Netflix’s Echoes Explained- Who Killed Dylan And What To Expect From Season 2?

Netflix’s latest guilty pleasure is Echoes, a complicated twister about two sisters who have been leading double lives. Leni and Gina(both played by Michelle Monaghan) are twins who lead very different existences. Gina lives in LA with her husband Charlie(Daniel Sunjata) and is a wealthy writer. Leni stayed in their hometown and married high school sweetheart Jack(Matt Bomer). They live on the family ranch, and she has one daughter Mattie. When Leni goes missing, Gina returns to Mt. Echo to find out what happened to her sister. What she finds instead is a lifetime of pent-up regret and anger.

The viewer is tricked into thinking Gina has come home to Mt. Echo to find her lost twin Leni. Echoes purposely tricks us into confusing the women, just as almost everyone else is tricked. Gina, who we later learn is Leni reminds herself of the part she is playing early on. By saying, “Back in this house where I am bad Gina” It could be the ruminations of someone who ran all the way to LA to avoid the stigma, but after what we find out later, it is a reminder to herself that she is playing the part of her sister.

Leni is the one we initially follow, playing the part of Gina. Leni is the one who saw her father drown her mother in the bathtub, push Claudia, and set the church on fire. Everyone in town thinks it was Gina, though. Since Mattie’s birth, the twins had been switching lives every year on their birthdays. It started to protect Mattie and allow Leni to heal after giving birth but later became a permanent fixture in their lives.

There are some questionable morals at play in this twister. The fact that the twins are having sex with each other’s spouses, and Charlie was once Gina’s therapist and, as we later find out, has known all about the switching and was all in are all red flags. Couple that with the hazy logic of only Charlie discovering the women’s deception, and you have to squint a little to watch Echoes. That doesn’t mean it isn’t an addictive sudsy thriller; that is exactly the kind of drivel Netlfix has recently gotten good at pumping out. Similar to Deadly Illusions, you know its trash tv, but you can’t stop yourself from watching.

What happens at the end of Echoes?

After all the reveals, the women have a showdown in the river. Gina has been unhappy for quite some time, having discovered everything Leni did over the years and, more recently, to control her. She knows Leni set the church fire, killed Dylan(Johnathan Tucker), and has had it with her. Gina blew up their lives by revealing their switching when it became apparent Leni would not be prosecuted for Dylan’s murder. Leni liked having two lives she could control. Gina wanted to be rid of her sister forever. This is why Gina had a plan to run off with Dylan and why she could leave everything behind. Mattie wasn’t her actual child, and when she discovered she was pregnant with Dylan’s baby, she knew she had to run.

She had been looking for a way out, having discovered her sister had pitched the idea of a book about her miscarriage to her publisher. At the same time, Gina also found Charlie’s journals detailing what he knew about the sisters. Feeling betrayed and angry, she made the switch to Leni. Fate intervened, and shortly after making the switch, she saw Dylan and knew she had a shot at happiness. After Dylan’s murder, her miscarriage, and her confrontation with Leni, Gina jumped over the falls. She survived the fall, though, and flew to Kansas. Leni runs off to Australia, but at least one of the twins returns to LA and Charlie at the end. Charlie wrote a new book about the two sisters proving he was just as selfish as he seemed. At a book reading, one of the twins is present and asks a question. Charlie asks the woman in his kitchen if it was her, and she denies it, but she could be lying. One or both of the women could be back in LA.

Does Gina or Leni survive in Echoes?

Both women survive their showdown at the falls. Gina jumped over the waterfall, hoping to sever her bond and connection to Leni once and for all. This is why she took all those free diving lessons. It was to prepare for this event. She had tried many times to separate herself from her sister. Gina didn’t want to be an extension of Leni. She wanted to be a distinct person independent from Leni. Leni had controlled most of what they had done their entire lives. She chose who would take the blame for Claudia’s accident. She always instigated each twin switch and asked her sister to switch clothes, ensuring she could not be prosecuted for the church fire that Leni set.

Leni preferred things the way they had always been, where both women shared the men and their lives. At first, it seemed like Gina’s idea to save Mattie when Gina suffered from postpartum depression. Although it is not implied, it is possible that everything that happened, from Gina’s miscarriage to Leni’s postpartum, could have been part of an elaborate ruse to guide Gina into switching lives permanently.

We know Leni encouraged sharing and switching from an early age and continued that trend with Jack until Dylan interfered. We also know Leni was a sociopath who schemed and had no problem sacrificing others for what she wanted. This is because of the trauma of seeing their father drown their mother. Their father knew one of the girls had seen but thought it was Gina. This is why he thought Gina did so many bad things as a child. It was actually Leni, though; whether or not seeing that event warped her is debatable.

Why did everyone think Gina was the bad twin?

Everyone thought Gina was the bad twin because Leni had convinced Gina to accept the blame for Claudia’s injury. Leni had pushed Claudia, though. She also perpetuated the idea that Gina was the bad twin by constantly propagating the belief while in Mt. Echo every other year as Leni. In reality, Leni was the bad one. Charlie describes her as impulsive and uninhibited because she did not fear consequences and did not care about others’ feelings. She pushed Claudia and set the fire in hopes of hurting or running Dylan off. The fact that the fire killed an innocent man is not important to her.

She manipulated Gina into keeping things going because she needed to be in control of everything all of the time. Leni told Gina the girls would get in trouble for switching; thus, this was the reasoning used to keep the lies going even into their teen years. Leni did not want to lose her sister to Dylan. Gina almost always deferred to her sister, who tricked the more passive twin into doing what she wanted. After the church fire, Leni regained control because she convinced Dylan to run away to deflect blame from Gina.

Gina wanted to escape Mt. Echo from childhood because everyone in town thought she was a bad seed. When she left to lead a wealthy, highly prominent life as a best-selling author in California, it confirmed what everyone in town already thought about her. They believed she was narcissistic and entitled because that was the image Leni wanted them to have. Although Gina did move away and become a writer, she was always the more caring, sensitive sister.

Leni only acted the part of the kinder sister. Part of Gina’s desire to move away from Mt. Echo was to get away from the town’s judgment and start fresh. Leni had a knack for convincing people that she cared about them while maneuvering them into doing things for her. This is hinted at in conversations with Claudia about who encouraged her to pursue Beau and flashbacks from their childhood.

Neither twin was pure. Gina participated in the switching for years, which meant that she had sex with Jack as Leni and allowed Leni to have sex with Charlie as Gina. Neither twin told Mattie about the switching, and Claudia and their father were also kept in the dark about the situation. Gina, who was living life as Leni, sold Ketamine for money and was casually involved in the horse theft that Jack was carrying out to save the ranch. Gina also had an affair with Dylan and planned to run away with him. Although the morality of switching is murky at best, everything she did with Dylan and Jack was out of love and desperation. she truly cared about Jack and Mattie and has loved Dylan since they were in high school. She wanted to escape Leni back then and still does now.

Who killed Dylan?

Proving she is capable of anything, Leni lured Dylan to the cabin, where she brutally stabbed him. Dylan’s grandmother alerted Gina to the trick and later helped her plant evidence in Leni’s truck to cause Sheriff Floss to arrest her for his murder. Gina did leave Dylan in his truck and set fire to it, but she did not kill him. We never see Leni kill Dylan, but it is assumed that she, rather than drug dealers or horse thieves stabbed him. Leni had always hated Dylan because she knew Gina loved him, which threatened her relationship with her sister. She could not risk losing control of her sister and their carefully orchestrated lives.

What could happen in Season 2?

The interesting thing is Charlie knew the difference between the women. Charlie, who is quite possibly the worst therapist on the planet, having entered into a relationship with his patient, knowingly participates in the yearly switches. He keeps detailed notes about the women and his feelings toward each woman he lives with. Not many doctors, or men, would play along. He not only goes along with it but also claims he stayed quiet because he wanted to give Gina the freedom to do what she needed to without judgment. Most people would agree this is not professionally or personally acceptable behavior.

Since we know both women escape from the law and flee to different places, we know they would both be available to continue messing with each other’s lives. A cunning cat and mouse between the two sisters would be fun to watch. Both Leni and Gina are angry and have reason to want the other to suffer. Leni still seems convinced she could have a relationship with Gina. If Echoes Season 2 happens, we might get a more intimate battle between the women.

Charlie has a sociopathic streak of his own. He could have an expanded role in Season 2. The fact that he capitalized on their pain is opportunistic at best. Charlie has been able to tell the two women apart in the past, but the closing moments indicate he may be in danger. If the woman who returned to him is Gina, she is out for revenge, unless Leni is angry that he wrote the book and kept journals about his deceptions. She has already killed one love of Gina’s. Would another be so hard?

Echoes is currently streaming on Netflix.