Safe ending explained: who killed Chris Chahal?

Tom looking worried at a train station in our Safe ending explained
Safe on Netflix is a twisty turny thriller by Harlan Coben. (Image credit: Netflix)

Safe on Netflix is a twisty-turny thriller adapted from a bestselling Harlan Coben book of the same name, and despite it landing on the streaming site back in 2018, fans of Fool Me Once are revisiting the series after watching the Fool Me Once ending

The story follows a single father to two teenage daughters called Tom (Dexter's Michael C Hall), who is struggling after the death of his wife a year ago. But Tom's life is thrown into further chaos when his eldest daughter disappears and a whole world of secrets and lies starts to unravel. 

Here's everything you need to know about what happens at the end of Safe as Chris Chahal's killer is finally revealed... 

Jenny looking worried in Safe on Netflix

What really happened to Jenny and Chris is finally revealed.  (Image credit: Netflix)

The final episode of Safe picks up right where episode 7 left off, just after Tom found out that his late wife, Helen, his current girlfriend Sophie and his dead neighbor Helen were all responsible for a devastating fire that broke out at their school years ago, killing 8 pupils.

Sophie confesses everything to Tom, telling him exactly what happened that fateful night, and that the reason Craig suffered such horrific burns is because he went back into the burning school to rescue the pupils after seeing them on CCTV. 

Tom tells Sophie that Rachel was trying to tell Jenny something before she died, and he is convinced that Jenny found out about the fire and that Bobby, who was also one of the kids who set the fire, killed Helen and now he has Jenny. 

Sophie promises to help Tom get Jenny back from Bobby and she calls him, pretending to be on his side and he all but confesses to killing Helen. Sophie tells him she will help him get rid of Jenny and says she will come to his apartment. 

Jenny sitting at a bar in Safe

Jenny goes to Heaven to find Bobby.  (Image credit: Netflix)

We then flashback to before Jenny went missing, and we see her visiting Helen, asking about her mum and looking at photos of them both in an old school yearbook. But when Jenny asks Helen 'what is Jasmine' Helen snaps and throws her out of the house, but not before Jenny takes an old VHS video that was hidden in the same memory box as the yearbook. 

Jenny takes the video to Chris's and they watch it together, shocked to see the six teenagers in the school, but before anything else can be seen, the video cuts out. However, the video has a date on it, and after some research at the library, they find a newspaper cutting about the school fire and work out what the big secret is. 

Chris wants to confront Sophie immediately as the pair has clashed in the past when Sophie arrested him for drug possession. However, Jenny begs him not to, and we see her that night at Sia's party, but she's lost Chris and so heads to Heaven on her own to speak to Bobby, taking Chris's motorbike and leaving it at the station. 

When the bar staff tell her Bobby isn't there and that she should stay well clear of him, Jenny leaves a note for Bobby and heads to Helen's where she confronts her about the fire, telling her she knows everything. Helen opens up about what happened that night, and eventually Jenny tells Helen she can't go home because her dad has been tracking her phone and she doesn't know how to explain this whole mess to him. 

We see Emma and Sophie visit Helen's house as they do their doorstep search for Jenny, and as Sophie reveals they are worried about Jenny because he boyfriend has turned up dead, Jenny is listening from the other side of the door and is devastated. 

Sophie and Tom looking at a phone in Safe on Netflix

Sophie is hiding a huge secret.  (Image credit: Netflix)

Helen is convinced that Bobby killed Chris, and so she calls him and has it out with him. Meanwhile, Jenny sneaks around the neighborhood, watching Chris's memorial from afar and we learn it was her who Zoe saw sneaking around the woods. 

As Jenny gets back to Helen's, Bobby arrives and he sees red when Helen tells him the truth is coming out and they need to come clean. He kills Helen and sets the house on fire, before kidnapping Jenny, as she knows his secret that he is so desperately trying to keep hidden. 

Back in the present day, we see Sophie and Tom driving at night to Bobby's flat... Sophie drops him off around the corner before she parks up and heads into Bobby's flat, but not before calling Tom so they have a way of communicating in secret. She then leaves a fire escape open so he can follow her into the flat, unseen. 

Inside the flat, Bobby has a gun, but Sophie persuades him to stop pointing it at her. He admits to killing Helen and tells Sophie that they need to kill Jenny too. She pretends that she is going along with it, and they go into the room Jenny's in and Sophie chats with Jenny... distracting both her and Bobby from the fact Tom is creeping into the room behind them. 

There is a scuffle as Tom tries to get the gun off of Bobby, but in the end, Bobby gets the better of him and Sophie and ends up holding them both at gunpoint, along with Jenny. However, when he doesn't know who to kill first or how he is going to get out of this without going to jail, he ends up shooting himself, instead. 

Everyone is shocked, particularly Jenny, but when the police arrive she and Tom tell Sophie not to confess about the fire and Jenny promises that she will keep her name out of it when she is talking to the police. 

Tom looking at his phone in Safe on Netflix

Tom finally finds his daughter.  (Image credit: Netflix)

Emma questions Jenny, and although everything seems to add up - there is one thing that is confusing her, and that is how did Bobby know that Chris was at Sia's party? The police show Jenny the pendant found in the pool fiter and she says she's never seen it before, but Tom recognizes it as Sophie's, and the penny drops that Sophie must have killed Chris. 

Tom goes to confront Sophie at her house, and she admits it was her but that it was all an accident. 

We then flashback to the night of the party, and Sophie has gone to Sia's to get Henry, who isn't well and she was worried about him. But when she comes face to face with Chris in the back garden, he confronts her about the fire, and although she denies it at first, she sees red when Chris shows her he has recorded his confession on his phone, and they scuffle over the phone, both falling into the pool, where Sophie holds Chris underwater, and her pendant comes off as he struggles. 

Back in the present day, Tom tells Sophie that he loves her, but there are too many secrets and lies and he calls the police to hand her in for the murder of Chris Chahal. As she is arrested and put in a cell, we see flashbacks to all the times Sophie thought she was going to get away with murder - again.

The episode, and series, closes with Tom walking home, in their seemingly 'safe' gated community, to finally be properly reunited with both his daughters.

All eight episodes of Safe are available to stream on Netflix now. 

Claire Crick
Assistant Managing Editor at What To Watch

Claire is Assistant Managing Editor at What To Watch and has been a journalist for over 15 years, writing about everything from soaps and TV to beauty, entertainment, and even the Royal Family. After starting her career at a soap magazine, she ended up staying for 13 years, and over that time she’s pulled pints in the Rovers Return, sung karaoke in the Emmerdale village hall, taken a stroll around Albert Square, and visited Summer Bay Surf Club in sunny Australia. 

After learning some tricks of the trade at websites Digital Spy, Entertainment Daily, and Woman & Home, Claire landed a role at What’s On TV and whattowatch.com writing about all things TV and film, with a particular love for Aussie soaps, Strictly Come Dancing and Bake Off

She’s interviewed everyone from June Brown — AKA Dot Cotton — to Michelle Keegan, swapped cooking tips with baking legend Mary Berry backstage at the NTAs, and danced the night away with soap stars at countless awards bashes. There’s not a lot she doesn’t know about soaps and TV and can be very handy when a soapy question comes up in a pub quiz! 

As well as all things soap-related, Claire also loves running, spa breaks, days out with her kids, and getting lost in a good book.