WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for The Innocents Season 1, now streaming on Netflix.
Netflix's supernatural drama The Innocents is a modern Romeo and Juliet, focusing on two teens, Harry (Percelle Ascott) and June (Sorcha Groundsell), who set out to escape their troubled home lives. However, en route to London their plans go awry when June makes the terrifying discovery she's that she's a shape-shifter, able to assume the appearance of others.
This occurs on the road when the two are confronted by the mysterious Steinar (Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson), who attempts to abduct June back to a Norwegian island where his employer Bendik Halvorson (Guy Pearce) and June's estranged mother Elena (Laura Birn) want to help perfect her ability. The season finale finally brings them all together, but delivers shocking revelations, changing everyone's life in the process.
Their time in London is a disaster, with June being badly influenced by fellow shifter Kam (Abigail Hardingham). Harry returns home, while June meets up with Halvorson to head to the island. Kam sees this, however, and is startled, which leads to a chase by Steinar, who has clearly recognized her. Kam ends up in her apartment with the Steiner attempting to snatch her, but not before she calls Harry and warns him to fetch June, as Halvorson is not what he seems.
Harry eventually shows up on the island with June's father John (Sam Hazeldine) to bring her back home. However, June doesn't want to leave, as she's finally reunited with Elena, a fellow shifter. As the tension builds, Halvorson secretly locks Harry in a cell, and tells everyone he took off in the night, while trying to get Elena and the rest other shifters he's treating -- his lover Runa (Ingunn Beate Øyen) and another runaway called Sigrid (Lise Risom Olsen) -- to encourage John to leave.
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Events take an even more sinister turn when a loudspeaker recording of a treatment session forces Halvorson to head to his lab. Everyone follows him, and they find Steinar there, holding a gun, playing recordings of Halvorson's earliest sessions. They paint Halvorson as a monster, confirming all he wanted was to find the next evolution in shifters: a unique one who can literally absorb memories and become the person they shift into -- aka June.
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Shockingly, the recordings reveal the early test subject is Kam, who's really Runa's daughter Freya. Steinar was used as part of the shock therapy, which drove Kam to flee to London. Sadly, Runa remained with Halvorson, abandoning her daughter.
Steinar has had enough of being an accomplice, and a brawl ensues in which Halvorson takes Steinar's shotgun and kills Sigrid. He locks them all in a room and holds June hostage, wanting her to shift into Runa so that she'd become her permanently, thus giving him back the love of his life. Harry eventually breaks free and beats down the doctor, with Runa then turning the shotgun on her lover. As everyone escapes, Steinar comes to Runa, revealing he's actually Freya. She shifted after presumably besting Steinar at her apartment and came to rescue June. Runa, heartbroken over how she betrayed her daughter, kills Halvorson to finally end the vicious cycle of experimentation.
Sadly, Freya still can't forgive her, and leaves her alone on the island, returning to her life as Kam. Harry, June, Elena and John head home, but Elena has to turn herself over to Harry's mom, Christine (Nadine Marshall), and her police department, as she fled three years before due to a string of shifting accidents that left five people catatonic -- including Harry's dad, Lewis -- in an incident referred to as "the Pennines Five."
Harry knows June will be apprehended as well, and so they flee, only to crash their car in the woods. June is mortally wounded but Harry begs her to shift into him so she can heal. But as they're doing this, Christine finds them, grabs June and botches the transfer. June, who's transitioning into Harry, instead ends up turning into Christine, and then has to fight back to return to her true self.
Seeing as this interrupted shift didn't allow her the chance to completely transition into Harry, the young man ends up permanently catatonic -- the same thing that happened to his father on the night when Elena lost control of her powers. Christine is now forced to relive this tragedy, as she and June look on at Harry's near-lifeless body.
Now streaming on Netflix, The Innocents Season 1 stars Sorcha Groundsell as June McDaniel, Percelle Ascott as Harry Polk, Sam Hazeldine as John McDaniel, Nadine Marshall as Christine Polk, Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson as Steinar, Laura Birn as Elena Askelaand, Ingunn Beate Øyen as Runa Gundersen, Arthur Hughes as Ryan McDaniel, and Guy Pearce as Bendik "Ben" Halvorson.