Below Ending Explained: What Happens to the Squid, and Is There a Season 2?

Spoiler warning: this covers all six episodes of Below, including the final scene.

The Below ending explained in one line: Calvin Penney stops trying to kill the sea creature and saves her instead, towing her egg sac out to deep water before the military can bomb Snook’s Arm harbour. The real villains turn out to be the Crockers, not the squid. Then, in the last few seconds, Calvin looks out at a sea full of new icebergs. Here is how the Netflix limited series gets there, with the Below ending explained step by step, plus where things stand on a season 2.

The official Below trailer, from Netflix’s YouTube channel.

What is Below about?

Below is a six-episode Netflix limited series created by Jesse McKeown, released on October 8, 2026. Josh Hartnett plays Calvin Penney, a struggling fisherman in Snook’s Arm, a dying fishing village in Newfoundland.

As a boy, Calvin’s family was forced off their island, Little Pot Rock, and towed their house across the sea. On the way, something dragged the house under with his father inside, and Calvin cut the rope to save the rest of the family. He has blamed himself ever since.

Decades later he is a widower living with his son Wade (Charlie Heaton), while his other two children, Mary (Ruby Stokes) and Jay (Rohan Campbell), come home just as the trouble starts. There is a vote on whether locals should take a buyout and leave the island, and something in the water is attacking the town. Calvin teams up with Fonda Howander (Mackenzie Davis), a marine biologist from the mainland, to find out what it is.

What is the creature in Below?

It is a giant deep-water cephalopod: a huge, highly intelligent squid that the people of Little Pot Rock call “Mudder”. She is not hunting the town out of spite. Her mucus spread into the melting icebergs and from there into the local water. Anyone who drinks it gets a terrible thirst and an urge to walk into the sea, which is how she draws in prey. That is also why the ice Calvin tries to sell early on is turned away as “bad ice”.

Wade gets it worst. He is marked with a circular scar and haunted by the Old Hag of Newfoundland folklore, who turns out to be Maggie, the daughter of Calvin’s childhood friend Walton Budgell. Walton’s family secretly stayed on Little Pot Rock and made a deal with Mudder: she brings them fish, and they feed her people in return. Wade finally chooses his father over Maggie, and the two escape.

Who is the real villain in Below?

On Little Pot Rock, Calvin finds an old mining permit. The Crockers, the merchant family led by Jim Crocker (Frank Moore), pushed people off the island decades ago to get at the cobalt and copper underneath it, and the same seam runs under Snook’s Arm. Jan (Natasha Henstridge), who is running the resettlement vote, is Jim’s daughter.

So the “curse” Calvin has carried all his life was never his fault. The Crockers rigged the resettlement then and are rigging the vote now, using Mudder as the bogeyman. Netflix’s own breakdown on Tudum quotes Hartnett calling the discovery the release of Calvin’s guilt.

Below ending explained: saving Mudder’s eggs

In the finale, Snook’s Arm is under a mandatory evacuation. With Jim Crocker pushing them, the military plans an air strike on the creature, which would also wreck the harbour and stop anyone moving back. Fonda works out why Mudder has been so aggressive: her egg sac is stuck inside the giant iceberg in the harbour, and the water there is too warm for her young.

Calvin and Wade jump off the evacuation helicopter, and the rest of the Penneys follow. Mary and Wade shoot the iceberg so it breaks apart, and Calvin nets the chunk holding the egg sac and tows it out to deep water. Back on shore, Fonda refuses to call him off, and punches Jan when she grabs for the radio.

Out at sea, Calvin cuts the rope between his boat and the net. It is the same choice he made as a boy, but this time it sets something free instead of losing someone. He meets Mudder’s blue eye one more time and leaves her in peace. That is the heart of the Below ending: the man who wanted revenge on the creature ends up protecting her.

What happens to Mudder and her babies?

It is not a happy ending for the squid. Fonda says in one of the final scenes that the water was too warm and none of the young survived, adding that it is only getting warmer. Several recaps also report that Mudder dies on the ocean floor after releasing her eggs.

There is one loose end that the Below ending never explained. Earlier, Fonda cuts open an egg she chipped out of the ice, and the baby squid inside is still alive. In the panic it slips into what looks like a freezer, she shuts the lid, and the show never comes back to it.

The Below final scene explained: what do the icebergs mean?

Life in Snook’s Arm picks up. The resettlement vote is thrown out, the Crocker name comes off the shopfronts, and the Penneys open the Big Squid Distillery. Fonda stops by, and she and Calvin agree to meet later. Mary hears the Crockers are already pushing for another vote.

Then Calvin and Wade head out on the boat and find the sea full of new icebergs. At the start of the show, icebergs meant money to Calvin. Now, McKeown told Tudum, Calvin “doesn’t see dollar signs” any more. The creator ties the image to climate change: more ice is melting, and nobody knows what else is frozen inside it.

Will there be a Below season 2?

Not so far, and it is the first question most people have once they get the Below ending explained. Netflix has not renewed Below, and it was made and billed as a limited series. McKeown has called it a complete story, and Hartnett has said he does not think there are plans for more. It has done well, though, topping Netflix’s global TV chart, and the freezer squid plus a sea full of icebergs leave an easy door open if Netflix wants one.

What critics and viewers think

Critics have mostly liked it. Below sits in the low 80s on Rotten Tomatoes and at 69 on Metacritic, and Hartnett’s performance gets the most praise. Viewers are cooler on it, with the audience score around 60%, and a common complaint is that the story loses steam towards the end.

Our take

With the Below ending explained, here is where we land: it was a mixed watch for us. There is a lot to like, but we came out of it somewhere between the critics and the audience score.

As for that last shot, we read it as a deliberate setup for season 2, not just a climate message. A live baby squid in a freezer and a sea full of fresh icebergs are hard to read any other way, whatever Netflix calls the show.

If you want more small-town mystery horror, our list of shows like FROM is a good place to start.

Image credits: iceberg still (c) Netflix and still of Charlie Heaton (c) Netflix, photo by Jan Thijs, both via Netflix Tudum; trailer from Netflix’s official YouTube channel. All used for editorial commentary. Below is a Netflix series; all rights belong to Netflix.

Sources: Netflix Tudum, TV Insider, JustWatch, Netflix Life, BollywoodShaadis, MEAWW, ComingSoon, Comic Basics, Fiction Horizon.