Going into business with your brother sounds like a fun opportunity—that is, unless your brother routinely gets involved in criminal activities. The Netflix miniseries Black Rabbit’s eight-episode arc grapples with this dynamic, following Jake Friedken (Jude Law), the straight-and-narrow brother who heralds the opening of the high-end titular bar, only to be brought down by the impulses of his older brother Vince (Jason Bateman).
The Black Rabbit suffers a fatal armed robbery in its first night of operation at the hands of Vince and members of the Mancuso crime ring (headed by Oscar-winner Troy Kotsur), utilizing information gleaned from reappearing in Jake’s life. The remainder of the thriller is a propulsive look at their growing involvement in organized crime, the lengths to which the brothers support each other even while at odds, and how a traumatic event from their childhood has shaped each of their trajectories. Read on for a breakdown of the ending of Black Rabbit and how it wraps up the stories for Jake, Vince, and the rest of the ensemble cast.
Does Jake forgive Vince for his role in the robbery in ‘Black Rabbit?’
Brothers Vince (Jason Bateman) and Jake (Jude Law) in the Black Rabbit finale.
(Image credit: Netflix)
Despite Jake’s best instincts, Vince is his weakness. He’s initially angry at his brother for threatening the enterprise that he’s built into a well-respected and high-end lounge, but soon enough, his only concern becomes helping Vince evade the authorities and get out unscathed. Ultimately, Black Rabbit is a story about the love between these two brothers, even when one of them is bringing the other down.
You may like
What happens during the showdown between the Friedkens and the Mancuso organization in ‘Black Rabbit?’
The conflict between the Friedken brothers and Mancuso (Troy Kotsur) reaches a head in the finale.
(Image credit: Netflix)
The bulk of the Black Rabbit finale centers on the brothers’s cat-and-mouse game with the Mancuso organization. At first, they have Jake at gunpoint, coaxing him into getting information about Vince’s whereabouts. It works, and Vince admits that he’s stopping by at their old bar, The Plank, before getting out of town. Jake isn’t able to warn Vince that he’s being set up until after Mancuso releases him, but by then it’s too late—Vince has discarded his cell phone on the way to the bar.
Mancuso and his underling Babbit arrive at the bar, and given their long family history, the exchange isn’t entirely hostile. Mancuso reminds Vince that he helped clean up the mess of their father’s death after he dropped a bowling ball on him. Vince, still carrying that guilt, asks for mercy in the form of one final drink or line of coke before he’s offed. But he has a plan. With Mancuso’s back turned, Vince stuffs a handful of cocaine into Babbit’s face and takes off running. He’s met by Jake’s car on the street, and the Friedken brothers barely get away.
Vince momentarily believes that Jake sold him out and tries to wrestle control of the car away from him. But they make up quickly, and Jake begins pulling strings to get Vince out of the country.
Later, after Vince’s death, Mancuso returns to threaten Jake. But he witnesses Jake sobbing over an old family photo and recognizes his grief, choosing instead to hug him and depart instead of killing him for his brother’s crimes.
Do both Friedken brothers make it out alive at the end of ‘Black Rabbit?’
Black Rabbit is ultimately about complex sibling relationships.
(Image credit: Netflix)
Unfortunately, Vince doesn’t survive all eight episodes of Black Rabbit. In the finale of the Netflix series, Jake and Vince are on the run after an emergency alert is released to the public implicating Vince in the death of popular musician Wes (Sope Dirisu) at the Black Rabbit armed robbery. Jake cuts a deal with artist Jules Zablonski’s manager: In exchange for getting Vince out of the country and to safety, Jake will destroy all of the remaining copies of Zablonski’s (John Ales) criminal and predatory behavior in the club.
The brothers race to the Black Rabbit to get copies of the tape, but once they’re there, Vince feels the weight of his predicament acutely. He apologizes to his brother and confesses to murdering their father in their youth after he witnessed him abusing their mom. But Jake already knew this, having witnessed the act with his own eyes, and pleads with his brother that he’s not a bad person because of it.
But with the truth finally in the open, Vince feels the courage to let go. At the bar they opened together, Vince falls backward off the roof and to his death in front of Jake.
What happens to the rest of the characters at the end of ‘Black Rabbit?’
The staff of Black Rabbit, including Tony (Robin de Jesús), go on to bigger and better things.
(Image credit: Netflix)
At the end of the finale “Isle of Joy,” we get a glimpse of everyone’s future after the Black Rabbit tragedy. Vince’s daughter, Gen (Odessa Young), looks happier than she did while he was alive, enjoying a beer with her Aunt Val (Dagmara Domińczyk) near the beach. Former Black Rabbit chefs Roxie (Amaka Okafor) and Tony (Robin de Jesús) have a new enterprise: a restaurant named after their late colleague Anna (Abbey Lee). Estelle (Cleopatra Coleman) is busy working on a new interior design project, seemingly without any contact with Jake. The tapes of Jules Zablonski’s behavior that Jake was trying to use as leverage are turned over to the police, and he’s arrested in his gallery.
As for Jake, he seems genuinely happy. Though he’s confronted by memories of the people from his past—Roxie adorns a New York Magazine cover that a patron is reading on the subway, while posters publicizing Wes’s final posthumous album are plastered around Manhattan—Jake is content with the smaller things in life. He walks his son to his dance class, takes the train to work, and clocks in for a shift as a bartender at a nondescript restaurant. Amidst the high highs and low lows of running Black Rabbit, it seems Jake fits best somewhere right in the middle.
