Warning: This post contains spoilers for No Good Deed.
Fans of the Emmy-nominated black comedy thrill ride Dead to Me were likely excited to learn that creator Liz Feldman was returning with another Netflix-bound murder mystery series. How they’ll feel after finishing the first season of No Good Deed may be another story.
With all eight episodes having arrived on Netflix Dec. 12, the show, which centers on flailing married couple Paul (Ray Romano) and Lydia Morgan (Lisa Kudrow), is ripe for bingeing heading into the holidays. But the twist-fueled tale ultimately meanders to a somewhat predictable ending that resolves the whodunnit at its center while leaving other threads of the story open-ended.
The series revolves around the Morgans’ quest to sell their gorgeous Spanish-style villa in the highly sought-after Los Angeles neighborhood of Los Feliz to one of three couples vying for the bid: lawyer Leslie (Abbi Jacobson) and her doctor wife Sarah (Poppy Liu), novelist Dennis (O-T Fagbenle) and his very pregnant new wife Carla (Teyonah Parris), and former soap star JD (Luke Wilson) and his trophy wife Margo (Linda Cardellini), who live across the street. It’s been just over three years since the Morgans’ teenage son, Jacob (Wyatt Aubrey), was tragically killed inside the house, meaning they no longer have to disclose that fact to prospective buyers.
As the circumstances surrounding Jacob’s death are slowly revealed through flashbacks, it becomes clear that Paul and Lydia believe Jacob’s sister, Emily (Chloe East), unintentionally shot and killed Jacob thinking he was a burglar trying to break into their home. Since that terrible night, the Morgans have been working to cover up what happened in order to protect Emily. However, the truth is a little more complicated.
Who really killed Jacob?
As it turns out, Jacob had made a habit out of robbing people’s homes around the neighborhood in order to shower Margo—whom he had a crush on and had been secretly hanging out with—with expensive gifts. Whether or not Margo was actually having an affair with her teenage neighbor is intended to be ambiguous, according to Feldman.
“I want to leave that to the interpretation of the audience,” she told Netflix’s Tudum. “But we do know that she’s someone who isn’t bogged down by scruples.”
On the night Jacob died, Margo had found him taking back the presents he had given her after she told him not to come over to her house anymore. When he threatened to tell JD about their relationship, she grabbed JD’s gun, chased Jacob across the street back to his home, and ended up shooting him at the same moment Emily fired her gun at him and missed as he burst through the back door. Despite the fact that Margo’s bullet killed Jacob, she let Emily believe she had killed her own brother in order to avoid getting in trouble.
With the help of Leslie, who uses her law enforcement connections to secretly access Jacob’s previously sealed autopsy report, Lydia and Paul finally learn the truth when they realize there were two bullet casings on the ground that night and the one that killed Jacob had come from the model of gun JD owned rather than their own gun. JD, who has also figured out that Margo is really a scammer named Luann who was lying to him throughout their entire marriage, is then implied to have lit his and Margo’s mansion on fire with her inside in a nod to the way she claimed she had lost her brother (who is actually still very much alive).
Six months later, a heavily scarred Margo is discovered by Paul and Lydia’s police officer nephew Nate (Kevin Alves) while sipping a drink at a bar.
Who gets the Morgans’ house?
In the end, the Morgans choose Leslie and Sarah, who are expecting their first child together following an at-long-last successful round of IVF, to take over their home while Dennis and Carla purchase the plot across the street that previously belonged to JD and Margo to build their dream house on.
However, the latter couple are still keeping secrets from each other, leaving their story most open to continuing on in a second season. While Carla believes the money they used to buy the property came from a hefty advance on Dennis’ third book, Dennis actually got the $5 million from Carla’s estranged billionaire father, who now wants to meet his new grandson.
Still, it’s currently unclear whether No Good Deed will be renewed. “I leave my favorite shows wondering about [the characters]—asking myself questions, [mentally] writing the rest of the story myself,” Feldman told Tudum of the ending. “And I want to encourage people to do that.”
