Unfamiliar Ending Explained: Who Starfish Really Is

Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for Unfamiliar season 1.

While the Netflix spy series Unfamiliar features a shocking twist ending, not all the show’s lingering mysteries are answered in this denouement. After 2025’s breakout hit The Asset and 2024’s acclaimed Black Doves, 2026 is already shaping up to be another big year for espionage thrillers on the streaming service.

Unfamiliar is a German spy thriller that shocked the world by beating both Bridgerton and The Lincoln Lawyer to Netflix’s number one most-watched spot in February 2026. Although The Lincoln Lawyer season 4 dominated the streaming service a few days beforehand, Unfamiliar’s twisty story saw the spy show outdo the legal drama’s fourth outing shortly after.

Unfamiliar’s plot focuses on a seemingly normal German couple, Meret and Simon, who harbor a dark shared secret. The pair were previously spies for the German foreign intelligence agency, the BND, before a disastrous mission in Belarus altered the course of their lives 16 years earlier. There, Meret and Simon’s attempts to bring Russian officer Josef over to the BND went awry.

Ben Is Starfish In Unfamiliar’s Ending

Unfamiliar’s ending finally explains the links between Meret, Simon, Josef, and the couple’s daughter, Nina. It turns out that the BND told Meret and Simon to get Josef onside with the German intelligence agency by getting him into a romantic relationship with another BND agent, Katya.

Before readers can note that this backstory mirrors The Asset’s plot, this German spy thriller throws a twist into proceedings. Simon and Meret’s plan works too well, as Josef soon gets Katya pregnant. When he finds out she is a BND agent who was paid to seduce him, Josef tries to kill her for this betrayal.

In Unfamiliar’s ending, Josef learns that Katya is still alive. Meanwhile, while Simon and Meret are on the run from the Russian agent with Nina, they realize that a mole in the BND has to be the one who keeps updating Josef’s hitman Jonas about their hiding places. At first, it seems like the BND Alice is the guilty party, but this turns out to be a red herring.

Instead, it is the BND’s new head, Ben, who has been informing Josef all along, as he is secretly the mole known as “Starfish.” To cover his tracks, Ben kills Alice, and, after learning the latest location of Simon and Meret, arrests the couple for the murder of Josef’s hired hitman, Jonas.

Josef’s Fate Is Left Ambiguous In Unfamiliar

Josef is the one who really killed Jonas, although his own fate is left a mystery in Unfamiliar’s ambiguous ending. Josef spends the entirety of Unfamiliar trying to hide the truth about his past from his wife, Vera, who has recently been appointed as Russia’s ambassador to Germany.

Josef rightly fears that this sudden, high-profile appointment will result in increased scrutiny about his past, but he assumes his wife knows nothing of his brief dalliance with the BND. However, in another twist from Unfamiliar’s ending, Vera and her father reveal that they know all about Josef’s past, including the shocking revelation that he is Nina’s father.

Nina was the child Katya was forced to give up, and her existence makes Josef a liability to Vera. As a result, her father orders his execution, but viewers don’t see Josef get shot or die. As such, there is no knowing whether he will survive to see a second season of the series if Unfamiliar returns.

Simon and Meret Lose Nina At the End

For a brief period, it looks like Simon and Meret have escaped from their dark past without any consequences. Josef’s attempts to hunt them fail and end with his potential death at the hands of Vera’s father’s hitman, while Simon and Meret are forced to tell Nina the truth about their past as BND agents before facing down their old enemy.

Well, most of the truth. Simon and Meret don’t tell Nina that Katya is her real mother and Josef is her father, and this comes back to bite them. While Simon and Meret discuss their years of deception and intrigue and agree to break up amicably, Katya trades the couple’s location for her daughter, who has no idea who Katya is.

How This Twist Ending Sets Up Unfamiliar Season 2

Thus, Ben’s BND arrests Simon and Meret as Katya and Nina drive out of the country, their future fate unknown. Between Katya’s new relationship with her birth daughter, Simon and Meret’s arrest, Ben’s successful power plays, and Josef’s possible survival, a lot of Unfamiliar season 1’s plots are left wide open in this finale.

This leaves plenty for Unfamiliar season 2 to explore if the series does return. The show’s potential second outing could reveal whether Simon and Meret brought Ben to justice, whether Josef survived the assassin’s attempts on his life, and what happened to Katya and Nina after the mother-daughter duo were reunited in Unfamiliar’s twisty season 1 ending.