Who killed Sara? The answer is far more complicated than it initially seemed. Over the past three seasons of the hit Netflix drama, different solutions to the central question have presented themselves: Was it Mariana, taking revenge on Sara for her affair with her husband? Was it Marifer, bitter over her long-lost half-sister’s abandonment? Was it the wrongfully imprisoned Álex after all? As it turns out — spoiler alert — the answer is none of the above. Or, is it all of the above?

So, who killed Sara in the end?

In the third and final season of Who Killed Sara?, we finally learn the truth: Sara didn’t die at all. Instead, her death was faked by sinister new villain Dr. Reinaldo (Jean Reno), who brought her to a top-secret facility to perform grotesque psychological experiments on her. But it doesn’t end there — Sara did eventually wind up dying by suicide after her extended torture at the hands of Reinaldo. Confused? Us too. So we had the show’s creator, José “Chascas” Valenzuela, break down the final episodes for us.

Jean Reno as Dr. Reinaldo in Who Killed Sarah?

Paulina Campos/Netflix

“I knew exactly how and why Sara died even before writing the first episode for the first season,” Valenzuela tells us. “Because the only way you can write a series of this kind, where the story is fragmented and the pieces of the puzzle are all over the place, is [by] keeping the image of the full puzzle in mind before breaking it up, you know?” 

According to Valenzuela, images like Reinaldo and Sara in the hallway of the Medusa Project were running through his head from the very beginning — and he never shook them. Another unexpected element of the finale that was always in the cards for Valenzuela is César’s arc. The new season sees him helping Álex to take down Reinaldo and ultimately taking the fall for the young man he once framed for murder. 

“One of the reasons why César was so evil in Season 1 was precisely because the more evil a character is at the start of the story, the more interesting their arc will be,” Valenzuela says. “I needed César to start off really evil and then have a lot to work with over the three seasons, and turn the needle from absolute evil in Season 1 to César’s final redemption, where he still had to pay for his crimes.”

Alejandro Nones as Rodolfo Lazcano in Who Killed Sara?

Paulina Campos/Netflix

Despite this, not everything Valenzuela had originally planned made it through to the final draft. Rodolfo’s tragic death in Season 3 was supposed to happen in Season 2, until Valenzuela decided he needed more to do. When Rodolfo finally sacrifices himself for Sara’s daughter, Lucia, he finds his own redemption — and, in his final moments, even gets to see Sara again through Lucia’s eyes.

As for Sara’s finally revealed killer, Valenzuela has a slightly different interpretation. One of his inspirations for the series was Fuenteovejuna, a play by the Spanish playwright Lope de Vega. In it, a group of villagers in the town of Fuenteovejuna kill a villainous military leader; when they are confronted and asked who committed the crime, they respond simply, “Fuenteovejuna,” taking the collective blame. According to Valenzuela, the same is true in Who Killed Sara?, whether or not the characters know it. 

Ximena Lamadrid as Sara Guzmán in Who Killed Sara?

Paulina Campos/Netflix

“One of the things I wanted to state in Season 3 was that Sara was ultimately killed by everyone,” Valenzuela says. “Sara was killed by Reinaldo in his obsession to experiment on her, but she was also killed by the Lazcano family, by César’s abuse of her, by the betrayal of her friend Marifer, by her mother’s indolence being unable to help her in time. In the end, they all killed her.” 

In her final moments, Sara tells Reinaldo, “The only thing you need is me,” and takes her own life. “That was her last stand as an individual,” Valenzuela continues. “It was her last act of separating herself from that pain that the whole world was causing her.” It’s a tragic ending, but the show finds room for hope in its final moments at Sara’s grave. She may be gone, but life continues.

This interview has been edited and translated from Valenzuela’s original Spanish.