Lucky Ending Explained: Who Has The Money?

Contains spoilers for "Lucky" Season 1, Episode 7 – "All Good Things"

Based on the book of the same name by Marissa Stapley, Apple TV's "Lucky" stars Anya Taylor-Joy as the titular character. Lucky Armstrong is a young woman on the run after getting caught up in a bank robbery. However, it isn't just the FBI that's after her, which makes running even harder. She's juggling keeping her distance from Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor's Agent Rand, a federal agent she's worked with before, as well as Priscilla Matheson (Annette Bening) and Dutch (Clifton Collins Jr.), two people her father worked for. While working for them, Lucky's father John (Timothy Olyphant) skimmed money off the top to the tune of millions of dollars.

Dutch blames Priscilla for not realizing what John was doing, and he wants the money back. The thing is, this money has been sitting for years since John is in prison from a sting Lucky helped with, the one that originally put her in contact with Agent Rand. The show starts with Lucky and her husband Cary (Drew Starkey), who happens to be Priscilla's son, robbing the bank. Of course, it's not long before everything goes off the rails. While the money starts with Lucky and Cary, it goes on quite the journey throughout Apple TV's latest binge-worthy series. Who has the money in the end, and how many times does it change hands? Keep reading to find out.

Lucky and Cary devise a scheme: they are going to rob the bank together and then make a run for it, disappearing forever. Everything goes according to plan at first, and the two celebrate their successful heist in Las Vegas that night. They expect there will be a massive search in the morning, so the pair are going to leave early. However, instead of Lucky and Cary going off grid together, he runs alone, effectively turning on his wife and going rogue. Lucky only finds out when she wakes up the next morning and he, and the money, are gone.

Cary later reveals to Lucky that his mother, Priscilla, had threatened her life and demanded he give her the money. He wanted to protect Lucky, so he was initially willing to do what his mother wanted. But, he got cold feet and decided not to betray his wife, turning back to return to Lucky and include her in his plans. Unfortunately, the hotel was already swarming with federal agents, making it too dangerous for him to try and grab her, so he continued on his way to hide out in a beach house.

To protect himself and the money, Cary converts most of the cash to cryptocurrency before heading to the beach house. He does keep some cash to use for expenses along the way, since they could trace where he is if he's using a credit or debit card, but over $9 million is put into a crypto wallet, which is much harder to track. 

To access the crypto wallet, you type in the seed phrase, which in the series consists of 12 random words set by Cary. The phrase is in his brain, so he has to be alive to access it, creating a safeguard for himself. It means that Priscilla and Dutch can't kill him right away because they need him to give them the seed phrase. It's a smart way to not only get rid of the cash in a sense, but also make himself necessary for whomever finds him first. 

That person ends up being Lucky. While she's upset with him, and threatens him repeatedly, this is the best case scenario for Cary. He explains to her what he did and how he tried to go back for her, and while she doesn't believe him, she trusts him enough to run with him from the beach house when it gets raided by the federal agents.

Lucky and Cary make like a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde (who were actually way worse than their movie biopic portrayed) and embark on an action-packed car chase, which ends in Cary's death from gunfire. After his death, Lucky is understandably upset and emotionally fried from everything she's been through. Her chance at ever having access to the money is seemingly gone, and her plan has, once again, failed. As she looks through her things, deciding what to take from the car before fleeing on foot, she grabs the teddy bear Cary had with him.

It might seem like an odd choice, but Cary clearly knew Lucky well enough to know she would take it. She realizes that the teddy bear actually has a sound box, and when pressed, it plays a recording of Cary saying the seed phrase. It's a genius way to give Lucky access to the money if he died or couldn't give the phrase to her. Now that she has the phrase and the laptop, she can leverage the money to help save herself and her father, and she does just that.

Lucky works with Agent Rand to create another sting, luring Priscilla and Dutch to a meeting location by offering up the money in exchange for her father. John is now out of prison, so Dutch's people can capture him and use him as leverage. The meet up results in Dutch's death, Priscilla's arrest, and the revelation that Agent Rand's partner is a double agent working for Dutch. Lucky and John come out unscathed, and now all is seemingly well since there is no one after them.

After the big showdown, Lucky and her father John are free to live their lives. No one is coming after them, and they can do what they like, and have a way to fund it. They grab food and talk about their next plans, and Lucky reveals how she figured out the seed phrase. However, it's all short-lived when she wakes up the next morning and her father, along with the bear and the laptop, are gone.

Like he regularly did during her childhood, John used Lucky to get what he wanted and then left her in the worst position, placing him among the worst TV parents ever. As the sequence cuts to John driving away — he clearly got an early start to put as much distance as possible between himself and his daughter — he squeezes the bear. Instead of Cary's voice with the seed phrase, Lucky's comes out. She monologues, sharing with her father that she knew he would do this. Lucky finally got the last word when it mattered.

So, does Lucky keep the money for herself? No, she doesn't. While she makes sure her father can't get it, she decides not to keep it, instead sending the laptop and a note with the seed phrase to Agent Rand. It lets her turn over a new leaf, officially divorcing herself from her father's actions and the life he pushed on her, and giving her a chance to finally choose what she wants to be known for.