Penelope Ending Explained: Did She Know [Spoilers] Are Dead?

Netflix’s Penelope is a slow burn. While it never really gathers a sense of urgency in the narrative, it’s extremely compelling, immersive, and focused. The story follows the titular protagonist as she runs away from home and travels to Cascade National Forest in Oregon, where she encounters humans and animals. Some of them are on a journey of self-discovery, just like her. Although Penelope receives messages from her mother early in the series and later leaves a voice note for her parents explaining why she had to leave, the ending of the eighth and final episode makes us wonder whether she knew what had happened all along.

Here is everything you need to know about the ending of Penelope.

What happens at the end of Netflix’s Penelope?

In episode 8, following the cougar attack, Penelope finds herself back in the grasp of civilization again and in a hospital. She meets an overly accommodating social worker named Jen, who clarifies that she doesn’t need to pay her hospital bill and provides her with what she needs. Before long, Penelope is back on the road again. It appears that despite the trauma and pain she endured in the forest, she wants to go back there and not return home.

Did Penelope know her parents were dead?

As the series nears its end, Penelope visits the local library and goes online. She checks the news and browse her e-mails before logging into her social media. There, she scrolls through the posts left by concerned friends and family members, urging her to reach out to them and come back. She then comes across a post on the deaths of her parents.

Penelope’s reaction to the news complicates things and makes us re-examine everything we have seen in the series until that point. There is no outburst of grief or shock, making it seem she might have known about this before. And her entire journey was about dealing with this immense loss and the subsequent grief. But then, there is also the fact that Penelope did receive messages from her mother while she was already on the road. Perhaps we never see her emotions explode because she is still processing the news by the time the series ends. Alternatively, it’s possible that the series retroactively alters certain aspects of the plot and makes us question whether Penelope actually got those messages from her mother.