Anthracite (2024) ‘Netflix’ Limited Series: Recap Ending Explained – What Shocking Truth does Jaro Learn about Juliette?  

“Anthracite” is a new French-language mystery thriller miniseries streaming on Netflix. Created by Fanny Robert, Maxime Berthemy, and Mehdi Quahab, it follows an investigative case to find a missing reporter, which leads to a series of horrifying revelations. While solving this case, a web sleuth, a local cop, and a parolee join hands to learn the dark truth about a deadly cult. The series stars Hatik, Camille Lou, and Noemie Schmidt in the central roles. It consists of 6 episodes that are about 50 minutes long.  

Spoilers ahead.  

Anthracite (2024) ‘Netflix’ Limited Series Recap:

What is ‘Anthracite’ on Netflix about?

“Anthracite” on Netflix is a French-language series that follows an investigation case for a missing person. It unravels a web of revelations about a local cult that is responsible for putting many lives in danger. Each character has a painful history, which helps us emotionally invested in their journeys. While being a mystery thriller, it explores themes of cult worship, faith, family, love, and loss. 

What happens in ‘Anthracite’ on Netflix?

Episode 1: Still on Fire

Netflix limited series, “Anthracite,” unfolds largely in a small town in the French Alps. In 1994, it encountered a horrifying murder of a woman named Roxanne Vial by Ecrins cult leader Caleb Johansson (Stefano Cassetti). The police also found a sign of mass suicide. Then, in 2024, a reporter named Solal Heilman (Jean-Marc Barr) goes there for investigation and goes missing. His web-sleuth daughter, Ida (Noémie Schmidt), believes her father is in danger. So, she follows a trail and reaches there. She meets Jaro (Hatik), who moved from Paris to that hillside town after getting out of prison.

In the past, Jaro was in love with his college sweetheart, Anais. After college, they moved in together and had a baby. Some issues led to his arrest. Since Jaro’s photo was in her father’s records, Ida asks Jaro for her father’s whereabouts. But Jaro does not entertain her. Right after, he is tasked to help a woman to find her missing snowboard. So, he goes to the woods with her and finds it easily. Then he realizes that she tricked him into coming because she wanted him to ask her out. She kisses him and expects him to leave his duty to be with her. He refuses that. So, she gets angry and walks away. Moments later, she gets kidnapped by someone else.

How does Ida help Jaro?

Jaro has no clue that the young woman he met went missing. He returns to his uncle’s place, which is his temporary residence in the town. Jaro tries to have a word with his daughter, but Anais stops him. She worries that he will put their lives at risk. Meanwhile, Ida returns to her hotel room and receives a call. Turns out, the kidnappers wanted to take Jaro away, not the woman he met. But the local police don’t know that. Police officer Giovanna (Camille Lou) brings him to the station for questioning. She suspects Jaro is the suspect, considering his criminal record.

Ida saves him from their insistent questioning, knowing the cops will try to pin the crime down on him because he is a biracial man with a criminal record. In exchange, she wants his help to find her missing father. Be it Ida, Jaro, or Giovanna, all have painful memories from their past. Ida has a terminal illness. She spent her childhood isolated and quarantined. Jaro’s mother, Juliette, killed herself and was believed to be connected to the deadly cult. Giovanna had a miscarriage, which resulted in marital problems with her husband Erwan (Raphaël Ferret). 

What does Ida learn about her father? 

Ida meets Caleb in a psychiatric hospital and asks him about her father. Caleb sees Ida and makes him recall the death of his mother. Meanwhile, Giovanna finds a dead woman whose half-face is smeared with anthracite. She recalls Roxanne also had a similar scar. Besides the deadly cult, there’s an organization – Arcacia, which is opposed by the locals – who suspect they follow unethical protocols. Giovanna’s mother is a part of this opposition group. Despite that, Arcacia got permission to use mines, supposedly for their experiments.

While the police investigate the cases, Ida finds her father’s local base and discovers a series of old VHS tapes. Meanwhile, Jaro joins his local friend, Romeo (Nicolas Godart), at a rave party at a local building. He didn’t know that this place was related to Caleb’s cult. After a fight breaks out, he leaves the party and goes to meet Ida. She shows him a video where young Juliette claims Caleb is innocent in the case of Roxanne’s murder. In the middle of Ida and Jaro’s conversation, a bomb blows up and destroys Ida’s room.  

Episode 2: The 13th Disciple

Episode 2 of Anthracite finds Ida and Jaro going through Solal’s old VHS tapes for clues to solve the case of people who recently went missing. They realize a child was in the cult who survived suicide. Both his parents died in the 1994 mass suicide. On a tape, Ida finds her dad speaking to a police officer about his suspicions. Romeo recognizes the officer is retired police captain Denis Monnier. Before they go and find him, Ida starts having trouble breathing. So, Jaro & Romeo take her to the hospital. There, Romeo meets his school sweetheart, Hari, who recently moved to their town as a doctor.  

In the asylum, Caleb starts thumping his chest like a chant. Then, the other patients suddenly start smearing half of their faces with a dark color and thumping their chests. Meanwhile, Giovanna starts investigating the case of the female skater, Emma, who died after falling into the water. She recovers a chip in the woman’s brain. The next moment, the woman’s cell phone self-deletes all its files Giovanna sees the symbol of Arcacia lab on the phone. So, she visits their lab for statements. The secretary refuses to help her in any way. Giovanna’s mother thinks Arcacia’s lab was the reason Giovanna had a miscarriage. 

What happens at the annual festival of Lévionna? 

Erwan learns that Emma was partaking in a clinical trial for the Arcacia lab. Meanwhile, Denis Monnier notices a masked figure outside his house. His nurse goes out to look for it and gets killed. When the police arrive for questioning, Dennis reveals that the mask belonged to the cult. Ida discovers that the thirteenth disciple of this cult was the father of the sole survivor kid. She believes this disciple killed Roxanne & Emma and kidnapped her father. But Giovanna doesn’t trust her speculations. 

While that happens, the locals prepare for the annual festival of Lévionna. They gather together as Jaro and Romeo notice a similarly masked person in the crowd. Jaro and Giovanna follow this person and catch him. They learn that Denis Monnier was behind that mask. Once they take off his mask, a majority of the crowd suddenly starts coughing blood because Denis poisoned them.

Episode 3: Trust No One 

Denis leads Giovanna to a missing person’s dead body. He says Caleb made him commit this murder to cleanse his soul. For the same reason, he poisoned people in 1994, which led to mass suicide – the way he poisoned people in the 2024 festival. Anyhow, because of the festival incident, Gio is let go from investigating the case. She gets angry at Erwan for not being as supportive as he should be. Meanwhile, Jaro offers Ida a place to stay. He brings her to his uncle’s house and they sleep with each other. The next morning, when Anais is about to leave the town, her daughter gets approached by a cult member. This stranger leaves a strange mark on the daughter’s forehead. Jaro sees this sign and realizes its connection to one of Solal’s tapes. 

In a 1994 footage, Solal recorded a horrifying incident that showed stabbed Juliette followed by a girl, who was presumed to be responsible for the stabbing. Sensing the threat to their lives, Anais decides to leave the town immediately. Jaro’s old criminal acquaintance from Paris arrives in the town, looking to kill him. Meanwhile, Gio joins hands with Ida to find her missing father. They learn that Denis bought a place up in the terrain and travelled to explore it. In Denis’ studio, they find walls filled with scribbles. Outside, they see a man and go out to inquire about Dennis. He lies about his identity. Ida tasers him. 

What document does Jaro find at the station?

The man from Paris, who was looking for Jaro, hurts Romeo’s dog. Before this man can find Jaro, Erwan drags him to the station despite having no warrant. In the station, Jaro calls out Erwan for his prejudiced behavior. Before leaving, Jaro steals a document about Detraz. It includes research into a religious family who vehemently opposed the cult. Jaro realizes that the daughter from this family was in Solal’s old footage, who was presumed to have stabbed Juliette. While Jaro leaves the station, Hari dissuades Romeo from investigating the cult. But Romeo doesn’t listen to him. Later, Jaro asks for Romeo’s help to protect his daughter. He shares his understanding of past events.  

Based on research, Jaro believes a cult member may not be behind Roxane’s death, but an enemy of the cult is. So, he suspects Detraz’s family is somehow behind it. Romeo mentions he knows where the Detraz (the girl from the video) stays. On the way to her place, the Paris criminal follows them. He crashes their car down a road. After that accident, Romeo walks Jaro to Detraz’s place, where they find Solal. Outside, they meet Detraz, who points a gun at them. Meanwhile, Ida and Gio follow a trail but get intoxicated because of a cult’s trick. 

Episode 4: Levia Borelis

Detraz shoots the Paris criminal and then, reveals the truth about the 1994 incident. Solal’s video made it look like Detraz stabbed Juliette. In reality, Juliette stabbed herself because of some psychological issue. Detraz thinks it was ‘because of the demons.’  Jaro assumes it is because of some healing rituals that Caleb made her take part in. Meanwhile, Gio and Ida wake up away from where they remember before getting intoxicated. Ida rushes to the hospital to meet her father.  

Gio returns home and shares her theories with Erwan about Denis’ connection to the kid who survived the mass suicide and its connection to Arcacia’s lab. Erwan refutes all of Gio’s claims, which annoys her. That night, Hari shows up at Romeo’s doorstep and spends the night with him. The next morning, Gio learns that Hari works for Arcacia lab. A few locals who oppose Arcacia’s practices show up outside Romeo’s house to beat Hari up. Gio shows up just in time to save Hari from them. 

What does Gio learn about Arcacia Lab? 

Gio’s son joins his classmates for a tour through the mine tunnels. Along the way, while he is alone, he notices a person wearing the cult’s mask. Meanwhile, Hari tells Gio that he started helping Arcacia with their clinical trials through his patients. But he doesn’t think it affected pregnancies. She sends Gio to Arcacia lab to get him an entry. Inside, she meets the leading scientist. He opposes the cult’s methods but uses local resources for similarly devastating results. Meanwhile, Ida tries to make sense of the DNA tests of her and her father.  

Ida realizes some tests were made to check compatibility between her and someone local. Soon, she watches a video where her father helps Juliette give birth to a kid after she suffers intense pain. Based on her research, Ida believes Solal wanted to check if her DNA is connected to Caleb’s. Meanwhile, Jaro and Roméo drive to a psychiatric hospital to find themselves in chaos. Since Caleb escaped the hospital, Jaro calls Ida to warn about it. Right after, Ida notices Caleb entering Solal’s hospital room. Caleb locks the room from inside and tries to kill Solal. Meanwhile, an asylum nurse shows her real face as a devout follower of Caleb’s cult. She kills one of his followers. This woman is Hari’s mother.

Episode 5: A Darker Shadow

Before the hospital staff enters Solal’s room, Caleb escapes the hospital. Ida starts to realize something shocking about her past: she is Juliette’s daughter. Back then, since Juliette didn’t want her baby, Solal decided to take care of Ida. While he was leaving with her, the nurse started going under the influence of Caleb’s cult. After that, she impregnated herself with Caleb’s child and kept following the cult’s teachings. In the present, Jaro learns that Ida is his half-sister. He meets Solal to speak about what happened. Solal reveals he decided to find Caleb to save Ida’s life from her terminal disease. He met Caleb, but Caleb didn’t help as intended. Solal also met Jaro’s aunt Marie and spoke about Juliette and Ida. But Marie didn’t want to have anything to do with it. 

Jaro returns home to find Aunt Marie killed, presumably by a cult follower. Before that happened, she found an old audio recording in her house and listened to it. Gio’s son re-enters the mine tunnel with his friends. Inside, he finds Jaro’s daughter’s bracelet. Ida decides to end her life by jumping down a bridge. Caleb arrives there just in time to stop her. He saves her life and says that only she can protect Jaro’s. That’s when Jaro shows up at Gio’s house. In the heat of the moment, he kisses her. She stops the matter from going further.  

Erwan arrives there and shows Jaro’s daughter’s bracelet that his son found in the tunnel. So, Jaro panics and decides to go look for his daughter. Gio joins him in this search, despite Erwan’s opposition. Inside the cave, Gio and Jaro find dead bodies of people who went missing in the past. Suddenly, a masked person attacks both of them. Luckily, Erwan followed them along the way. So, he saves them from further attack. Meanwhile, Roméo shows up at Hari’s doorstep. Hari’s mother invites him in for dinner. Hari realises his mother’s sinister plan, but Romeo has no clue. So, he innocently walks in to learn the truth about her faith in the cult.  

Hari’s mother warns Romeo to stay away from her son, so Romeo leaves their house. Soon after, he re-enters it and goes to the basement. There, he finds the cult’s old records. He realizes that Hari’s mother left his sister in a cave while Hari lived his life with that painful knowledge. Eventually, Hari shows up in the basement and shoots Romeo out of fear for his mother.

Episode 6: The Point of Equilibrium 

Caleb brings Ida inside the cave claiming she should be there to save Jaro. In the cave, Jaro wakes up and sees a masked figure next to him. Ida hears Jaro’s screams. But Caleb stops her from running after them. Meanwhile, Hari leaves injured Romeo at the hospital to recover. While getting treated for her wounds, Gio notices Romeo being brought to the hospital. She confronts Hari about Romeo’s dreadful state. Hari warns her about the danger his mother/sister poses to everyone. He believes the scientists may have gotten close to the cult’s base during their research. So, Gio plans to go to Arcacia lab to remedy this issue. 

Anthracite (2024) ‘Netflix’ Limited Series Ending, Explained:

Inside the cave, Ida finds Jaro and tries to save him. Around that time, Hari’s mother, Faure, arrives in the cave. She speaks with Caleb about how she sacrificed her daughter for their cult’s belief system to survive. Suddenly, she notices Ida and attacks her. Faure’s daughter attacks Caleb and kills him. Meanwhile, Gio drives to the Arcacia lab to see a riot outside. So, she decides to drive the car through their gates to enter the lab. Inside, she decides to approach scientist Bachelard while Erwan fights the rioters. She meets Bachelard and stops him from blasting off the mines. 

Bachelard agrees to cooperate with Gio. He also reveals the specific tunnel where his scientists were recently attacked. But a rioter wrecks Gio’s plan. The bomb goes off resulting in dust and rubble in the tunnel. Jaro tries to find his way out with Ida and his daughter. Gio desperately attempts to locate them in the tunnel before it’s too late. Three weeks later, Hari gets imprisoned. Romeo leaves him for good. Ida plans to return home. Jaro tells her that he is compatible to save her life as her half-brother. 

What shocking truth does Jaro learn about Juliette?

After all the chaos, Ida heads home with Solal. Along the way, she realises that someone is desperately trying to reach her. At a gas station, she takes a call that reveals another shocking truth about her genetic lineage. According to it, Caleb cannot be her father. Back at Claude’s house, Jaro listens to the tape that his aunt Marie did before her death. Through that audio, Jaro learns a shocking truth: Claude raped his own sister, Juliette. Roxanne Vial tried to help Juliette from men like Claude and Caleb. But Claude did everything in his power to erase his connection to his monstrous crimes. 

Read More: Everything Coming To Netflix In April 2024

Anthracite (Netflix Limited Series) Links: IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes
Anthracite (Netflix Limited Series) Cast: Hatik, Camille Lou, Noemie Schmidt, Jean-Marc Barr, Kad Merad, Stefano Cassetti, Vincent Rottiers, Raphael Ferret

Where to watch Anthracite