‘The Good Nurse’ Ending, Explained: Did Charlie Really Kill All Those People?

Welcome to the Ending Explained for The Good Nurse, a new Netflix drama that arrives on the platform this week. The film is directed by Tobias Lindholm and stars Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne. The film tells the story of Amy, a good nurse who gets entangled in the life of a new nurse coworker named Charlie. Charlie is also a good nurse and is there for Amy when she needs him the most. However, when strange deaths start happening in the hospital, Amy starts having suspicions about his friend.

The Good Nurse has that cold aesthetic and tone that can only come from a Scandinavian director. Lindholm helmed the fantastic “A Hijacking” and now comes back with this chilling story that puts into light several of the worst characteristics of the United States of America’s health system. Chastain, coming off of her Oscar win, delivers a great performance, and Redmayne’s natural creepiness serves amazingly well for the characters he needs to play here. It might be a bit longer than it should be, but it is an excellent drama nevertheless.

The following paragraphs contain spoilers for The Good Nurse. Read at your own risk.

How Did The Killings Start In The Good Nurse?

The film starts with the introduction of the main character in this story, Amy. She is a good nurse, and the movie proves this by the way she treats her patients. For example, she allows a family member to stay with a patient through the night even when it is forbidden. She gets in trouble for this, but she knows it is the right thing to do. Her chief nurse informs her that she won’t have to work nights alone anymore. There is a new nurse coming to the night shift, and he comes with very good references.

The new nurse is called Charlie. He seems quiet, but he looks like a nice person. Amy gives him a tour where he shows him how things work, including how to request medicine on the computer. It is also revealed that Amy has a heart condition and that she is a single mom as well. Sometimes at work, she feels like she is having a heart attack. Her doctor explains that if she keeps working, she might have a serious stroke or heart failure very soon, and it could be fatal. However, she can stop working, or she won’t get the insurance she needs for surgery to fix her heart.

Charlie finds Amy in one of her worse moments, and he says he is going to help her get through the months she needs to get her insurance. They develop a deep friendship, and Charlie even meets Amy’s daughters, and they grow attached to him. In one of her low moments, Charlie takes medicine from the storage and gives it to her. This could get him in trouble, but he confesses that if you cancel the order on the computer fast enough, the door to the cabinet still opens.

Everything seems to be going fine until one of Amy’s patients, Ana, dies suddenly. She is followed soon enough by another patient, a young woman who has just recently become a mother. Amy and Charlie stand there as the husband cries for his dead wife. Sometime later, two detectives, Dan and Tim, arrive at the hospital. They are there to review a suspicious death. The hospital has been handling its own investigation, and they are there to help. It is about Ana’s death. The detectives are confused as the hospital seems to be holding them down.

Did Charlie Really Kill All Those People?

The police start their investigation, and they prepare to interview the staff. However, the interviews need to be conducted with a hospital representative in the room. When it is Amy’s turn, the representative needs to go out, so the detectives seize the chance to ask her questions. Amy reveals that Ana’s report indicates she was given insulin, which must have been an error because she wasn’t diabetic. She says it could have killed her when mixed with her other medications.

The detectives go from there and discover that Charlie has a trespassing charge on his record from 8 years ago. They start calling all the hospitals he has worked in, and they all seem to not want to talk about him. The detectives feel that just like the other hospitals, the hospital they are working with is holding evidence. They warn the hospital about it, but it only seems to get them in trouble. Amy discovers that some saline bags have been pinched, which proves that someone has been polluting them with insulin, causing the deaths.

Amy is now wary of Charlie, who keeps being close to her family. After she faints one day at the hospital, he is there for her acting as kind as ever. However, she is afraid of him now. Amy recovers and goes to the police to share her findings. They need a body to confirm their findings, so they ask permission to exhume the body of the young mother who died. Amy tries to get a confession out of Charlie while wiretapping, but she fails. He has found a job at a new hospital in Pennsylvania.

The police arrest Charlie and question him, but he just won’t confess. Amy wants to try it, so she goes and talks to him like a friend. She wants to understand why someone so caring as Charlie could hurt people like that. Amy gets through to him, and he confesses to the killings, but he never explains why he did. Charlie is sentenced to more than a dozen life sentences. Meanwhile, Amy gets to be with her kids. She gets the heart surgery she needed and now lives in Florida with her children and grandchildren.