Helstrom Season One Ending Explained

At long last, Helstrom has arrived on Hulu, giving fans a comic-centric horror series right in the middle of spooky season. Now that bingers have had a chance to watch the series from front to end — including that explosive season finale — we wanted to break down what happened and what is to come next. Speaking of which…

Massive spoilers are incoming! Proceed with caution if you’ve yet to watch the entirety of the season.

Seriously. Big spoilers incoming.

Despite the proverbial crap hitting the fan throughout the duration of the show, things seem to be on the up and up by the end of the series. In fact, most of the show’s protagonists gather for a meal in the finale’s closing moments. With Victoria (Elizabeth Marvel) free and in the clear, she cooks tacos for Daimon (Tom Austen), Ana (Sydney Lemmon), Caretake (Robert Wisdom), and Louise (June Carryl). Easy enough to understand, right?

Here’s where things get murky.

In a quick montage, we see Gabriella (Ariana Guerra) has completely sworn off the Helstroms and anyone in their immediate circle. After all, who’s to blame her, right? She arguably went through more than anyone else in the entire season.

In this montage, we see Gabriella chumming it up with Esther (Deborah Van Valkenburgh) and Finn (David Meunier) as the trio drinks whiskey. Except, just moments earlier, Finn was possessed by a demon named Magoth. While this means Esther and The Blood could somehow be in a cahoots with the Underworld, there’s likely a much easier explanation.

It’s likely that instead of being killed by Daimon and Ana as implied, they simply killed the demon within and now, Gabriella has joined the group to rally against the Helstrom’s.

We take a brief time jump one month into the future as Chris Yen (Alain Uy) still watches over Kthara, the demon child Gabriella gave birth to. As we saw in the show, Gabriella came full-term in a matter of hours and we see Kthara age to about 10 years or so in the span of a month.

The two are about to hop on a ship when they’re approached by a strange man who wants to take Kthara. The man, played by X-Files alum Mitch Pileggi, reveals the child’s name isn’t really Kthara, after all. Rather, she goes by Lily, something that upsets the status quo for most fans of the comic characters involved in the show.

You see, Lily is all but guaranteed to be short for Lilith, the name of two separate characters in the Marvel comics lore. Here, we’re likely dealing with the one known as the Mother of All Demons, as opposed to Dracula’s daughter. A character first introduced opposite of Danny Ketch in Ghost Rider #28 (1992), Lilith gives birth to (and rules over) a group called the Lilin. Better yet, Lilith and the Lilin have had numerous run-ins with The Blood, the Midnight Sons, and the Darkhold Redeemers, all characters and groups very much written in the vein of this show.

Suddenly, everything’s just a little more clear. Throughout the whole season, the Helstrom’s have been battling the Lilin as opposed to just regular ol’ demons from Marvel’s spookier lore.

Lilith — or “Lily” in this case — only calls the man “Papa” and as they walk away, he mentions how they’re going to track down Lily’s brother and sister, a likely reference to Daimon and Ana. While it’s not expressly stated, it’s implied the man is none other than Marduk Kurios, the real father of the Helstrom siblings.

Helstrom is now streaming on Hulu.

Have you watched Helstrom yet? Let us know your thoughts on the show either in the comments section or by hitting our writer @AdamBarnhardt up on Twitter to chat all things Marvel!