Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for the season finale of AppleTV + series, Now and Then.
In the year 2000, six friends graduating from college decided to spend their last night together partying on the beaches of Miami. Alejandro (Jorge Lopez) and his girlfriend, Ana (Alicia Jaziz), have plans to work together to get Ana into the White House while Alejandro’s main goal is to make sure the six of them always remain friends. Pre-med student Marcos (Jack Duarte) and the love of his life, Sofia (Alicia Sanz), have plans to travel the world together. Shy Pedro (Dario Yazbek Bernal), whose mom is an employee of Alejandro’s family, stays out of the fray as much as he can. And aspiring filmmaker Daniela (Miranda de la Serna) is documenting their evening and their lives for her future documentaries. It is all a lot of fun until Ana decides to dose everyone’s beers, which causes Alejandro to pass out on the beach. In the rush to get to the hospital to save Alejandro, the group gets into a brutal car accident with another vehicle where a young mother, Jessica (Ella Galt), is gravely injured. Scared of what may happen to them, they rig the accident to look like a now-dead Alejandro was driving, and both he and Jessica perished in the crash. They force Daniela to destroy her footage of the evening. When detectives Sullivan (Jeljko Ivanek) and Flora (Rosie Perez) arrive, they know there is more to the scene than just a car crash.
Twenty years later, it is clear the friends never recovered from that night. Now and Then tells the story of all those involved, and then some. On the day of their college reunion, the five surviving friends receive a text message letting them know that someone knows what really happened that night 20 years ago, and they’re going to need a million dollars from each of them. Otherwise, all their secrets will be revealed. Let’s take a look at all the characters before we look at how it all ended.
Alejandro
Back in the year 2000, Alejandro had it all. He was a star swimmer, he had a loving girlfriend, came from a wealthy family where his family absolutely adored him, and he had five best friends. Too bad on the night of graduation he wound up dead. It looks like he had a pretty good relationship with his parents. However, with some manipulation, Pedro posthumously made Alejandro’s generous parents think they had failed their son.
Daniela
Young Daniela’s guilt overwhelms her and drives her to apply to be a nanny to Jessica’s widower and her infant son, Hugo. After some time, Daniela and the widower fall in love, and she becomes a second mother to Hugo. At the 20-year reunion, Daniela (Soledad Villamil) does not provide a lot of updates on her life, but it is clear that she did have a copy of the tape from that night. At the end of the first episode, Daniela is found murdered in her home, which sparks Flora to reopen the investigation into the car accident. A now-grown Hugo (Matt Mitchell) has recently discovered exactly who his “mother” was and what happened 20 years ago.
Sofia and Marcos
Young Marcos wants to travel around the world with his girlfriend, Sofia. On the night of the accident, it’s Marcos’ rich father (Victor Mallarino) that makes it all go away under the condition that Marcos joins the family plastic surgery practice and end his relationship with Sofia. Meanwhile, Sofia (Maribel Verdu) was once an aspiring lawyer, but her life seems to have taken a turn, and she’s dealt with many seedy people along the way. When the two reunite 20 years later, Marcos (Manola Cardona) and Sofia reunite and their spark is undeniable. Not even Marcos’ lovely fiancée, Isabel (Juana Acosta), can prevent their reunion or Marcos’s downward spiral back into his drug habits.
Ana and Pedro
After a frightened young Ana admits to young Pedro that she was the one who dosed the beers, he vows to always protect her. Twenty years later, the two have married and have three children. Pedro (Jose Maria Yazpik) has become a politician. He is currently running for mayor even if it seems the more politically savvy, Ana (Marina de Tavira) is running the show. However, Pedro had more than a friendly interest in Alejandro back in the day and his desires for men have not subsided as he is currently in an affair with his campaign manager, Ernesto (Eduardo Noriega). Alejandro’s parents have been funding Pedro’s campaign and have clearly financially supported him since their son’s death out of guilt. Pedro feeds their guilt to get more money and is clearly all torn up inside about all his dealings with them, his wife, his affairs, oh, and that one pesky detail that it was he who killed Jessica to keep her from talking as she had survived the initial crash.
Flora and Sullivan
When the accident occurred in 2000, it was Flora’s first case. She is paired with the experienced veteran detective Sullivan, who really wants to rule it an accident and call it a day. He is also nursing his wife through chemo as she is in the final stages of cancer. Despite all the evidence, the case goes cold, thanks to the money and influence of Marcos’ dad. 20 years later, Flora has become the lead detective and Sullivan has retired. Her interest in the case is renewed when Daniela turns up dead. Now suffering from cancer herself and balancing her chemo with her job, Flora is determined to finally lock the group up and throw away the key. Sullivan, even though retired, hears she has reopened the case and again urges her to let it go.
The End
There had been a bunch of red herrings throughout the series as to who had killed Daniela. However, the reveal at the end of Episode 7, that it was Detective Sullivan who was the culprit and had been sabotaging the investigation was indeed shocking. Flora’s partner Belinda (Ella Kweku) had just figured out it was him when he knocked her unconscious. But since Flora is currently under the knife having a mastectomy, Belinda is kinda screwed. But we’ll get back to that in a second.
Pedro, having lost the election, is wallowing and Ana is fed up. Ana and Felix finally have a confrontation about their life and their marriage, and Pedro decides he just does not want to be a part of it anymore. While robbing Marcos’s father, Sofia discovers Daniela’s missing tape from the night of the accident in his safe, which leads her to wonder if he was the one who killed Daniela. Marcos and Sofia bring the tape to Ana and Pedro where they all decide to watch it together as a group. As they watch the tape in horror, they relive the night that changed their lives forever. When it’s over, they destroy the tape in the microwave. Marcos finally confronts his father who is infuriated that his son and Sofia robbed him, and again tells Marcos everything he ever did was to protect him after his mother died. Marcos decides it is best to break off his relationship with his father once and for all. He meets up with Sofia at the airport, and she comes clean. She confesses that it was she and Daniela who did the blackmail text and that she was going to use the money she stole to pay off a man she had robbed. He tells her he never wants to see her again.
When Flora wakes up from her surgery, she gets Belinda’s urgent message, but can’t get a hold of her. In retracing Belinda’s steps, she is able to figure out that Sullivan has not only been sabotaging the investigation from the start but may also be a killer. She confronts him in his house with his gun, and he finally confesses that when his wife was dying, Marcos’ father approached him with a deal to get rid of the evidence, and he would pay for his wife’s treatment. Twenty years later, he called upon Sullivan again to get rid of Daniela. He also killed Belinda and threw her body in the Everglades. As Flora is still recovering from her surgery, she is in a grave amount of pain and is no match for Sullivan in their confrontation. However, when he realizes Flora has had mastectomy surgery, he takes pity on her and calls her an ambulance before he takes off into the night, presumably never to be seen again.
As the show wraps up, we see that Marcos, who is devastated by Sofia’s confession, boards a plane for Colombia by himself. Sofia hops on a bus on a road to nowhere after confessing the entire truth to Hugo and leaving him the money that she stole from Marcos’ father. After a scandal takes down the mayor-elect, Pedro is back on the hunt for the mayor’s seat and vows to uncover the truth of the corruption in the campaigns. He also pays a visit to his ex-lover, Ernesto. Ana, meanwhile, decides to announce her candidacy for governor. Flora gets a little satisfaction in arresting Marcos’ father, but the rest of the group basically got away with murder.
Two years later, Flora is summoned to the morgue to identify a body and gasps when she sees who it is. Since the series hasn’t been renewed yet, this can either be a sign that her career is back on track and there is always another mystery to solve, or it is indeed a big setup for a future season.