The ‘Under the Bridge’ Finale Shared Even More Wild True Story Details
Erin Strecker
Editor’s note: This story contains spoilers for the finale of Hulu’s “Under the Bridge.”
You expect a true crime tale about a murder to end with a conviction, but for the family of the murdered to forgive the guilty party? That’s much less common.
“I think it’s truly the most interesting detail about this entire story, that the Virks not only said to Warren that they forgave him, but that they literally advocated on his behalf and his parole hearing and helped to support him in his transition and to work with restorative justice,” “Under the Bridge” creator Quinn Shephard told IndieWire. “I mean, it’s an immense strength.”
In the finale of Hulu’s “Under the Bridge,” which aired May 29, viewers finally see a group of teenagers — particularly Kelly (Izzy G.) and Warren (Javon Walton) — held accountable for killing teenage classmate Reena Virk, and get sentenced. But title cards in the final moments tell even more of the story, namely that the Virk family ultimately forgave Warren, and spoke on his behalf at parole hearings. That unbelievable kindness resulted in Warren becoming a lifelong restorative justice advocate.
“[The Virk family’s grace was] a guiding force with the show of radical empathy and forgiveness. Of course, who better to look to than the parents of the victim for what the answer is on how to feel about this sort of thing,” Shephard said.
Another shocking true-life aspect of the tale is journalist Rebecca’s (Riley Keough) lifelong relationship with Warren, with an ending note explaining the two remained in touch for over 20 years (the real-life Rebecca Godfrey passed away in 2022, shortly before filming on “Under the Bridge” began).
“It was probably the most tricky relationship to write in the show,” Shephard said about the dynamic between Warren and Rebecca. “Because I think Rebecca herself was still grappling with why she had grown so close to Warren. … And I think in a lot of ways, he did see her like family. When I first met her [she] had said friends, [or] a therapist, had pointed out to her that she likely got really attached to him because he was the same age that her brother had been when he passed away. And so we talked a lot about that.”
“But it was very interesting to me,” Shephard continued. “Because the more I got to know her, and the more I learned about her brother, the more it felt very clear that while that loss had definitely impacted her bond with Warren, he and her brother really had nothing in common. And I think as we got closer, she trusted me. She wanted to explore it [in the show], to talk about the fact that it was really about guilt that she saw herself in Warren more than even that she saw her brother; that the experiences that she had after losing her brother led her to this crippling sense of self-blame, that I think shaped a lot of who she became as an adult. … I think in a lot of ways her quest to make people care about him and understand him was in a way, her asking people to see herself. We did our best to show in the finale, that in the end, it really makes her realize that she’s been writing about herself in a lot of ways the whole time.”
“Under the Bridge” is now streaming on Hulu.
