'I, Jack Wright's Season Finale Pulls the Ultimate Bait & Switch

Well, well, well. The biggest surprise of the I, Jack Wright finale isn’t who killed the titular character. It’s that the whole thing ended with a “to be continued.” WHAT? Apparently, the greatest trick the devil (and Chris Lang) ever pulled was getting us to believe I, Jack Wright was a limited series. 

Let’s recap: Jack Wright, a millionaire on his third wife, dies. At first, it looks like he committed suicide, but detectives Morgan and Jones quickly realize Jack was murdered. What’s worse for the family members left behind is that a few months before he died, Jack totally changed his will. (Don’t you hate it when that happens?) He left nothing to his current wife and youngest son, very little to his other sons, and everything (£15 million plus controlling shares in his corporate empire) to his granddaughter Emily.

We all (naively, it turns out!) thought that the killer would be revealed in this sixth episode. While lots was revealed, very little of it was satisfying to viewers who invested six hours of their lives in this (decidedly not limited!) series. At least now it makes sense why the show spent so much time on DCI Morgan’s home life. His wife has apparently abandoned him and his children. But in this episode, she calls to tell him, “I’m home and I want the kids back.” So I guess that’s also something that will be addressed in the show’s second season.

The first season finale played out as the courtroom case to overturn Jack’s will unfolded. Let’s take a look at where everyone who is still a suspect ends up at the end of the (First! Season!) finale episode and who is definitely innocent. 

The episode ends with Rose walking into the police station and saying, “It was me. I killed Jack Wright.” 

Even though Rose was my number one pick for the killer (she was just too nice), this confession is deeply unsatisfying because we don’t know if she is confessing because she actually killed Jack or if she is confessing to protect her beloved granddaughter Emily, who has been arrested on charges that she solicited murder. What we do know is that Rose has already taken out a loan and transferred her funds to the young cancer patient she met in chemotherapy. 

Her fiancé, Bobby, remains worried. What if she doesn’t get the money Jack promised her? What if the court overturns Jack’s revised will?  “Trust me. It will be fine,” she tells him. Her bequest from Jack gets reduced to £100,000. So I’m not so sure it’s going to be fine, actually. 

As for her eldest son, Gray tells the absolutely tragic story of how his life with addiction began. He was 13, spending the weekend with his father. But Jack was in the bedroom with his new girlfriend, leaving Gray to have dinner with the groundsman and his son. After dinner, the son offered Gray a joint. The kicker? This all went down on Christmas Day.

More importantly, Gray’s bank statements reveal that he was at a pub seven miles from his dad’s house the night he died.  When questioned by DCI Morgan, he asks “Can we cut to the fucking chase please?” “I’d love to. Did you kill your father?” Morgan responds. But Gray crashed his car that night and jumped the barrier, catching a train home. CCTV cameras confirm this. He’s still not a great father, but he’s also not a killer.

Gray is happy because the court finds in his favor and awards him (and his brother John!) £5 million each of their father’s money. Also, if we're going to Season 2, he won't be the one going down for murder.

When questioned in court, Sally’s lawyer refers to her as a “nepo baby.” And he’s not wrong. Emily’s US-based start-up company is currently valued at $4 million. But the police have grown increasingly suspicious of Emily and her relationship with Reuben. Emily starts off by answering “no comment” to every question Morgan and Jones ask. But confronted with the fact that the police found burned clothes in Reuben’s apartment, Emily tells Morgan and Jones that when she was 13 years old, her grandfather inappropriately touched her while she was sleeping. Once she pretended to stir, he moved away and stopped. 

It was a moment that changed her life forever. She avoided him from that moment on until she finally confronted him six months before his death. “I needed him to acknowledge it - what he had done to me, what he had taken,” she says. Instead, Jack does what he always did — attack, humiliate, deny. They got into a physical altercation, which is where the bloody clothes were from. They are her clothes, not Reuben’s. 

“Reuben Maguire did not kill my grandfather, and I most definitely did not ask him to,” she says. Reuben also takes the “no comment” approach to his questioning by the police. But the evidence against him is overwhelming. A fake alibi, burned clothes, and a gun. 

It’s an awful, terrible, and sad story, but Morgan and Jones are not quite sure she is telling the truth. Her cut of the will gets reduced to £5.4 million. Meanwhile, Reuben is arrested on charges of murder, but since this is only Season 1, that's evidence enough that he's going to wind up innocent (of this charge, at any rate).

Sally told Emily she was concerned that Jack might not be Josh’s father. That was a bad mistake because Sally is confronted with this fact in the courtroom. That’s the information Emily told Jack’s lawyer about in the penultimate episode. The ironclad prenup she signed said she gets nothing if she commits adultery. So the judge upholds Jack’s will, and Sally still gets nothing. 

Although now we know why Sally is talking to viewers from prison. “I did kill a man,” she says. Certainly implying that she killed Arnaud. We still don’t know who Josh’s father is, but it’s clearer than ever that this is a traumatic memory for Sally. 

Even though Arnaud now plays the role of a savvy, sophisticated businessman, he has not come that far from his criminal roots, sneaking into Sally’s home in the middle of the night. “I saw you lost your case, you dumb b*tch.” He tells her he still wants the £3 million she promised to invest in his company. She must have other assets she can sell. “It doesn’t end well for people who don’t take me seriously,” he says. 

(And to think, at the start of the series, I thought they were having an affair.)

“You betrayed Josh and me for money. How does that even feel?” Sally asks Emily. Josh is not pleased to have the fact that Jack is not his father on such public display. “Did you not ever think about how it would be for me, mom? Having everything revealed in a f*cking courtroom to the whole world?” he asks her.

John looks into his finances and discovers “multiple withdrawals” from his account over the last five years. That’s a real problem because he hasn’t taken any money from the account. Turns out Georgia has a massive gambling problem and has not only drained both their accounts, but she’s also mortgaged the house “to the hilt.” That’s the final nail in their not-so-great marriage. 

Meanwhile, Georgia’s big secret is that she and Mary, Jack’s house manager,  have been having an affair for almost five years. Mary ended things when Georgia asked her to go into Jack’s office and find copies of his will. But it was Mary who was in the car with Georgia the night of Jack’s death. “I had never seen her like that before. She seemed desperate,” Mary says. She dropped Mary off at the Wright estate. But did Georgia go home, or did she hang around to kill Jack? 

“I think we both just married the wrong person,” John tells his soon-to-be ex-wife. “I wish you happiness, George, I really do.” On the positive side for John and Gray, the judge finds things in their favor, deciding that both deserve money. Additionally, John finds a way to move £1.7 million of the company’s money into his account. But we can at least rest easy that neither of Jack Wright’s boys did it.

STILL MISSING. How ridiculous is that? Like, what was the point of bringing this character up in the first place? UNLESS she shows up in Season 2..... 

To Be Continued.....

At the top of the episode, Sally tells viewers that the moral of the story is “trust no one.” That warning must also include the series, which we trusted to tell us who the killer was before the end of the season. 

All episodes of I, Jack Wright Season 1 are available to stream on BritBox in the U.S. Season 2 has not yet been greenlit.

Chris Lang's other popular series, Unforgotten, returns with Season 6 on most PBS stations on Sunday, August 24, 2025. Seasons 1 through 5 are available for members to stream on PBS Passport.