Butterfly has from the very first episode left the fans with knots in their stomach, and the finale of Season 1 proved just that. The ending shows David walking into a horrifying scene: his wife Eunju bleeding on the bathroom floor. And Rebecca? Rebecca is nowhere to be seen or found.
Did Rebecca kill her stepmother, or is there more to the story? The show plants enough breadcrumbs in the minds of the audience for a case to be made on both sides, making this cliffhanger one of Butterfly's boldest moves yet.
Why suspicion immediately falls on Rebecca in Butterfly
Rebecca's going missing suddenly right after Eunju's stabbing in Butterfly is more than enough to make anyone assume the worst-case scenario. For David, who has only just made his way into reconnecting with his daughter, what he sees is devastating.
All throughout the season, Rebecca has had the scars of her upbringing under Juno, shaped from a sweet child into a deadly assassin who knows very little beyond all of the violence. While she chose to take sides with David over Juno in the end, her impulses? They were never fully erased.
This duality is why fans can't shake the possibility that Rebecca really did lash out and crash at Eunju.
The show had spent enough time highlighting her uneasiness with the idea of living a normal life. Every time David talked about new beginnings and a safer future, Rebecca's discomfort was somehow clear. She isn't built for family dinners and suburbs, and part of her seemed aware of that.
If at all she did kill Eunju, it may have been less about hatred and more about an unaware rejection of the life her father was trying to hand her.
At the same time, the suspicion still stays because of Rebecca's complicated loyalties. Even though she turned her back on Juno, that bond never fully disappeared. Sparing Juno's life at the end was proof that her old mentor still had a pull on her heart.
Could Eunju's death have been Rebecca's way of choosing Juno all over again, or even following through on a plan arranged before Juno vanished from the picture?
That's the fear the finale leaves behind, and why the camera deliberately lingers on David's anguished expression; his faith in Rebecca was always fragile, and this betrayal seems almost believable.
Why Rebecca may not be guilty after all
On the flip side, Butterfly's finale also plants strong evidence that Rebecca isn't the villain of this twist. Just before following Eunju into the washroom, Rebecca seems to notice something suspicious about a waiter. That detail changes everything.
It's entirely possible that Eunju was attacked by someone Juno sent, and Rebecca either chased the assailant or was overpowered in the struggle. Her absence could be a desperate attempt to catch the attacker, rather than a sign she committed the crime herself.
There's also the matter of her growth throughout this season of Butterfly. While Rebecca has blood on her hands from her assassin past, the show took care to show her empathy too. She convinced David not to kill Juno, reminding him they were "not that kind of people," even after years of conditioning to see death as normal.
Sparing Juno wasn't just about loyalty, but rather it was a glimpse of Rebecca trying to hold onto her humanity. That doesn't line up with the idea of her murdering Eunju without reason.
Eunju's death may also represent something bigger for Rebecca's arc in Butterfly. All the parental figures in her life are stripped away by the finale as Juno lets her go, David's trust is shattered, and Eunju is gone.
If she didn't kill her stepmother, then she's truly alone for the first time. That loneliness, rather than cold-blooded murder, may be what the finale is setting up for Season 2.
Butterfly's final scene leaves us dangling between two truths: either Rebecca betrayed her father in the most brutal way, or she was caught in a fight she couldn't control.
The ambiguity is the point, and it forces both David and viewers to confront how little we truly know about Rebecca's loyalties. Whether guilty or not, her absence will define what comes next, ensuring Butterfly Season 2 begins in chaos.
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Also read: Butterfly Episode 1: What do we know about Caddis? Details about the secret agency, explored