'The Recruit' season 1 ending explained: Unpacking Karolina’s true identity — and whether THAT character is really dead (2025)

Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Recruit season 1.

Netflix's white-knuckle spy show The Recruit returns for its second season on Jan. 30, 2025, which is good news for those still chewing on season 1's cliffhanger ending.

The series, which premiered in late 2022, stars Noah Centineo as Owen Hendricks, a fresh-faced lawyer for the CIA who stumbles upon an international conspiracy while investigating a former asset, Max (Laura Haddock), who plans to expose compromising intel about her relationship to the agency.

Created by Alexi Hawley (The Rookie), The Recruit is a pretzel of a series, with the first season introducing us to a vast array of two-faced players, each with their own secrets and motivations. The season 1 finale left viewers with plenty of questions to consider ahead of season 2, though one rings louder than the rest: Who is Karolina — and did she really kill you-know-who?

Before firing up the new episodes, here's a refresher on season 1's ending — and what it means for the future of the series.

Okay, so what happened in The Recruit season 1 finale?

Let's start with the facts. After a mission goes belly-up in Prague, resulting in Owen getting blood on his hands while saving Max (who is trying to buy her way back into Belarus), Owen emotionally spirals and decides to quit the CIA. (Probably a good idea? All of these people seem to hate him.)

Just as he's about to reunite with his ex Hannah (Fivel Stewart), a black car pulls up and kidnaps him. He wakes up in a room with Max, both of them strapped to chairs with their hands taped.

A woman with short blonde hair enters. She may look familiar — in the previous episode, she made a pass at Owen in a bar while going by the name Marta. Also, Owen caught a quick glimpse of her before the gunfight earlier in the episode.

Max utters a name ("Karolina?") before the assailant shoots her in the chest. This woman of many names (more on that below) then turns to Owen and asks a chilling question: "Who are you, and what the f--- are you doing running around with my mother?"

This comes as quite a surprise, as Max seemed to imply her daughter was dead.

Who is Karolina? Or is it Nichka? Or is it Marta?

Russians and spies share at least one trait — many names. Fun for them, tough for us.

Anyways, Max uses the name Karolina when she sees her daughter in the episode's final moments, implying that that's her birth name. Elsewhere in The Recruit, we hear her referred to as Nichka. And, as mentioned previously, she goes by Marta when trying to pick up Owen in episode 7.

As of now, we know just two things about her: She's a Russian spy, and she's Max's daughter.

A Tudum interview with Haddock and Hawley offers a little more info, as he notes that the Russian strike team from earlier in the episode was filled with "Karolina's people," implying she's in a position of power in the organization.

Why does Karolina shoot Max?

Good question! Max speaks of her daughter fondly, so it's unclear why Karolina might want her dead. Perhaps it's as simple as them being on opposite sides, but The Recruit's twisty nature seems to resist such a straightforward explanation.

In the aforementioned Tudum interview, Haddock says she created a backstory for Max that involved having Karolina as a teenager. "So she was very young, like 16, and was not a present mother because she was so young and wrapped up in working for the Russian mafia," she said. "I think there is a maternal instinct for sure, but there was a lot of unfinished business for Max as a mother. That dynamic and relationship is tricky when you’ve had a child so young, and Max was imprisoned for so long and she’d done some really bad stuff that the daughter is aware of.”

Hawley, meanwhile, describes the pair's relationship as "dysfunctional," and teases that "there's a lot of history there to mine" in future seasons.

Is Max dead or what?

If we knew, it wouldn't be much of a cliffhanger, would it?

Speaking with Tudum, Hawley sidestepped the question. “Look, we did the most dramatic thing you can possibly do. And we did the thing we were building to the whole time, even though the audience didn’t know it, which was ultimately — the story of Max and Owen is one of her being a pathological survivor," he said. "Whether she cares for him, whether she doesn’t, whether she cares for her kid or doesn’t — everything comes in second to her just making it to the next day. That ultimately makes her a bit of a tragic figure, and so it was important to get to that point. Then, of course, the twist was powerful. In this day and age, where there’s 9,000 things on television, you have to be bold, you have to go big, and I felt like we really earned that moment.”

Max doesn't appear in the season 2 trailer, but Centineo did acknowledge her in an interview with Tudum. “Owen’s headspace is complete chaos. He has just witnessed Max — the former CIA asset whom he almost died multiple times trying to protect — get shot by her daughter Nichka," he said. "Owen is wondering how in the hell he is going to survive the next few seconds of his life.”

Notice how he said "shot," not "killed." We'll just leave it at that.

Why does Owen want to quit the CIA?

You don't become a lawyer so you can kill Russian gangsters. You become a lawyer so you can yell "Objection!"

In all seriousness, though, Owen's decision to leave after a litany of shoot-outs, car chases, and tussles is in part inspired by memories of his father, who died in the line of duty when Owen was just 12. While Owen has an adventurer's heart, he values his life too much to keep putting himself in harm's way.

When does The Recruit season 2 come out?

All six episodes of The Recruit season 2 arrive on Jan. 30, 2025.

Where can I watch The Recruit?

You can watch both seasons of The Recruit on Netflix.