Warning: This post contains major spoilers for The madness.

The new miniseries from Netflix The madness is not about the events of January 6, 2021. But series creator Stephen Belber explains how the disturbing events of the Capitol insurrection that day had a direct impact on the creation of the conspiracy-filled thriller.

“The world was a little shaky,” says Belber. “You weren’t quite sure who to trust. I liked the idea of ​​getting someone whose perspective we could just sail through the madness and lots of different worlds, lots of different communities and see where they’re falling apart and where they can potentially grow together at some point.”

This “someone” in The madness is Muncie Daniels, played by Colman Domingo, who is also an executive producer. Muncie is a successful CNN news anchor whose life is turned upside down on a trip to the Poconos to begin writing his new book. There he becomes involved in a murder case when he is framed for the murder of the leader of a white supremacist hate group called “Forge”. A massive disinformation campaign then turns Muncie into one of America’s most wanted men.

The series is a thrilling journey as Muncie tries to maintain his innocence and find out – and learn – who framed him for the murder Why He was charged with murder. The show is packed with shocking twists and turns, culminating in a dizzying finale that concludes Muncie’s journey. But will he get the answers he’s looking for?

Belber and co-showrunner VJ Boyd explain the finale of The madnessbreaks the show’s grand conspiracy and leads to a decisive showdown.

The decisive showdown

A number of enemies are involved in Muncie’s downfall. In Episode 7, viewers discover that the show’s big bad is Rodney Kraintz (Neal Huff), the silent majority investor in a major tech company called Revitalize, who orchestrated Muncie’s portrayal. The madness The finale hinges on one crucial scene: Muncie’s confrontation with Rodney in his office in a quiet, private warehouse in New York City.

With a gun in hand, Muncie breaks into Rodney’s office. The manager is alone and unarmed in a room with a massive server farm that he uses in his mission to spread disinformation like wildfire.

Rodney uses disinformation to finance his attempt to influence politics and power, and Muncie stands in his way. With Muncie armed, Rodney doesn’t seem particularly threatened, nor does he seem worried about Muncie’s presence – a man so good at widespread manipulation cannot be thwarted by one man. “If someone hurts someone you love, or if you feel hurt by the spread of a truth or by the death of a neo-Nazi, I would ask you to think about the bigger picture. That’s a lot-” Rodney’s explanation is interrupted by Muncie, who, frustrated by Rodney’s dismissive attitude, has had enough.

“Why the hell did you frame me?” Muncie demands. “You were there,” Rodney replies. It’s an answer that would anger anyone, and Muncie is certainly no exception. However, as Belber explains, it is not a completely honest answer: “Rodney is being a little disingenuous by simply saying that the framework is due to circumstances. The circumstances were a perfect storm: the fact that Muncie was a well-known figure, the fact that he was black, the fact that he was there and to create some sort of racial storm out of that was a perfect distraction for what Rodney Kraintz was It was actually a plan.” Nevertheless, it was all just luck: Muncie had not been prepared ahead of time.

The wrong place and the wrong time

It just so happened that Muncie seemed like the perfect person to frame. “It was definitely a wrong place, wrong time situation,, Boyd says. The only flaw in Rodney’s plan was that Muncie was far more resourceful than he could have imagined.

The most shocking part of it The madness The bottom line is that the grand conspiracy underlying Muncie’s problems was no conspiracy at all. “I find it interesting how coincidences and someone being in the wrong place at the wrong time, these little things can end up leading to a conspiracy, something that looks like a conspiracy that was set up in advance.” explains Boyd. “If you look at something like PizzaGate and invest in it, you’re going to look at every tweet from Hilary Clinton that has a pizza emoji in it. What could it mean? But it just means she wanted pizza,” Boyd says. “The conspiracy was what it always is: it’s about power.”

Muncie is faced with a crucial decision: kill Rodney or walk away. Muncie chose the right path at every opportunity and in the face of all the terrible things that came his way. And in the most intense moment of his life, when he comes face to face with the man who framed him, he continues to walk the streets and decides not to kill Rodney.

“Part of me felt like, well, this is the predictable way to end it. Of course he’s not going to kill him,” Boyd says. “But the truth is, we’ve pushed him to the point where, from an audience perspective, you can blame him if he does it?” It’s that very idea that makes the scene between Muncie and Rodney so intense. They believe Muncie will keep his wits about him and not kill Rodney, but after everything he’s been through, it’s hard to say that wouldn’t be justified.

“We thought about versions where Muncie actually pulled the trigger,” Boyd reveals. “There was actually an early version where we go to Muncie at the end and he’s kidnapped Rodney Kraintz and tied him up in his basement… He’s forcing him to pull strings to do good.”

Ultimately, the decision was made to stay true to Muncie’s moral compass; “I felt like it was unfair to Muncie to make him this guy…when they stoop low, he goes high,” Belber confirms. “While we caution that he will never be safe – even if you eliminate Rodney Kraintz, the web of those who want to control the narrative lives on.”

One final twist

As Muncie walks away, The madness has one final twist in store: Rodney is killed, but by someone unexpected. Bobby Woods, who narrowly escaped the FBI raid on The Forge, is seen killing Rodney and his bodyguards shortly after it is announced on the news that he has been completely cleared of any wrongdoing. “Agent Khalil previously explained to Muncie, ‘When you stir up the madness, sometimes the madness comes back and bites you.’ And Rodney was pulling these strings and pissing people off…he was carrying himself on his own weight,” Boyd explains. Woods falls victim to hysteria, and ironically, the very hysteria that Rodney willingly stokes for personal gain proves to be his undoing.

In the final scene, after Muncie is freed from the madness that threatened to destroy his life, he spends time with his children in the park. But not everything is peaceful. The sound of a car suddenly driving away sends a shock down his spine. “In the end, Muncie realizes that the car worries him and even scares him. But he also realizes: “Even if I pulled the trigger, I still wouldn’t feel peace.” “I would still have jumped when the car swerved,” Boyd says. He shares a tender moment with his ex-wife Elena (Marsha Stephanie Blake), and they smile at each other as the show fades to black, leaving Muncie and his family with a sense of hope that they can move on. But will Muncie ever feel truly safe again?

His name may have been cleared from Muncie and he may have put a life-threatening conspiracy behind him, and now he can mend family bonds that have frayed over time. But misinformation is still a major danger, and the danger of insanity remains.