1899 ending explained: Is any of this real? (And what year is it, anyway?)

Netflix just released their latest international series in 1899, following a group of passengers traveling from London to New York in hopes of starting fresh. The show is multilingual as it features people from all over the world, each with their own secrets and motivations for immigrating to America. As they travel on the ship Kerberos, strange things start happening that cannot be easily explained. From the creators of Dark, 1899 is a twisty story that’ll leave you on the edge of your seat wanting more.

MAJOR spoilers ahead for 1899 on Netflix.

Among the travelers on the Kerberos is a character named Maura Franklin (Emily Beecham), a doctor traveling alone who is looking for her brother Ciaran. She believes he might be on a ship called the Prometheus which has been lost for months. But when they find the Prometheus in the middle of the ocean with no passengers on it save from a small boy (Fflyn Edwards), chaos ensues.

Maura and the ship’s captain Eyk Larsen (Andreas Pietschmann) bring the boy back on the Kerberos as they try to find answers as to what happened on the Prometheus. The other passengers are growing impatient as they want to get to their destination desperately, but Eyk is determined to figure it out. He decides they will turn the ship around to tow the Prometheus back to Europe, something that is not received well. Some of the passengers end up starting a mutiny, but that’s not the only problem on the ship.

Are the characters in a simulation in 1899?

Eyk and Maura start to figure out more pieces of the puzzle, finding hatches in the floorboards of their rooms that lead them to other realities where they can live in their memories. As more and more is uncovered, there’s only one way to explain everything that’s going on. They’re in a simulation.

A mysterious passenger named Daniel Solace (Aneurin Barnard) turns out to be Maura’s husband, but as her memory was apparently wiped, she has no recollection. The little boy they find on the Prometheus is their son, and his name is Elliot. As we find out in the final two episodes of 1899, Elliot was dying and in a desperate move to keep him alive, Maura and Daniel created the simulation. Because Maura’s father Henry supposedly owns the ship company, she believed he was the creator of all of this. But no, it was really her.

As Daniel explains, her brother has taken control of the simulation and they don’t have long until the loop they’re in resets and they end up restarting. This would wipe Maura’s memory again, as it’s revealed, because the loop has already reset dozens of times and she doesn’t remember. Neither do the other passengers on the Kerberos who have also been living on a loop.

Maura has a key hidden somewhere that can be used to bring her back to reality, but even after she finds it, it’s no use, as her father Henry has the hand-held pyramid that the key goes in. Because of this, Daniel decides to hack into the mainframe of the simulation and reprograms it in order to switch out the objects that can change things. When he finds Maura again in the finale, he can help her get out of the simulation. But she’s scared. She asks Daniel if he’ll be there when she arrives, and he tells her he’ll always be with her. They use the key with another hand-held pyramid, and Maura wakes up in a spaceship. Here’s when things get even more freaky.

What year does 1899 take place in?

Though the title of the show suggests it takes place in 1899, that’s only partly true. In the simulation loop they’re in while on the Kerberos, it might be the 19th century, but when Maura gets back to reality, the year is actually 2099!

When she wakes up, she’s strapped into the wall of a spaceship with a device over her head. This is seemingly how people can enter the simulation, kind of similar to the Avatar program in the movie Avatar. She looks around and sees others she met on the Kerberos, including Eyk, all strapped in and presumably experiencing the alternate, fake reality.

Maura walks around and looks out the window, as the shot zooms out and we see that they’re all in a spaceship up in space. She walks over to the computer and when it turns on it reveals the year, the number of passengers, and the name of the spaceship: the Prometheus. She then gets a message from her brother, who tells her “welcome to reality.” The song “Starman” by David Bowie starts playing, making for an awesome end to an awesome show.

That’s where we leave Maura in 1899, and of course, there are still so many questions we have. We now know that the Kerberos was simply part of a simulation she created but doesn’t remember, and now that she’s out of it, she needs to find Daniel and Elliot again. Sadly, if Elliot is back in reality, that means he’ll probably die. But we’ll have to see what happens if 1899 is renewed for a second season.

At this time, Netflix has not announced 1899 season 2, but the creators do want a multi-season show. We’ll keep you updated once we hear anything regarding the series’ future. In the meantime, you can stream all eight episodes now!