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Apple TV+‘s psychological space thriller Constellation aired its eventful Season 1 finale on March 27, and if your minds and hearts are still racing from the latest developments, you’re not alone.
After Constellation‘s penultimate episode showed both Alices (Rosie and Davina Coleman) communicating with each other, absolute chaos at the cabins, Henry and Bud (Jonathan Banks) swapping universes, and Jo (Noomi Rapace) being sent for professional help from Irena Lysenko (Barbara Sukowa), Episode 8, “These Fragments I Have Shored Against My Ruin,” picked up right where we left off — after another quick trip to space, of course.
Constellation‘s finale description reads, “Jo is admitted to a rehabilitation center for astronauts, where the truth about their situation is unveiled.” As fans of the out-of-this-world series have come to learn, however, nothing with Constellation is ever that simple with Jo, Henry and Bud, Paul, Irena, Magnus (James D’Arcy), “Mamma” Alice (braids), and “Mummy” Alice (ponytail).
Curious how Constellation Season 1 ends? Looking for a detailed Season 1, Episode 8 recap? Decider’s got you covered. We’re breaking down the biggest moments from the Apple TV+ series’ finale below.
Constellation Ending Explained: Season 1, Episode 8 Recap
The Season 1 finale kicks off with Jo’s back to the camera in space. We hear her voice — the message she recorded for Alice on the iPad — explaining in English, “Alice, even if I’m not here I’m always with you. No matter what happens, my eyes are always on you.”
Back on Earth, an ambulance shuttles Jo to a convent where she’s wheeled inside on a stretcher as Irena looks on, rosary beads in hand. As Jo gazes up at the nuns above her, one of them takes the form of the Russian cosmonaut, the Valya. After being hooked up to machines, Jo undergoes mysterious treatment and we catch a glimpse of an empty International Space Station.
Bud (in Henry’s universe) wakes up in the snow, grabs the CAL, and makes his way back to Jo’s car where he finds Alice’s cassette player. He pops in the cassette tape labeled “Henry Caldera — 1977” and hears his own voice saying, “They are alive! They must have passed out. They’re breathing. I can see their breath. I can see their breath. They are alive!” As he processes the revelation, he takes an axe to the glowing CAL and the cassette tape snaps.
At home, “Mummy” Alice (with a ponytail) sits Magnus down and tells him their Jo died in the accident and her body is still in space. He assures her Jo is still alive, she’s just getting treatment, but Alice persists, saying, “We lost our mummy, and there’s another Alice. It’s her mummy who came back. There’s somewhere else — something to do with the CAL.” A concerned Magnus tells Alice that Jo has a mental illness, but a frustrated Alice says, “Mummy’s alive.” Back at the treatment facility, the nuns take an ultrasound — presumably of Jo — and present their findings to a concerned Irena. At this point in the episode, it’s unclear what exactly is wrong, but buckle up! The revelations are coming.
Think Constellation forgot about Henry Caldera? Think again! He’s trapped in Bud’s universe, cuffed and being interrogated for shooting Commander Paul Lancaster and throwing Ian Rogers to his death off the S.S. Bernice. (Bud really ruined this guy’s life!) “Mr. Caldera says he’s not the person who committed these crimes. Furthermore, he requests polygraph test in order to establish his identity and memory of these things,” his lawyer tells authorities. “I need you to compare my DNA with the inhabitant of Bud Caldera’s apartment,” Henry adds, explaining that he is Henry Caldera but he’s not Bud. While Henry was detained in Bud’s universe, Bud was living it up in Henry’s universe. He went on a shopping spree, cleaned himself up, ordered room service, and told Fredric (Julian Looman) that Jo (who they planned to dismiss from duty) is the one who took an axe to the CAL.
Speaking of Jo, she finally wakes up in the treatment facility. Despite her killer headache, she crawls out of bed, bangs on her locked door, and hears a mysterious man screaming above her. Though Alice and Magnus wake in their cozy home instead of the creepy convent, things aren’t going great for them either. Alice says she has to talk to Jo about some things and Magnus snaps, “I thought you thought she was dead.” Alice leaves the table upset and he screams after her, ” You can’t see mother if you keep believing all the rubbish she tells you!”
In the treatment center, Jo swears her condition isn’t PTSD or a mental health issue, rather, she just needs to get back to her daughter. Irena urges Jo to play the piano, but she ignores the request, saying, “There was a fire at my cabin. Before that, I saw my daughter, the real one. I haven’t seen her since before I went into space.” Irena tells her her daughter was very sick after the fire but is fine with her father. Jo insists that girl isn’t her Alice. Irena tells her if her condition isn’t treated it will only get worse before dropping an unexpected bomb: Jo is pregnant, so they designed an alternate drug therapy — allegedly not lithium — to treat her.
“I cant have this child. If I have this child how will I get back to her?” Jo asks. When the mysterious man’s scream blares from the ceiling again, Irena tells Jo he’s an incurable patient she’ll never see. As Irena turns to leave, Jo grabs her arm, and for a moment, she takes the form of the Valya. Finally putting the pieces together, Jo recites her tape: “There are flames. Fire Fire. Capsule on Fire. The world is the wrong way around.” Irena bolts from the room and calls Henry (well, technically Bud!) saying, “I need to see you. It’s urgent.”
In Bud’s former universe, Henry takes his lie detector test, claims he didn’t know Ian Rogers, was never aboard the S.S. Bernice, never met with Paul Lancaster at his Hollywood home, and didn’t shoot him — but he does believe he killed him by inventing the CAL, which allowed for the circumstance of a fatal accident in space.
Jo finally finds her way to the piano at the convent and receives an unexpected visitor: Ilya (Henry David). He gives her a hug and asks about her condition (“astronaut burnout”), which upsets her. She asks him why he came and he explains Irena is sick and was hoping he’d take over. Jo tells him she heard recordings of the radio transmissions from their capsule, that she died instead of Paul, and Irina was the body who hit the ISS. Ilya shuts her outlandish theory down, saying “There is so much here for you, Jo. Stop grieving and get better, please. If you don’t get better, you will only get worse.” Before he leaves, however, he stealthily hands her a ring with two keys.
Magnus, the one in the world where Jo is dead, tells his therapist he thought he saw his wife in the snow for a moment with Alice. Constellation switches back and forth between the two Magnus’ as they each share their struggles. “I’m stuck in the middle. And they’re both going through things I have absolutely no idea about,” Magnus whose Jo is receiving treatment, said. “They have secrets I’m not apart of. I don’t know how to move Alice on from that. How do we get back together again?” In a trippy shot that features both Magnus’ talking to the same therapist, they simultaneously say, “It feels like we’re all floating in space.”
Next time we see Irina she’s sipping champagne at a fancy bar waiting to meet Henry (aka, Bud). When imposter Henry walks in, she suspects something is different. Bud says that back in the day Irina went up to space and came down in one piece, but he admits he never met her. “I went away. For a long time I wasn’t myself, but that’s when I recall hearing that there was an accident up there in fact, Irena suffocated to death,” he says. She tells him the illness is making him think that, but he pushes back, saying, “Someone has been sleeping in my bed and wearing my clothes and eating my fucking porridge….I’m not Henry. Henry is gone and knock on wood if I’m lucky he’ll never be around again. But he will remember who he was and live my old age, my addiction, and my fucking failures.”
During the intense Bud/Henry reveal, Jo uses her key from Ilya to sneak out of her room at night, but instead of leaving the facility she goes upstairs to find the source of the screaming. She opens a window to a locked door and finds two identical looking old men howling “Mamma! Mamma! Mamma!” She returns to her room and curls up in bed, terrified.
In a wardrobe back home, Alice (ponytail) video chats with Paul’s daughter Wendy about ghosts. Wendy says she feels like her dad was still alive and Alice shares that her real mom is dead and another Jo is alive in their universe. In a different wardrobe in another universe, the other Alice (braids) asked Wendy about Paul, who we learned is in the hospital after being shot by Bud. Both Alices get out of their wardrobes, take their necklaces off the handles, and go talk to their dads.
Ponytail Alice tells Magnus, “I know it’s all make believe. I know she didn’t die. So can we go see her?” He agrees, but first he asks if she wants any items authorities found outside the cabin, which is when she finds her cassette player. Braids Alice and her dad are moving and when she checks her room for anything left behind she finds her cassette player. Just like they did in the cabins, two Alices simultaneously use the players to communicate. “Is Mamma there? I want to know if I really saw her at the cabin. Please? I want to talk to her. Please,” Alice with braids asks. Ponytail Alice leaves her on the cassette player version of “read” and the two part ways once more.
As Magnus’ moving truck drives away, Alice with braids says in Swedish, “I’m not going to look for Mamma anymore. There is another Alice. She’s somewhere else. She got mama instead of me. I can’t be angry at the other Alice just for being luckier.” Magnus says, “That’s a nice way to look at it. I’m very proud of you.” They get in their red car and drive away. Though they found a sense of closure with their new reality, Henry can’t say the same.
He passes his polygraph with flying colors, but his DNA is an exact match with Bud Caldera’s so he get formally charged with murder and attempted murder. Back in Henry’s former universe, Bud seeks out Ian at work, gives him flowers, and says, “Live your best life,” before kissing him on both cheeks, smiling, and laughing. He’s making the most of his second chance.
After leaving Bud, Irina returns to Jo and answers her questions. She says the man upstairs was the first man in space and she urges Jo to play the piano to do things her body is familiar with so she doesn’t break in two. “Did I die up there? Can I get back? Can I ever get back? Are there two of you? One dead? One alive? Are there two of me?” Jo asks. “How does that improve our knowledge of ourselves?” Irina replies. “Enough. You have a child here to be mother to and another on the way. Accept this and let go.” Jo cries, saying she can’t accept the thought of leaving her Alice behind. Irina assures her, “Whatever it is, it cannot be undone. You cannot change it. Ever. It’s done.”
Next thing we know, Magus and Alice arrived to pick Jo up. “I’ve been thinking about the other Alice. She thinks it’s OK that you’re here with me,” Alice tells her stand-in mom. “We both lost someone, but we found someone too. Doesn’t mean we have to forget the other one, just means we have to accept it.” Jo says she’s a remarkable young person and her real mother would be proud of her. “I need a mommy,” Alice says. “I need an Alice,” Jo replies.
When Jo sees Magnus, she hands him Alice’s drawing of the Valya and says, “This is what collided with the ISS… I’m trying to be rational. My husband is here. My daughter is here. It’s obviously the same world that I left…I’m gonna start taking the pills. If it means I won’t be living on this knife edge and can come home and be with you guys.” He asks about the baby and as they debate on whether or not they should have it, Irina looks at the sonogram and sees the pattern Henry saw from the CAL. She goes to her laptop sends the following message to numerous astronauts: “My name is Irina Valentina Lysenko. In 1967, I became second woman in space. Since that time on the USSR and since the fall of communism it’s been my burden and my responsibility about space travel — that it drives people mad. We know this. You know this. We pretend it’s not true, but very many of us see and hear things that cannot be explained. Perhaps not even by calling it madness. I’m asking whether or not you might be willing to report any of your own issues anonymously to me.”
In Constellation Season 1’s final five minutes, Paul Lancaster wakes in his hospital bed. Jo tells Magnus, “I love you and I want you more than I did,” seemingly committing to her new reality. Irina sits with Alice outside the convent and introduces herself as Valya. And Alice — abandoning “Mummy” — says, “Mamma…If what happened happened. If I’m from here and daddy’s from here and you’re from there…where’s the baby gonna be from?”
The finale cuts back to the ISS and we hear Jo’s pre-recorded voice message say, “Alice, even if I’m not here I’m always with you and daddy. I don’t think you understand how much I wanted to be around, see you grow up. No matter what happens my eyes are always on you and my heart is with you, baby. I love you so much, more than you can ever imagine my love.” As the iPad floats through the space station and Jo — with half a head missing from the accident — floats alongside it, we assume she’s dead, but in the final second of the season, she comes back to life and grabs the iPad with her left hand, leaving viewers with endless string of questions and a burning desire for Season 2.
