Woman of the Hour is just one of the latest exciting thrillers to arrive on Netflix this month in time for Halloween. The film, which serves as the directorial debut of star Anna Kendrick, offers a true story adaptation of a bizarre and terrifying encounter one woman had with a serial killer on the set of the hit 1970s game show The Dating Game. While critics have already hailed the film as a modern classic, and praised Kendrick for her excellent filmmaking prowess, fans of Woman of the Hour are likely still processing the film’s haunting ending. Luckily, we’ve got you covered, with a comprehensive guide to both the real-life story of the Dating Game Killer, as well as a deep dive into the themes and narrative devices employed in the film’s final moments.
Like many Hollywood productions, Woman of the Hour takes a few liberties with its retelling of the true story, though the film does manage to stick fairly close to the events that we know for sure. As always, please be advised that the following write-up will contain major spoilers for the film, so please feel free to bookmark this page and return later if you haven’t had the chance to watch through yet. It’s also worth noting that the film covers topics such as sexual assault, murder and abuse of children, so please consider this a formal trigger warning if these subjects are difficult for you to handle. With no further preamble, let’s dive right into Woman of the Hour‘s plot, and unpack the movie’s shocking ending.
What Happens in ‘Woman of the Hour’?
At the start of Woman of the Hour, audiences are introduced to Anna Kendrick’s Cheryl Bradshaw. The young woman is an aspiring actress with dreams of making it big in Hollywood, though her current career status sees her languishing in a frustrating series of nonstop auditions. One day, she manages to make a few TV connections after her agent pushes her to appear on The Dating Game, which promises to put her on camera. While Bradshaw recognizes that this could be a bold way to jump-start her on-screen career, she has reservations about appearing on the show at all, since she’s not particularly interested in going on a real date with the winner once the camera stops rolling. Still, Bradshaw eventually agrees to appear on the show, though she does so under protest, by developing a series of combative and leading questions for her male suitors.
In a shocking twist that neither Bradshaw nor the producers of The Dating Game could have realized during the production, one of the charismatic young men on the panel is Rodney Alcala, a convicted sex offender and undiscovered serial killer. As we later come to learn, Alcala has served time in prison for the kidnapping and sexual assault of multiple children, and has murdered a number of women before landing an on-camera gig for The Dating Game. As the plot of Woman of the Hour progresses, we see flashbacks and flash-forwards revealing Alcala’s heinous crimes, creating a growing sense of unease as he expertly answers Bradshaw’s questions, and is eventually chosen as the winner of the episode.
What Happens on Cheryl’s Date With Rodney?
As the 1978 episode of The Dating Game fades to the closing credits, Bradshaw feels that she must come forward to explain that she isn’t actually interested in dating Rodney Alcala, even though the studio is willing to cover an all-expenses-paid romantic evening. In real life, Bradshaw simply informed producers of the game show that she found Alcala to be “creepy” and never saw him again. Clearly, this would be a fairly anticlimactic way to end the feature film, so Woman of the Hour makes a bold change. In the movie, Bradshaw decides to let Alcala down easy, by going for a drink with him immediately after the show wrapped filming, and informing him politely that she isn’t interested in dating anyone for the time being.
Though the pair actually seem to exhibit a bit of chemistry, and Bradshaw goes above and beyond to be polite to Alcala, the sociopathic killer can’t seem to process rejection, leading to cracks in his charming facade. Alcala eventually walks Bradshaw back to her car in a highly menacing manner, and demands her number. When she gives him a fake, he drops the nice guy act entirely and threatens her with physical violence. Luckily, Cheryl is able to narrowly avoid Alcala’s violent ire long enough to escape, before ultimately deciding that she’s sick of trying to make it in the rough and ugly world of Hollywood productions. As in real life, the film concludes with Cheryl Bradshaw packing up her things and moving back home, but not before offering her a small win in the male dominated world, by standing up to her obnoxious and nosey neighbor.
How Is Alcala Eventually Caught?
Cheryl’s rejection of Rodney Alcala ignites the killer’s bloodlust in a more brazen way than ever before, sending him on a killing spree that lasts over a year. Eventually, he is caught when a teenage runaway outsmarts him and manages to call the police just before Alcala could take her life. Scenes of Alcala’s excursion with this young woman, Amy, are interspersed throughout the narrative of Woman of the Hour, demonstrating exactly how he lured his victims to their demise. After picking Amy up with the promise of photographing her for his portfolio, Alcala drives her to the middle of a remote desert and violently sexually assaults her. Normally, the killer would murder his victims immediately after such an encounter, though this time something is different. Amy wakes up in a daze following the assault to see Alcala crying, and prudently flips the script on him.
Rather than panicking, running away, or attacking Rodney, Amy feigns embarrassment and shame, almost gaslighting her abuser into believing that she chose to sleep with him against her better judgement. She coyly asks Alcala not to tell anybody about what happened, which lulls him into a false sense of security, and leads him to believe that she won’t go to the police. After making a pit-stop at a gas station on the way home, however, Amy runs for help, and eventually alerts the authorities. A few short hours later, Alcala is arrested, and his horrifying spree of assaults and murders is finally put to an end. Through Amy’s quick thinking and emotional maturity, she manages to exemplify the over-arching theme of Woman of the Hour, demonstrating a win for women in a male-dominated world.
‘Woman of the Hour’ Ending Explained
After Alcala’s arrest, Woman of the Hour concludes with a brief text scroll informing viewers of his many convictions and criminal sentencing. Eventually, Alcala was convicted of numerous murders, and sentenced to death before dying in a California prison at the age of 77. The film’s conclusion makes it clear that Alcala’s constant escape from justice over the years, and even his appointment to The Dating Game episode, were the result of massive oversights from authorities in both the legal and entertainment systems. Before he joined the show, Alcala was a known sexual predator who had already spent years in prison, which would have come up on a simple background check if any producers from The Dating Game had bothered to look. The killer was even listed among the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives in 1971, nearly a decade before appearing on national television.
Woman of the Hour makes it painfully clear that the plight of young women was significantly overlooked in the 1970s, to the point that a monster such as Alcala could be so emboldened to cross state lines and commit assaults and murders in over half a dozen states. In the decades since the killer’s conviction, DNA evidence has recognized Alcala as the perpetrator in dozens of additional crimes in states such as New Hampshire, New York, Washington, Wyoming, Arizona and others. He was also said to have volumes of photographs depicting nude children in sexually compromising positions, which he would proudly show off to his coworkers at the Los Angeles Times. Apparently his coworkers felt that these photographs were bizarre, but nobody felt it necessary to alert the police. Today, the LAPD and FBI say that many of the children in these portfolios remain unidentified, leaving them to believe that some of Alcala’s victims have not yet been discovered.
Will There Be a Sequel to ‘Woman of the Hour’?
Since Woman of the Hour perfectly wraps up the story arcs of all those involved with the narrative, it seems rather unlikely that Netflix will order a direct sequel. Still, the film has already proven to be a massive success in a very short period of time, so it seems like a no-brainer to bring Anna Kendrick and company back to work on additional projects. Maybe the director will provide a spiritual sequel with another film highlighting the plight of women at the hands of a male serial killer, or maybe she’ll go in a completely new direction with her sophomore effort. Either way, fans far and wide will surely be left chomping at the bit for her next outing, as evidenced by the immediate critical acclaim garnered by Woman of the Hour.
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