The ending of Baby Reindeer is a bit ambiguous. When Donny’s life is taking an upturn, it appears he’s sliding back into his old habits. We’ll explain the ending of Baby Reindeer, what happens to Donny and Martha, and what the final scene means.
Baby Reindeer Ending Explained
The final episode of Baby Reindeer, Episode 7, opens with Donny’s life on an upturn. His confession at the comedy competition finals went viral, and people loved his candid confession. He’s invited on talk shows and given opportunities to push his comedy career forward. However, he absentmindedly sets an out-of-office responder on his email, which includes his phone number, leading Martha to obtain it finally.
Martha ups her attacks on Donny and threatens to tell his parents about his sexuality and the rape he suffered at Darrien’s hands. To preempt her, Donny visits his parents and tells them himself. Contrary to his expectations, his father opens up and lets Donny know that he, too, faced sexual abuse when he was younger. As a result, Donny grows closer to his parents, and they spend the week together.
However, Donny’s catharsis is short-lived. Martha begins calling Donny again and leaving him voicemail after voicemail. The police suggest he listen to these and bring them any threats she leaves to them as evidence. He begins obsessively listening to her voicemails and catalogs her message by emotion. He begins to pity her again, and it’s not until she threatens to stab his parents that he finally reports her.
Martha is arrested and is sentenced to nine months in prison and five years probation. After the sentencing, Donny never saw or heard from her again.
However, Donny finds the silence in his life to be deafening. He continues to listen to Martha’s voicemails and shuts himself in his room to build a detailed timeline of events in an attempt to understand Martha. Eventually, his roommates call Keeley, and she asks him to move back in with her mom, Liz.
When he moves back in with Liz, she gives him a box of things he left behind when he moved out. Inside is the screenplay draft that he had written for Darrien. Finding this inspires him to go to Darrien’s apartment and confront him.
However, once he gets there, he doesn’t even mention that Darrien raped him. Instead, he talks to Darrien like he’s an old buddy, and when Darrien offers him a job, he jumps at the offer.
When he leaves Darrien’s apartment, the panic of the encounter hits him, and he has an emotional breakdown. After collecting himself a bit he stops at a pub and sits down at the bar to get a drink and listen to a voicemail from Martha. It contains the origin behind her nickname for him. She calls him Baby Reindeer because he reminds her of a stuffed animal she had that comforted her when she was a child, and her parents would argue. She considers Baby Reindeer to be the only positive memory from her childhood.
Martha’s confession makes Donny cry. Things are made worse when the barkeep gives him his drink, and he realizes he has left his wallet at home. However, seeing Donny’s disheveled state, the barkeep gives him the drink on the house. As the episode closes, we see Donny get that strange look in his eyes that Martha had when he gave a crying Martha a cup of tea on the first day they met.
What Does the Ending of Baby Reindeer Mean?
The ending points to Donny not learning from his experiences. Despite the disruption Martha caused to his life, he subliminally welcomed the distraction because he didn’t have to think about anything else. He could make his whole life about Martha stalking him and use it to deflect any criticism toward him. Without Martha, he’s forced to face his problems and continues the same pattern of cowardice and self-loathing that he showed in the past.
In the final scene, we’re shown that Donny and Martha are mirror images of each other. Just as Donny used Martha stalking him to ignore his issues, Martha’s obsession with him helped her to ignore hers. While Donny was undeniably the victim in the series, he’s refusing to take power back when given a chance, and we’re forced to wonder if he’ll go down the same path Martha did or if he’ll stand up for himself one day and take control.
