Breaking Down the Ambiguous Ending of Netflix’s Sultry Vladimir Adaptation

Warning: This post contains spoilers for Vladimir.

There's nothing like a big ol' juicy cliffhanger to get people talking about the ending of a TV show. And that's exactly what Netflix delivers in the finale of its new limited series Vladimir, now streaming.

Based on the acclaimed 2022 novel by Julia May Jonas, who served as creator, executive producer, and writer for the series, Vladimir centers on a 50-something college English professor (played by Rachel Weisz) who becomes obsessed with her department's hot new hire: the handsome and celebrated young novelist Vladimir Vladinski (Leo Woodall). The title Vladimir is widely considered to be a reference to Loilta author Vladimir Nabokov, a theory Jonas all but confirmed in an interview with Netflix's Tudum. "It’s a nod to novels that name themselves after the young woman who the man is obsessed with," she said. "This is the subject of fixation that we’re going to be talking about, and I wanted to flip the script and have it be coming from a woman’s perspective."

Our unnamed protagonist's descent into her all-consuming infatuation coincides with a Title IX investigation and public scandal surrounding her husband and recently suspended department chair, John (John Slattery), who is facing allegations of sexual misconduct from a number of former students. While the protagonist and John have an open marriage and he believes the affairs, which happened at least a decade ago, were consensual, the students are now claiming he took advantage of them.

The protagonist, for her part, feels the students were willing participants and finds their accusations tiresome, insisting the modern outcry over power imbalances is overblown. At the same time, she is frustrated her husband's behavior is negatively affecting her own standing at the college and reputation on campus. As John's disciplinary hearing draws ever closer, the protagonist increasingly chafes at his attempts to smooth over the situation. In one burst of anger, she reveals she only suggested their non-monogamous arrangement in the first place because she knew he was already carrying on with other women behind her back.

Meanwhile, as the protagonist and Vladimir develop a connection, her growing obsession with him reawakens her long dormant creative drive. Since following her successful debut novel with a dud of a second, the protagonist hasn't written in years. But in the wake of meeting Vladimir, she is struck with an urge she hasn't felt for some time and begins work on a new book. "He’s interested in her writing career. He asks her questions that other people don’t ask her," Weisz told Tudum of her character's intense attraction to Vladimir. "Of course, it’s helpful that he is staggeringly handsome and beautiful. But it’s really his personality—his kindness and the fact that he notices her. She feels seen."

How does Vladimir end?

After witnessing an interaction between John and Vladimir's wife Cynthia (Jessica Henwick)—who is also a professor at the college—that leads the protagonist to believe they're having an affair, she invites Vladimir out for lunch with the express goal of skipping out on John's hearing. The protagonist then goads him into drinking enough to agree to spending the afternoon at her lake house. There, her behavior turns increasingly predatory, culminating in her drugging his drink, proceeding to tie him to a chair once he passes out, and then breaking into his phone to text Cynthia a lie about him finding out about her supposed affair.

When he wakes up in a panic, the protagonist insists they simply drank too much and he expressed a desire to be dominated, prompting the situation at hand. She then reveals what she believes she knows about John and Cynthia and, in an attempt to cover her tracks with the text, claims she originally told him the information while they were drunk. He asks to stay the night and they end up sleeping together the following evening. However, shortly afterwards, John shows up looking for her and finds them both at the cabin. When Vladimir confronts him about Cynthia, John insists the two of them were simply taking drugs and writing together. Vladimir, angered by this revelation because Cynthia is supposed to be sober, tackles him to the ground.

While Vladimir calls Cynthia, John informs the protagonist the complaints against him were dismissed by the college and suggests they reevaluate their open marriage and recommit to each other. Vladimir, on the other hand, wants to continue on with their affair.

Later that night, two space heaters the protagonist turned on end up setting the cabin on fire. As the trio tries to escape, the protagonist rushes to the other side of the cabin to rescue her hand-written manuscript from the flames and is able to get out the front door while the two men remain trapped inside by the broken back door.

Once she's made it to safety, she turns to the camera with a wry look on her face and explains her version of what supposedly happens next. "I finish my book about a woman's obsession with her younger colleague," she says. "Vlad writes a book about a tender affair with an older professor. Mine does much better. It speaks to a certain need. Oh, don't worry. I call 911. Everybody gets out."

It's simply up to you whether you believe her or not.

Is the show different from the book?

While the climax of Jonas' novel also revolves around a fire at the cabin, the result of the inferno plays out much differently in the book. After John shows up at the cabin, the fallout from his reveal about his drug-fueled non-affair with Cynthia prompts Vladimir to take their kayak out for a solo late-night ride of self-reflection while John and the protagonist head to bed.

The next thing the protagonist knows, she's being dragged out of the fiery cabin by Vladimir. He rescues both her and John, but not before they are severely burned. Following a months-long recovery process, the protagonist and John eventually settle (read: are all but forced by their life-altering injuries) into a relatively stable existence together. Despite all her fantasies of turning over a new leaf, the protagonist is stuck right back where she started. Meanwhile, Vlad writes a middling new novel about a younger man's affair with an older woman, which includes "many descriptions, similes, and metaphors that concern the loosening quality of her skin."

Jonas, who wrote the finale, seems to cheekily nod to the decision to switch up the story's closing notes in the protagonist's final pre-fire interaction with John. After a discussion in which she explains she believes her novel could give her a whole new life—i.e., choices, power, and agency—John asks her whether she's coming to bed and she responds that she's not sure.

"You don't like that ending?" he quips back. Now, both options are out in the world. Reader's—or viewer's—choice.