‘Delete’ is a new horror drama miniseries streaming on Netflix. It infuses elements of a psychological thriller and a romance to present a complex web of emotions. The narrative follows a mysterious case where a mobile phone can delete you from the world i.e., make you disappear. Every episode of Delete (Season 1) brings forth different elements that act as motivations for the characters to make this decision. This Thai-language thriller is sure to keep you on the edge of your seat and make you question the decisions from your own life.
Starring Nat Kitcharit, Sarika Sartsilpsupa, Natara Nopparatayapon, Chutimon Chuengcharoensukying, and Charlette Wasita Hermenau in central roles, Delete on Netflix consists of eight episodes of about 40 minutes runtime.
*Spoilers ahead*
Delete (Season 1) ‘Netflix’ Recap
Episode 1: Delete: Love
‘Delete’ mainly deals with the stories of two couples. Lilly (Sarika Sartsilpsupa) is married to Too (Natara Nopparatayapon), a wealthy heir to a business at Roongroj Farm. He treats her poorly and is extremely controlling, unlike her newfound love, Aim (Nat Kitcharit). Aim is a writer, whose upcoming book, ‘Lost & Found’ puts him in the limelight. He has reportedly written about his real-life experiences as a child lost in a jungle.
Aim is in a relationship with Orn (Chutimon Chuengcharoensukying), a professional photographer who travels across the world for her work assignments. She brings him a copy of George Orwell’s ‘1984’ that he has wanted for a while. But he shows little to no interest in it or her. Later, while taking a shower, she finds a ring on the floor. It makes her suspect that Aim is having an affair. So, the very next day, she packs her suitcases and decides to suddenly leave for work.
Aim goes for a press interview for Lost & Found. Right after, he receives a call from Too, who expects him to write about their farm and its 50-year history. In short, he wants Aim to work on improving his PR. What Too does not know is that his wife is having an affair with this writer. Lilly, who faces domestic abuse from Too, thinks it is best if she and Aim break up. But one thing leads to another, and they end up having sex.
Aim did not know that Orn had put up a camera in the room. Because of that, she catches Aim and Lilly having sex, on tape. Orn threatens to end the affair, or she will make the actual truth about Aim’s book public. Meanwhile, Lily learns that she is pregnant with Aim’s baby. After she takes the pregnancy test in a supermarket, a scared, young girl approaches her. She hands over a phone and asks Lilly to take her picture. Lilly takes the photo and clicks the girl’s picture. The very next moment, that girl suddenly disappears.
Later, Lilly meets Aim and tells him how this peculiar phone deletes people. Aim thinks it is impossible and thus, goes to try it to prove otherwise. He clicks a picture of a beggar, who gets deleted, as Lilly had said. After this strange incident, Aim tells Lilly about Orn threatening him to end the affair. But now that he has this phone, he decides to delete Orn. He returns home and tells Orn he is ending his relationship with Lilly. But the very next moment, he clicks Orn’s picture and deletes her.
Episode 2: Delete: Trust
After deleting Orn, Aim texts Lilly about it. So, she decides to head to his house. When she gets inside her car, she realises that Too has changed her driver. This is because Too doubted that her previous driver was keeping something hidden from him. (Lilly had paid him to do so.) Anyhow, she goes to Aim’s place and takes the strange phone. She decides to delete Too with it. However, she reaches home to find a surprise party for her birthday. Since this prolongs her plan, she starts getting worried.
Too’s younger sister, June (Charlette Wasita Hermenau) dejectedly wishes Lilly a happy birthday. Lilly senses June’s dissatisfaction and apologises to her. But June does not accept Lilly’s apology. She rather asks her why she is not leaving Too if she is having an affair with someone else. Soon after that, Lilly walks up to the stable where Too ruthlessly shot her dear horse. She meets him and confesses her affair with Aim. Lilly says that she is pregnant with Aim’s baby. Too gets angry, but within moments, says that he wants her back.
Meanwhile, Aim keeps calling Lilly but cannot reach her. The next morning, he learns from the news that she has gone missing. He suspects Too deleted her. So, he shows up at Too’s house to get the details. But Too does not reveal that he knows about their affair. Later that day, Aim sneaks into their house, trying to find any proof against Too. But, Too catches Aim lurking around and gives him a ride to his stable.
In the stable, Aim thinks that Too has the phone in his pocket. So, he gets into a fight and questions him about it. Too says he has no idea what he is talking about. Besides this, the episode also glimpses into Orn’s past. Her mother is an Alzheimer’s patient. The nurse, Nicha (Pattarasuda Anuman Rajadhon) appreciates how much Orn does for her.
Episode 3: Delete: Falseness
After their fight in the stable, Aim tries to run through the farm while Too follows to shoot him. Aim manages to escape with one of Too’s cars. Meanwhile, Yutthachai (Nopachai Jayanama) starts investigating the case of Lilly’s disappearance. On the other hand, Nicha contacts Aim to know Orn’s whereabouts. She finds it strange that Orn, who frequently visited her mother, is unreachable. Aim lies that Orn has gone away for work and offers to pay for her mother’s treatment. Still, Nicha continues to find Aim’s behaviour strange.
Back home, Aim unlocks Orn’s phone and checks out her messages. He texts Nicha as Orn and says that she is sorry she did not answer Nicha’s earlier calls. Nicha calls Orn back, but he does not pick it up. He starts getting increasingly anxious about how to hide Orn’s sudden disappearance.
The next day, a photo of Lilly with Aim, kissing inside a car, becomes public. Their affair makes both him and Too, suspects in Lilly’s disappearance. Yutthachai visits Too’s house to question him. Too keeps deflecting and makes Yutthachai look at Aim as the culprit.
Later, the detective meets the writer and questions him about it. Aim says that he was home the night Lilly disappeared. He lies that Orn broke up with him and left for China for her work. Later, Yutthachai grills Aim with questions about the night before Orn’s disappearance, but Aim keeps lying. In the end, we see June going to the confession stand in a church, accepting that she has committed a sin.
Episode 4: Delete: Hatred
Episode 4 shows June’s backstory from about a month before Lilly’s disappearance. Her teacher considered her an ideal student. But June went on stealing the teacher’s rosary beads. The teacher’s son, Tong (Jinjett Wattanasin) caught her red-handed, but could not locate the beads on her since she kept them cleverly hidden.
Turns out, June had a bad habit of stealing from others. Back home, she confided in Lilly about her troubles in the boarding school. Lilly provided her with the kind of comfort that Too never did.
In school, the teacher thought Tong stole her beads. She questioned Tong about why he does not respect her religious faith. She used to pray for his sister, Thong’s return, who had disappeared years ago. He accepted the guilt even if he had not done anything. June noticed that and decided to keep the beads back in the teacher’s bag. Tong saw her doing so and decided to throw them out anyway. He explained to June how tired he is of his mother thinking Thong will return because of her prayers.
Back home, June expressed her feelings for Lilly and went up to kiss her. Lilly reproached and said that she never had such feelings for her. As a result, June felt betrayed and deeply hurt. Because of this pain, June decided to take revenge on Lilly by letting her horse out of the stable. After that, she told Too about Lilly’s affair. As a result, he shot the horse to ‘save it from his misery.’
Soon after, Lilly apologised to June for her response when she confessed her love. She asked if they could be friends again. But June refused and said Lilly should rather be truthful about her affair. Eventually, June found ‘the phone’ and clicked a few pictures of herself. The clicks did not delete her. But later, she clicked a picture of a cat and it got deleted. It led to her discovery that the phone can make someone disappear.
Turns out, June was the one who made Lilly’s photo with Aim public, out of jealousy. Aim looks at that viral photo of him and Lilly once again and notices June’s reflection, clicking the photo. So, he decides to confront June about it. Besides the photo, he also questions her about the phone. But Tong reaches there just in time and saves her.
Later, June’s classmates go through her locker and find many of their belongings that recently went missing. So, June starts running and they follow her to the washroom. A bully named Ploysai (Prontip Kitdamrongchai) eventually catches her and finds the phone. She leaves the washroom with that phone and keeps June locked inside. Once June gets out, she meets Ploysai, retrieves the phone, and deletes her. Tong sees it from a distance and gets surprised by what he just witnessed.
Episode 5: Delete: Truth
Tong catches June almost getting the entire school deleted. He stops her and then, reveals he knows what she did with Ploysai. He takes control of that phone to stop her from continue deleting people. Back at Too’s home, his father says he needs to take care of the family’s reputation that he has taken years to build. Later that night, a masked man arrives at their house and asks Too for ‘the phone’. He hits Too to the point that Too falls down unconscious. The man mistakenly drops a chain before leaving.
The next morning, based on what was written on the chain, Too checks online for details about Claire. He stumbles upon a photo that shows Claire with a patient named Natcha, wearing the same necklace. He calls that patient and sets up a meeting.
Meanwhile, Yutthachai arrives at June’s boarding school to investigate the missing student case. Aim hears about it in the news. He realises that June studies in the same school as Ploysai, which makes him certain that she has the phone. Around that time, June gets text messages from an unknown number that threatens to reveal her secret about the phone.
This person asks June to meet him later. June arrives there to meet a masked man. Tong recognises the danger to June’s life and reaches there with the phone, hoping to save her. But this person eventually gets hold of that phone and deletes June with it. Aim realises that June has disappeared and Ploysai has mysteriously returned. It establishes a crucial point – a missing person can return if the person who clicked their picture, gets deleted.
Later, Tong tells Aim that June deleted only Ploysai with the phone. Meanwhile, Too learns that Claire’s father is Detective Yutthachai. While it opens a thread for Too’s investigation into finding his wife, he gets a call from Lilly herself. She says that she has been kidnapped and asks for his help.
Episode 6: Delete: Pain
Turns out, on the night after her dialogue with Too in the stable, Lilly was kidnapped by Yutthachai. He destroyed her phone and brought her to his remotely located house. He and his wife kept her cuffed to a bed. Once she gained consciousness, he threatened her to get the phone. However, she had no idea where it was. He shot her in her foot as a way of intimidating her.
On the news, Too portrays himself as a caring husband, worried about Lilly’s safety. The news also talks about several past disappearances and how the farming land of the Karen people was snatched by others. Since Lilly tries to get out of her cuffs, Yutthachai’s wife lets her know how secluded their house is. She reveals that they need Lilly and the phone to bring their daughter, Claire, back to life. Claire is the same girl that Lilly had clicked a picture of.
Yutthachai’s wife reveals how Claire felt sorry for the pain and suffering of the patients at a hospital. That is why she helped relieve these people from it by deleting them. One day, she caught Claire doing this to a patient and learnt about it. Soon after, she found a note in Claire’s room with her necklace (the same one that Too found left by the masked man). Claire asked her parents not to come look for her.
After his daughter left home, Yutthachai discovered a supermarket video footage, which showed Lilly leaving after Claire’s deletion. That is why Yutthachai kidnapped her. After this dialogue with Claire’s mother, Lilly makes another attempt to escape. This time, she succeeds and cuffs the mother to the same bed.
Lilly walks away with her injured foot and reaches the same supermarket she once met Claire. That is when she calls Too and informs him about the kidnapping. While he starts driving to find her, Yutthachai also tries to get hold of her to not let his secret out. Because of being in the police force, he learns that the missing woman (Lilly) is in the supermarket. Meanwhile, due to her injured foot, she leaves a trail of blood behind. Yutthachai uses it to find her. Before Too can save Lilly, Yutthachai deletes her.
Episode 7: Delete: Rage
Once Lilly gets deleted, Claire comes back to life. Yutthachai tries to escape the store with her. By then, Too finds Yutthachai leaving with Claire and follows them up to his house. Meanwhile, Aim realises that Yutthachai now has the phone. So, he gets details of Yutthachai’s house and decides to drive there. Back home, Claire tells her parents that they should not have brought her back to life. Yutthachai feels terrible that she feels that way.
By that time, Too gets inside their house with a gun and shoots at Yutthachai. The officer runs out to the farm and Too follows him. Yutthachai tries to delete Too and Too keeps saving himself from the click. Soon after, Too manages to attack Yutthachai and beats him to a pulp. Yutthachai reveals that he kidnapped Lilly just to save his daughter. He then urges Too to delete him. By the time Too can reach the phone, Yutthachai attacks him.
But luckily, Aim reaches there just in time and saves Too. Right after, Too deletes Yutthachai. Aim thinks he is next in line. But Too does not delete him. Instead, he reveals Lilly’s current location and why Yutthachai kidnapped her. Aim drives to the supermarket to meet her. But to his surprise, she chooses a life with Too instead of one with him. Before the kidnapping, Too got emotional and said he wanted to raise the baby with her, irrespective of who the father is. She thought of it as a fresh start for their relationship.
Lilly’s change of mind breaks Aim’s heart. By that time, Too deletes Claire and her mother. He then drives up to the supermarket to meet Lilly.
Episode 8: Delete: Secrets
The season finale of Delete shows how Aim and Lilly met in the first place. Lily was the art curator who was tasked to write about her. During the interview, she walks him through an exhibition and reveals her thoughts about the pieces of art. She says how they reveal a common part of every human being – a secret. Lilly speaks on how we keep some of our feelings hidden, and how that makes us feel lonely. She says that the artworks provide solace to those with such emotions. Aim gets mighty impressed by her elaborate explanation.
In the present, Lilly goes on the news with Too and talks about her wish to restart their relationship. Meanwhile, because of Yutthachai’s deletion, June comes back to life. She meets Lilly and apologises to her. They have a sweet moment of reunion. Later on, Lilly asks Too why he used the phone on Claire and his mother. He says that he had no other choice. But Lilly finds that unwarranted. She does not want another victim of such deletion. So, she decides to throw away the phone.
But before that, she notices Orn’s photo in it and feels guilty. So, she goes to meet Aim and shares her new plan. She asks him to let her delete him. That’s how Orn will return and can delete her, which will bring Aim back to life. She sees it as a way for Orn and Aim to be together again. She is ready to sacrifice herself for that to happen. But Aim is not on board with it. He argues that this is a never-ending cycle and refuses to proceed with this childish game.
Later on, Aim looks back at the letter and the ring that Orn planned to give him to propose. He feels terrible about Orn being a victim of his deletion. So, he shares his thoughts about his guilt, online. He says that he plans to leave and never to return. Lilly reads this post and drives up to meet him. But by that time, Aim meets Too, who deletes him. So, Lilly reaches Aim’s house to find Orn in bed. Orn gets surprised at how Lilly got in whereas Lilly gets surprised by Orn’s return.
Delete (Season 1) ‘Netflix’ Ending Explained:
After her return, Orn looks through the footage from their room. She sees that Aim made her disappear by using a phone. She gets devastated seeing her partner do such a thing. Meanwhile, June goes through her social media posts that have many photos of her with Lilly. She deletes them one after the other. Meanwhile, Lilly returns home to meet Too. She gets afraid of what he might do with the phone. A maid tells her that he might be in the stable.
Lilly walks up there to find several flies buzzing around. She eventually finds a source from where they are coming. She opens a basement bunker and decides to go down. In there, she finds several boxes. She opens one of them to find a dead body inside. She gets scared and plans to leave. But by that time, she notices Too enter this place and decides to hide.
Too starts deleting bodies one after the other. By that time, June notices an old photo on her online feed. It shows Thong (Tong’s missing sister) along with her family members. She decides to text Tong about it but stops herself, thinking about her family. One of the dead bodies happens to have worn the exact dress that Thong was wearing in that photo. So it becomes apparent that she went missing because of their family secret.
While Too is about to leave the stable, he hears whimpering from the box Lilly is in. The season ultimately ends with a loud thud of the box Lilly is in followed by footsteps and loud neighing of a horse. The cliffhanger gives a hint at the buried secrets in Too’s family’s past, where he casually deleted people to hide some ugly truths.
So, the season’s ending circles back to the show’s central theme – if handed over, how would you use the power to make someone disappear? We see the phone ending up in different people’s hands, whose choices of deletion are inspired by differing motivations. The phone ultimately reveals the lengths people will go to protect themselves or something they hold dear. They will act out of rage, revenge, or pity, and use this power in the worst imaginable way.
