Halfway through the final episode, Susan is given a final warning to stop pursuing the case. The deputy commissioner threatens her with consequences if he finds her at his office again and tells her that this will disappoint her husband, Timothy. She reluctantly tells the deputy commissioner that she will stop, but once again, all the women continue to brainstorm about how they will retrieve concrete evidence against Malcolm Crowley. If the deputy commissioner won't believe them about the postcards, they need to find his files, or other evidence, to prove he is the killer and the poor man that was arrested, Gerald Wiggins, is innocent.
Meanwhile, Susan and the other women devote their attention to the content on the postcards. Cavendish, the old SOE director, told them that Crowley worked as an illustrator during World War II, creating provocative pictures of women to discourage foreign army men from continuing to serve the Axis powers (which primarily consisted of Germany and Russia). One postcard reads along the lines of "German soldiers who are fighting and dying, who do you think is screwing your girlfriend?" However, Crowley's postcards turn dark very quickly. They find grotesque illustrations of a dark haired girl being raped by skeletons or demonic figures in the dark. This reminds the women that Crowley became different after his work building exploded and he was trapped in the rubble for three days. Another woman, one who he liked, was dead and buried with him. Were these depictions of that same woman?
To test their theory, the group descends upon the public records office once again. Angela can actually assist this time, as this is a public record they are looking for and not directly related to secret government projects. Armed with the postcards, Susan, Jean, Millie, and Lucy flip through the records until the illustrated face matches with a real face. They find a young woman named Julie Oakwood. Along with her personal information, other paperwork is in the record. They find a sheet that documented that she made a formal complaint against Malcolm Crowley during the time they served in their department in WWII.
At home, Susan writes a master list of all of Crowley's victims and categorizes them as either true or false using the data she's collected. She also writes out a list of men Crowley targeted as scapegoats for his killings. As she studies the names and locations, she realizes she was right about one of her initial ideas regarding the killings--in the first episode, she told the deputy commissioner that each victim is found farther way from each other in a spiral formation. The location the deputy commissioner sent his police was not where the previous victim was, but if they went a little farther down the hill to an abandoned warehouse, they would've found that victim. Her current data justifies her first theory that the killings are in a pattern, like a swirled shell. By doing some math, she may calculate the next location he will kill in. While she thinks, she hears a sound outside. She rushes to the window to see no one in the yard, but her daughter in the other room says she saw a man watching her.
The next day, Susan explains the pattern to the other women. They suggest to call Julie Oakwood's father with questions regarding his daughter's work and death. They also want to know if Mr. Oakwood knows Malcolm Crowley from his daughter's conversations, or if he met Crowley himself. Susan calls the Oakwood's residence, but a familiar and spine-chilling voice answers on the other end. Instead of Mr. Oakwood, Susan hears Crowley calmly explain the terms and conditions of their confrontation: Crowley has been stalking Susan and her family which explains the noise she heard the previous night. He blackmails her-- if Susan wants her family to be safe, she must meet him at a specific address. She discretely pockets a pistol and hangs up the call. She makes an excuse to her friends and leaves to go to the location. When she arrives, she realizes she is at the Oakwood's cottage.
She finds Crowley in the basement. She approaches him carefully, but he yanks her back toward a wall. He smirks and tells her how long he's waited and longed for this moment. He admires her dedication and intelligence to have connected all of the murders together. He grabs her shoulders and motions toward a perfume bottle on the desk near them. He wants her to wear Julie's perfume while he kills her. Susan sobs and shakes as she pulls out the gun, but then he smiles and shows the wire strung across the room. Her eyes trace the wire until they end at a grenade on the opposite wall. He threatens her--if she shoots, he will pull the wire and the grenade's pin will eject, causing the grenade to go off and both of them dying. As he descends on Susan, she cries out for anyone's help, but her friends don't know where she is.
Or so she thought.
Millie rapidly descends into the basement and shoots Crowley. He falls forward with the recoil, but manages to pull the wire, too. Susan rushes to the grenade and manages to hold it together even though the pin slipped out. Millie shoots Crowley again and he falls off of Susan and to the floor, dead. The woman rush to crying Susan who shouts for a hair pin or anything to place in the grenade to keep it from going off. One of the woman cram a hairpin into the slot and the grenade does not go off.
The camera cuts to the women standing outside the cottage where police walk survey the area. The deputy commissioner is there telling the men what to do. As he sees Susan, he approaches her and admits she was right all along. Although Crowley is dead and can't reap the punishments that prison time might give him, some justice is served as he can no longer kill again. The deputy commissioner returns to his duties by dictating what his police men should do, and Susan turns to Millie to ask how she knew where she was. Millie told her that she knew Susan was planning on calling the Oakwood's residence, and she also saw that the pistol was missing, so she knew Susan took it. Although she is shaken up, Susan is grateful for her friends saving her and also relieved that the case is closed. She wonders what she will say to Timothy--if she does, there is a chance he may know about Bletchley Park. She smiles though, and it is inferred that she keeps the secret of Bletchley to herself, even though the mystery of the killer is solved. This shows just how important her work at Bletchley is to her both through the relationships with her friends but also with the intelligence she gained from the experience as it was enough to figure out and solve the killer's pattern and identity, just like cracking an enemy's code on an Enigma machine.
Even though the technology used at Bletchley Park (such as the Colossus and the Enigma machines) are only seen in the opening scene of the pilot episode, the skills they taught such as pattern-finding and code-breaking played a huge role in every episode since. The other technology used such as the microfilm machine in the library aided the user to magnify objects to search for information or details that would normally be difficult to spot. Essentially, all of the technology in this series aided in information gathering.
The women used their previous experience along with publicly accessible technology and files to pinpoint locations and identities of people involved in the crimes whether that be the killer or his victims. They also used each other's strengths (Susan's code-breaking and pattern-finding skills, Millie's ability to speak other languages and her strong emotional intelligence, Jean's leadership skills and connections to other Bletchley workers, and Lucy's photographic memory) to crowd source ideas and information to form hypotheses about the killer's identity.
This last episode of the first season wraps up the plot nicely. Although it is somewhat disappointing that Crowley was not taken into custody, his onscreen death allows viewers to experience a catharsis. Crowley was the main source of tension throughout the show due to his secret identity, his expertise in putting the blame on others and getting away, and finally the stalking, blackmailing, and assaulting of Susan. It's also rewarding to see the deputy commissioner admit that Susan and her friends were right about Crowley all along. Another interesting aspect of the show was how it framed women to be so powerful and intelligent, especially during that time period. Women were expected to go back to domestic jobs and return to a submissive attitude toward men after the war. These characters showed how determined they were to get justice for Crowley's victims while also engaging in a task that allowed them to break away from society's forced role for them. Each of their strengths all played a role in finding Crowley and preventing anyone else from getting hurt. This historical drama is a brief yet thrilling story about the power of women, technology, and determination.
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