After eight weeks of watching Amy Adams drink, drive, cry, and make questionable life choices, we finally know the identity of the Wind Gap killer. I’m warning you now, there are major spoilers below. Seriously, don’t read on if you haven’t watched the final moments of Sharp Objects.

Spoilers below:

Just when you thought you had it all figured out—Adora is the killer!—the last 10 seconds of the finale threw a huge curveball and revealed that Amma was actually the one who had killed Natalie Keene and Ann Nash.

To be clear, Adora did kill her daughter Marian by slowly poisoning her decades ago. And she had almost delivered the same fate to Camille and Amma before she was arrested and charged with murder. But in a blink-and-you-missed-it twist, the culprit behind the present-day murders in Wind Gap was Amma.

HBO

Eliza Scanlen as Amma in Sharp Objects

Let’s back up a bit. So, after Adora had been taken to prison for killing Marian, Amma went to live with Camille in St. Louis and things seemed to be going well despite all the chaos and trauma they’d both endured at the hands of their mother. That is, up until Camille looks at Amma’s (extremely creepy) dollhouse and finds human teeth hidden inside it—yes, the same teeth that had been pulled out of the mouths of Natalie and Ann, Amma’s former classmates. When Camille looks up, horrified, to find Amma standing in the doorway, Amma reverted back to her “innocent” persona and said, “Please don’t tell Mama.” And that was it.

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If you stuck around through the credits, there's a brief—but absolutely horrifying—montage sequence of Amma committing the murders with the help of her friends/accomplices Kelsey and Jodes. Kelsey and Jodes's involvement is worth noting, because it explains how there was enough physical power to pull out Natalie and Ann's teeth.

The last scene before the credits is probably worth a re-watch, because there’s a good chance you missed the hint that Amma had also killed her new friend, Mae (who is named Lily in Gillian Flynn's novel), in St. Louis. Mae’s mother asks Camille if she’d seen her daughter, and mentioned that Mae and Amma had gotten into an argument. Well, now it’s pretty obvious what happened.

In a frustrating creative choice, viewers don’t get a clear explanation of why Amma killed Natalie, Ann, and Mae. In the book, the ending is almost as abrupt, but you learn that it was the extra attention that Adora gave to Natalie and Ann that drove Amma to kill them. When Adora decided to tutor Natalie and Ann as a way to attempt to control their rebellious behavior, Amma couldn't handle the fact that Adora wasn't doting on her constantly. And it was Camille's affection for Mae that led Amma into her third jealous, murderous rage.

Gillian Flynn's novel offers some further insight into Amma's psyche with Camille's guesses on Amma's motive:

As for the teeth, she took the teeth only because she needed them. The dollhouse had to be perfect, just like everything else Amma loved.

I think there is more. Ann and Natalie died because Adora paid attention to them. Amma could only view it as a raw deal. Amma, who had allowed my mother to sicken her for so long. Sometimes when you let people do things to you, you're really doing it to them. Amma controlled Adora by letting Adora sicken her. In return, she demanded uncontested love and loyalty. No other little girls allowed. For the same reasons she murdered Lily Burke [Mae]. Because, Amma suspected, I liked her better.

Camille’s story is left up in the air in the show, but in the book, she moves in with her editor, Curry, and his wife after Amma’s arrest in an effort to finally experience a healthy home life. And good lord, after all this, she needs it.

As of now, there aren't any plans from HBO to move forward with a second season, and Gillian Flynn hasn't written any additional source material. That's probably for the best. Do we really need to see Amma's life behind bars? Let's all just focus on how great Amy Adams's Emmys speech is going to be.

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