White Lies season 1 premiere ending explained: Who are the prime suspects for the murder?

White Lies season 1 premiere dropped for US and Canadian audiences on Thursday, December 5, 2024, months after it premiered in South Africa and other select regions. The South African crime thriller by Sean Steinberg kicked off its debut on Sundance Now and AMC+ with back-to-back episodes, bringing a wider understanding of the show's storyline.

Set in the wealthy neighborhood of Bishopcourt in Cape Town, South Africa, a wealthy construction man died in his luxury house. His wife was found unconscious with a hit in the head just a few feet from his dead body, while their two kids are nowhere to be found.

The dead man, Andrew, had an estranged sister, Edie Hansen, who was an investigative journalist. After hearing about his brother's murder, she got involved in his case. However, Edie's hunt for the truth took a turn when her nephews, Andrew's kids Daniel and Jamie, became prime suspects in the murder. Edie didn't believe it, but Detective Forty Bell was convinced that they killed their father.

Disclaimer: This article contains major spoilers for White Lies season 1 premiere. Reader's discretion is advised.

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White Lies season 1 premiere sees Daniel and Jamie become the prime suspects in their father's murder

Andrew's teenage kids, Daniel and Jamie, were the prime suspects for his murder in the White Lies season 1 premiere. Detective Forty Bell was convinced that they did it, and he only needed to find proof that they did it and how.

Jamie and Daniel in White Lies season 1 premiere (Image via Stan)

The first episode of White Lies didn't take too long to introduce the core tragedy that will be the heart of the entire series—Andrew's murder. Early in the episode, a gunshot wound was heard before showing his bloody, lifeless body on the floor of his luxurious home. A few feet away from him was his injured wife, Olivia, who was later revealed to be still alive but in a coma.

After the murder, Edie Hansen, being the last one that Olivia called, was asked to go to the crime scene. There, the series introduced her tense relationship with Detective Forty Bell because of a previous case. He didn't want her anywhere in the investigation, and in between their quarrels and Edie looking for clues in the crime scene, she saw a picture of Andrew's kids, her nephews. They were missing, but she found them hiding in the attic of an unused garden house.

When the two were questioned about what happened to their parents, they didn't have much information for the police, except that Daniel saw a black man during the murder. At that point, Forty asked them why they didn't call for help when they saw their father's dead body, to which Jamie replied that it was their father who told them to run and hide if anything ever happened. However, the detective was still suspicious.

Detective Forty Bell in White Lies season 1 premiere (Image via Stan)

He kept the kids in a holding cell because he was convinced that they were the murderers. Specifically, he thought that Daniel killed their father, and was not sure if Jamie was involved somehow or not. But when Edie intervened, the kids were eventually freed, until Forty Bell had them arrested again based on the testimony of their house helper, Pearl.

It turned out that Pearl told the detective that she saw Daniel pull the trigger and kill his father. She also claimed that she was on the run because the kids gave her money to stay quiet about what she saw. While she admitted later on in the White Lies season 1 premiere that she lied and that she never saw Daniel with the gun, Detective Forty Bell still believed Daniel to be the culprit.

Daniel and Jamie were freed, while the detective tried to look for clues that could implicate any of them. When retrieving the tapes from the security cameras didn't pan out, Detective Forty asked his men to look for the gun as he believed that Daniel had thrown it somewhere in the woods.

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Daniel is abducted at the end of White Lies season 1 premiere

Daniel gets abducted in White Lies season 1 episode 2 (Image via Stan)

While there wasn't any evidence or motives that pointed out Daniel as the murderer, it became evident that he's hiding something as the story progresses in White Lies season 1 premiere. He got multiple phone calls where he told the person in another line in hushed tones that he couldn't talk at the moment.

There was also a talk about them needing to get their money from Daniel. It appeared that Daniel was in some kind of trouble, which the final scenes of the White Lies season 1 premiere proved. He was seen in a park, wearing a hoody, and appeared to be waiting for someone.

A man suddenly appeared, asking him something before another man covered Daniel's head from the back. They carried him inside a van parked just a few meters away before they sped off.

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Edie's turbulent relationship with his brother is all over the White Lies season 1 premiere

Edie Hansen in White Lies (Image via Stan)

Edie and her brother, including her brother's family, didn't share a great relationship. She told in the White Lies season 1 premiere that they hadn't spoken in years. Moreover, Daniel and Jamie knew that she was working overseas. However, they didn't know much about her except that she supposedly hated their father's values.

Andrew's work colleague also said that he didn't know that Andrew had a sister, and the same went for the people Edie worked with. They didn't know that she had a brother and always thought that she was an only child.

Throughout the first two episodes of the murder mystery series, Edie's core memory of her brother was him encouraging her to jump saying he would catch her. It was unclear whether she jumped or not. The series also didn't provide the reason why she was seeing the same memory over and over again.

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White Lies season 1 premiere sees Edie helping with his brother's murder investigation

Edie helps in the investigation (Image via Stan)

The White Lies season 1 premiere showed how Edie Hansen would do everything to get to the truth. She's helped the investigation, much to Forty Bell's dismay, in many ways. For one, Edie was the one who personally looked for Pearl and found her trying to escape.

Edie also theorized different avenues to prove her nephew's innocence in the murder. In the last scenes of season 2, Edie was looking for a homeless man named Banjo. She'd been all over different places looking for him in case he saw something during the incident. Edie found Banjo in the mountain after he protected her from a thief.

During their conversation in the car, Edie asks Banjo what he saw. The man replied about seeing a "white boy."

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Catch the White Lies season 1 premiere, now streaming on Sundance Now and AMC+ for US and Canadian viewers with a subscription. New episodes will follow weekly on Thursdays.