Anna Kendrick makes her directorial debut in the Netflix film, which shifts between timelines, depicting Rodney's (Daniel Zovatto) interactions with various victims and his appearance as Bachelor No. 3 on The Dating Game.
According to Netflix's press notes for Woman of the Hour, Kendrick "wanted to find that balance between telling an emotionally satisfying narrative without glazing over the repeated miscarriages of justice that took place over the course of Alcala's killing spree."
The film's ending does just that: it highlights the bittersweet victory of a teenage runaway who manages to escape while acknowledging the haunting reality that Rodney would go on to kill again. In the final scene, the runaway exhales deeply, a moment that offers an ambiguous ending -- alluding both to her survival and the unsettling nature of Rodney's fate.
"That's the chord resolving at the end of Into the Woods, and then one last 'I wish' ringing out. Because there isn't a perfect resolution: That character has survived, but it's not as simple as 'She's going to be fine now.' It's meant to evoke dissonance at the very least," Kendrick told Tudum in October 2024.
Here's everything to know about the ending of Woman of the Hour, from why Amy asked Rodney to keep his attack on her a secret to what happened after Rodney's arrest.
The film builds suspense as viewers wonder if Sheryl (Kendrick), the aspiring actress and lead on The Dating Game who unknowingly chooses Rodney as her winning date, will become one of his victims, and what will happen to Amy, the teenager he picked up in San Gabriel, Calif.
After the dating show wrapped filming, Rodney and Sheryl go to a bar for a drink, where she grows suspicious and ends the date early, discreetly signaling the server to not bring another round. When she tries to leave, Rodney insists on walking her to her car. He asks for her phone number to stay in touch before their all-expenses-paid trip to Carmel, Calif. She gives him a fake number, but he catches on when she can't recite it.
Sheryl informs him that she won't be going anywhere with him and he proceeds to chase her to her car. Just as Rodney is about to attack her, crew members appear in the parking lot, prompting him to walk away and Sheryl to drive home unharmed but in tears.
The final scene shifts back to Amy's story line as she escapes from Rodney after an attack in the desert. She runs to hide in a nearby diner, watching as the police arrest him at a nearby gas station. She exudes a loud gasp -- a chilling final moment before the screen cuts to black and the end titles reveal Rodney's real-life fate.
According to Netflix's press notes for Woman of the Hour, Kendrick explained, "There's no happy ending with a story like this."
"So I hope the movie speaks to anyone who has made themselves small and pleasing because they were just trying to survive physically or financially or mentally. It's for those of us who have thought 'thank god I listened to my gut' and certainly for those of us who know the pain of thinking 'I wish I had listened to my gut,' " the actress added.
Despite being arrested by police, Rodney didn't remain in custody for long. As the screen cuts to black, viewers learn that in real life, Rodney was released on bail while awaiting trial. Once free, he continued his killing spree, murdering a 21-year-old woman and a 12-year-old girl.
Rodney was rearrested in 1979, as authorities began to uncover the extent of his crimes, which had gone unnoticed for over a decade despite reports from survivors and citizens. He was eventually convicted of seven murders, though some authorities estimate his actual victim count could be as high as 130.
After serving 31 years in prison, Rodney had a final chance for acquittal. However, the runaway teen (now an adult) appeared in court to testify against him and "put the nail in Rodney's coffin," according to the prosecutor.
Rodney died in incarceration on July 24, 2021.
In the film, Rodney picked up Amy in California by flattering her with compliments and asking if he could photograph her for a contest he wanted to enter. She agreed to accompany him to the desert for a photo shoot. Once there, he instructed her to turn around to face the light and look straight up at the sky. When she asked if he got the shot, he suddenly tackled her to the ground, and the scene cut to another timeline without showing what exactly happened.
The next time Amy is shown, she is waking up in the desert -- covered in blood and restrained by ropes -- to see Rodney hysterically crying next to her. Upon opening her eyes, her first words to him are, "Are you okay?"
She then asks him to do her a favor and keep the attack a secret, claiming she would be embarrassed by others' judgment. However, this was a ploy to regain his trust. Believing her, Rodney agrees to untie her from the ropes he had knotted around her wrists and take her home.
On the way home, he apologizes for being rough, and she assures him that everything is okay. When he stops at a gas station along the way to use the bathroom -- and wash Amy's blood off his hands -- she stays back in the car, seizing the opportunity to escape.
This scene is true to the real-life story, as the end titles reveal that a teenage runaway escaped Rodney by asking him to keep the encounter a secret on Feb. 14, 1979.
Amy had run away to a nearby diner and called for help, where she watched out the window as police arrived at the gas station and arrested Rodney.
Although Amy is a fictional character, she was based on the real-life story of a runaway teen who survived an encounter with Rodney, but whose identity remains undisclosed given that she was a minor at the time.
In real life, two young survivors -- Tali Shapiro and Morgan Rowan -- escaped Rodney a decade before he appeared on The Dating Game.
Tali appeared at Rodney's sentencing in 2010 and testified against him, which prompted Morgan to write her a letter over Facebook, apologizing for not reporting Rodney sooner. They went on to meet in person and build a relationship.
"It was just wonderful. We spent a couple days together. We were like sisters," Morgan told PEOPLE Magazine Investigates: Surviving a Serial Killer, which aired in May 2024.
The news of Rodney's death stirred mixed emotions for both women. Morgan, still haunted by her experience, told PEOPLE Magazine Investigates, "Sometimes when I close my eyes at night he's still there ... But I'll be OK."
Tali expressed relief after his death, telling The New York Times in July 2021, "The planet is a better place without him, that's for sure."
Following their parking lot encounter, Sheryl didn't go on the trip to Carmel with Rodney and never saw him again.
During a 2021 episode of 20/20, The Dating Game contestant coordinator Ellen Metzger recalled that the real-life Cheryl Bradshaw told the producers she couldn't go on a date with Rodney. "She said, 'Ellen, I can't go out with this guy. There's weird vibes that are coming off of him. He's very strange. I am not comfortable. Is that going to be a problem?' " Ellen said. "And of course, I said, 'No.' "
In the film, Sheryl is last seen packing her belongings for a move, telling her agent she's done with auditions and acting and standing up for herself one more time with her pushy neighbor.
"Ian and I were debating whether maybe there's a little bit of dialogue or a conversation between Sheryl and her neighbor at the end of the movie, and nothing was feeling right," Kendrick told Tudum in October 2024. "And Ian suddenly suggested like, 'Well, what if Sheryl just stands her ground in the hallway, and he has to move around her?' I think I threw my highlighter across the room -- I was so excited."
Kendrick added that she felt as though that scene in the hallway with her neighbor was a way of "illustrating the complexity of a victory that's small, but it's meaningful to that character."
As the end titles reveal, the real Cheryl left California to live a private life and raise a family.
Kendrick revealed to TODAY in October 2024 that Cheryl has since died and that in making and portraying her in the movie there are many things she wished she could have asked her, including "what it felt like for her to trust herself."
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