Monica O My Darling Ending Explained: Decoding the Killer's Identity and the Final Fates of Main Characters in Rajkummar Rao, Huma Qureshi and Radhika Apte’s Netflix Thriller (Spoiler Alert)

Vasan Bala's Monica O My Darling is a pulpy neo-noir thriller about a young man caught in strange whirlpool of murder and coverup, blackmail and deceit. The movie stars Rajkummar Rao in the lead playing Jayant Atredkar, a brilliant engineer who is the star of Unicorn Robotics, the company he is working in, and is also engaged to the daughter of his employer, Satyanarayan Adhikari (Vijay Kenkre) despite coming from a humble background. He is also having a secret affair with Monica, played by Huma Qureshi, who is the secretary in the same company. Monica O My Darling Movie Review: Rajkummar Rao, Huma Qureshi's Twisty Comic-Thriller is Smart, Pulpy and Fun!

Before we proceed ahead, let's warn you that the below article has plenty of MAJOR SPOILERS. So do proceed ahead with caution. Returning to the movie, Monica reveals to Jayant that she is pregnant, and slyly blackmails him for money. Jayant also finds out that she is doing the same with Nishikant (Sikandar Kher), his boss' son, and their company accountant Arvind (Bucks). They plan to murder her and dispose her body, but things don't go as per their plans. Wrong person gets killed, then more people end up dying and Jayant realises someone is also trying to kill him as well. And moreover, the investigating officer ACP Naidu (Radhika Apte) is highly suspicious of him.

By the end, this homage to the pulp thrillers of '70s and '80s doesn't leave all its principal characters alive. In this special feature, we explain the final fate of each of the main characters, who is the real killer and who is the real antagonist. Again, SPOILERS AHEAD.

Shalu (Zayn Marie Khan)

Jayant's younger sister, who is also an employee in his company, is indubitably the most innocent character of the whole lot. And also the most tragic. Shalu loses her fiance at the beginning of the film, and ignorantly ends up dating the man who is responsible for his death. Her own brother disregards her when he becomes a boss himself, and she is further heartbroken when she finds a report that it was Jayant's malfunctioning robot that killed her fiance, and he knew about it. Of course, the truth comes out later that Jayant was innocent and her current boyfriend was responsible and that definitely left her further disturbed. In the end, even her sibling ends up dead, and though, she is one of the few characters who survives, Shalu is left with a baggage of trauma and loneliness.

Nikki (Anushka Ranjan Kapoor)

The air-headed and vain Nikki is one of the film's weakly written characters and the only time we get a real insight into her life is when she reveals why she hates her sibling, who turns out to be her half-brother. It is not sure if she genuinely loves Jayant or thinks of him as this fascinating toy that her father bought for her. Nikki also survives the end of the movie, and though she would be shocked by the death of Jayant, I don't think it would affect her as much as it would do so for Shalu. Guilty Movie Review: Kiara Advani's Netflix Original Misses Out On Making a Strong Statement About the #MeToo Movement.

ACP Naidu (Radhika Apte)

The wise-cracking, eccentric cop is revealed to be corrupt and in the pockets of Satyanarayan. She knew Jayant has some role to play in the deaths of Nishikant, Arvind, and Monica, and could have trapped him, but saw a bigger opportunity here. She got Tamang killed on behest of Satyanarayan, and sees Jayant, the future heir of the company, as a major investment for her future. Too bad, two cobras had other plans.

Arvind (Bagavathi Perumal aka Bucks)

Arvind is the cowardly accountant of Unicorn Robotics, who is also being blackmailed by Monica using the pregnancy ruse. Though he doesn't exactly remember sleeping with her because he was drunk. Realising that Monica could ruin his family life, Arvind agrees in the plan to kill her, but he doesn't even have the courage to do his assigned task. He gets killed when someone sends him a cobra as a gift that bites him all because of the murder agreement he and Jayant had signed with Nishikant.

Tamang Rana (Shiva Rindani)

Tamang Rana was the sycophant of Satyanarayan who does his dirty deeds and expects his boss to reward him with a seat on the Board of Directors. He is jealous of Jayant who gets his seat, and looks for the right opportunity to get his spot there. He kills Monica on his boss' behest, using the snake poison tactic that killed Arvind and making her death part of the other murders. His greed becomes his downfall, however, as Satyanarayan through ACP Naidu arranges to get him murdered and pin the blame of Monica's pregnancy and murder on him.

Gaurav (Sukant Goel)

Gaurav is a psychopath who ends up killing some of the major characters in the movie. He killed Shalu's fiance Dev Prakash out of jealousy using Jayant's robotic arm, and then dates her. He loathes Jayant after the latter disposes the watch he gifted. Gaurav is also being blackmailed by Nishikant who stumbles upon the first murder, and Gaurav ends up doing all the latter's misdeeds including clicking pictures of Jayant and Monica together, though Nishikant crosses the line when he asks Gaurav to kill Monica. Even though he killed Dev Prakash, Gaurav doesn't see himself as a hired killer, and he kills Nishikant instead. On Nishikant's body, he finds the 'murder agreement' and thinks Jayant and Arvind are also on the idea to have him kill Monica. He sees this as a payback to the higher management, as for them, he is truly invisible and so he can do whatever he wants and get away with it. In the end, his comeuppance comes by the same robotic hand that killed Dev Prakash, as Jayant manages to trick him and get him killed. Ghost Stories: Karan Johar, Zoya Akhtar, Anurag Kashyap, Dibakar Banerjee’s Segments in Netflix’s Horror Anthology, Ranked From Worst to Best.

Nishikant (Sikander Kher)

The arrogant son of Satyanarayan, Nishikanth is the epitome of nepotism gone bad, as he believes that his privilege means he should be favoured over talent and he seethes that some young man from Angola takes what he believes is rightfully his. It's another matter that even Jayant's promotion could also been seen as nepotism, since he is engaged to Nikki. Anyway, Nishikant planned to ruin Jayant's reputation using the pictures he got Gaurav to click, but he didn't expect Monica to blackmail him with her 'pregnancy'. Nishikant ends up being killed instead of Monica, which Jayant and Arvind realise late, and his death happens only because he pushed his 'worker' to the edge because his privileged mindset thought he owned the latter's a$$ forever.

Monica (Huma Qureshi)

The titular femme fatale was playing a dangerous game right from the start, and the consequences were bound to catch up with her at one point. She had affairs with nearly all of the upper management and blackmailed them with her pregnancy, which turned out to be true. Monica saw this as some sort of payback for the Board's sexist attitude - not a single Board member is female - and a way to secure her future. Too bad that she had no inkling that Nishikant wanted to kill her, otherwise she might not have dared to blackmail the true father of her unborn child and end up getting poisoned in the end.

Jayant (Rajkummar Rao)

Jayant may not be a hardcore criminal as some of the characters in the film. But his biggest failing was he was corrupted by the power that came with his growth and ends up doing all the wrong things. He should not have agreed to Monica's murder, and later even tried to kill her himself, though he stopped himself from doing so. He also didn't come clean to his sister about her beloved's death, even though he was not technically responsible for the same. Jayant was playing a snakes-and-ladders game with his life and career, trying to acquit himself from any role in the other murders while trying to save himself from getting killed. I believe that the 'ladder' for him  was the opportunities to come out clean, which he doesn't because he always sees a way out of confessing his sins. If he had done that, Jayant could have at least saved his own life.

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Even though the murders are pinned on Gaurav and Tamang, Jayant realises that he could still get implicated in Monica's murder if the cops find out the 'murder agreement'. He goes to Angola at Gaurav's home and finds and burns the agreement, but before he could get away, the two remaining cobras that Gaurav had stolen did him in. In the end, before he could reach the winning position, Jayant loses his snakes and ladders game, because he failed to see the snake that comes a block before the winning square. The irony is that he died in the same place where his rags to riches story began, and it may take several days for people to figure out he is dead.

Satyanarayan Adhikari (Vijay Kenkre) 

In my opinion, the major antagonist of Monica O My Darling, a film filled with deeply flawed characters, is none other the man who employed most of them. Satyanarayan Adhikari may seem like a kindly man who has no qualms in his daughter wanting to marry a commoner like Jayant. In reality, though, he is a vicious, shrewd and opportunistic businessman who doesn't care for the lives of the employees working under him. Most of the deaths in the film could have been avoided, if Satyanarayan didn't try to brush the first murder - of Dev Prakash under the carpet - and blamed the death on the negligence of the safety officer. A proper investigation into the death would have revealed Gaurav's hand, which later took Jayant only minutes to find out, and the real culprit could have been apprehended. Instead he only cared for the reputation of his company. He also disposed off Monica, with whom he had an affair and who, as Naidu reveals to Jayant, was carrying his child, and later even gets his faithful acolyte killed off as well, because the latter showed ambitions beyond his stature.

In Jayant, he sees not a son-n-law but the opportunity to raise the stakes of his company to a billion dollar valuation - and he shows that card when in the climax, he calls Jayant his 'Unicorn'. In the end, thanks to his power, money and influence, Satyanarayan doesn't allow any of the crimes to come back to him, and even though he loses his son, he still stands tall. Though Jayant's eventual death could be a major setback for him, but as Monica pointed out, there were other better candidates than Jayant who had rejected the company's employment before it fell in his lap and he could easily find a replacement. So like in real life, the capitalist surely won the game in the movie as well!

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Nov 11, 2022 10:03 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).