Beware! Major spoilers for Echoes ahead. 

“So many scores to settle, Charlie. Thought I should start with you,” utters Michelle Monaghan in the closing moments of twisty limited series Echoes, in which she plays identical twins Leni and Gina. But who’s there to settle the score? 

For the first few episodes of the series, it’s unclear what happened between the sisters — who have spent their adult lives switching places once a year — that led to such a rift. But once Episode 5 begins to ping-pong between Leni’s and Gina’s perspectives, a clearer picture of the villain emerges. It was actually Leni whose bad behavior gave Gina a reputation as a juvenile delinquent–turned–big-city career woman, and Gina's nurturing nature that transformed Leni into a caring, kindhearted mother.

When the sheriff of their small town connects them to a deadly mistake from their past and Leni’s long-ago sins come to the surface, a fight between the sisters leaves Gina seemingly jumping to her death — and Leni fleeing her North Carolina home.

That makes the final two scenes all the more twisted: Some time later, one twin shows up at a reading for the book Gina's therapist husband, Charlie (Daniel Sunjata), wrote about the two women. In the next moments, the other twin appears in his kitchen. While the show leaves the identity of each visitor a mystery, Monaghan had to be much more decisive in her portrayal.

So, who confronts Charlie in that final scene? “I had to creatively make a choice,” Monaghan tells Tudum, “so I chose Leni. I think Gina was at the bookstore. I made that choice too.”

In an interview with Tudum, Monaghan previously called the series “the greatest, biggest, most ambitious endeavor I could take on.” She began to develop each character “from the womb … then used the baseline of that foundational trauma of them losing their mom, their very different memories of it and how that memory informed each of them emotionally, physically and energetically. I built Leni from top to bottom, then I built Gina from there.”

If anyone is an expert on Leni and Gina, it’s Monaghan. And while one twin might be more culpable for the uncertain future they find themselves in, Monaghan wants them both to have happy endings — especially considering the trauma that Leni experienced when she inadvertently witnessed their mother’s death.

“I think Gina definitely gets a happy ending,” she says — but Gina is not the only one. Leni has spent her entire life making things happen for herself and her sister, so there’s no way she won’t fight for her own happy ending. According to Monaghan, “I think Leni will get a happy ending, too. She’ll just find it anywhere. She’ll make it happen one way or another.”

Echoes Trailer

Additional reporting by Anne Cohen