because yes, Jamie did kill Katie.

You’d be forgiven for having some initial doubts about whether the teenager is guilty because almost everything about the first episode leads viewers to believe he's been wrongly arrested.

This is compounded by the fact that Jamie repeatedly insists throughout the show’s first three episodes that he did nothing wrong, even openly promising his dad that he's innocent.

Jamie and his dad Eddie in Adolescence. . Picture: Netflix

But Stephen Graham, who played Jamie’s dad Eddie, revealed in an interview that the first episode was purposefully set up to make viewers think that the detectives have got the wrong person.

He told Tudum: “That was down to the casting. We wanted the audience to be on Jamie’s side and think, ‘Oh my God, this arrest is terrible. There’s no way he's done this’.”

But in the final 10 minutes of episode one, the evidence against Jamie becomes undeniable when the detectives show CCTV footage of him killing Katie.

Co-creator and co-writer of the show, Jack Thorne, said the show was never meant to be a whodunit but rather a why-done-it to engage people in different questions.

“Questions like, ‘What’s going on within our teenage boys?’," he told Tudum.

Each Adolescence episode was filmed in one take. . Picture: Netflix

How did Jamie kill Katie in Adolescence?

The detectives reveal that Jamie had started to follow Katie home on the night of her murder before they have a confrontation in a poorly lit car park.

CCTV footage shows Katie initially try to push Jamie away and walk off, but he quickly lunges at her with a knife, stabbing her seven times.

Apart from the detectives, Jamie and Eddie are the only characters we know of in the show who actually see the CCTV footage, which understandably becomes a traumatic memory for his dad.

Adolescence's ending was always meant to end in Jamie's bedroom. Picture: Netflix

What happens at the end of Adolescence?

The final episode of Adolescence takes place 13 months after Jamie’s initial arrest and explores the impact it's had on his family, who are no longer able to live a normal life.

Throughout the episode, they are harassed by trolls who vandalise Eddie's van, and Eddie also has an uncomfortable encounter with a conspiracy theorist who has clearly been radicalised like Jamie.

But one of the episode’s key moments occurs when the Miller family are driving home in their van and they receive a call from Jamie in his holding facility.

With just weeks to go before his trial, Jamie reveals that he’s decided to change his plea to guilty and it's a revelation clearly has a profound effect on the Miller family as it means that they can no longer hold onto the unlikely but tiny hope that Jamie really is innocent.

The show finally ends with Eddie looking around his son’s bedroom as he grieves Jamie's loss of innocence and grapples with a feeling of parental failure and responsibility.