Things You Only Notice In Behind Her Eyes After Watching It More Than Once
Contains spoilers for the ending of "Behind Her Eyes"
Upon watching the first episode, "Behind Her Eyes" comes across as your standard erotic psychological thriller. Louise (Simona Brown) can't help but fall in love with a man she meets at a bar, Dr. David Ferguson (Tom Bateman). As it turns out, Dr. David is her new boss. To make matters even worse, he's married to Adele (Eve Hewson) even though he has sexual chemistry with Louise. It turns into a messy love triangle, but as the series goes on, it's clear there are more supernatural machinations at play.
Adele is in touch with her spiritual side, but that goes far beyond collecting a few gems. She encourages Louise to jot down her dreams, insisting that she can astral project. It turns out to be the truth, but that only scratches the surface of her true powers. Louise ends up with more than she bargained for as she becomes further entwined in this messy marriage. It all leads to a finale that will leave your jaw on the floor as it's revealed that the Adele we've known this entire time isn't actually Adele. Years ago, the actual Adele swapped souls with her friend, Rob (Robert Aramayo), and shortly after, Adele died in Rob's body.
That means this entire time, we've seen Rob as the one who ingratiated himself into David's career and extramarital love life. It's only the beginning as Rob switches places with Louise in the show's final moments, as she married David, riding off into the sunset together. It's a bonkers moment, but if you go back to watch "Behind Her Eyes" a second time, you'll notice plenty of clues and Easter eggs along the way.
A change in the nightlight
Louise's precocious son, Adam (Tyler Howitt), is smarter than he lets on. When Rob astral projects himself into Louise's body, Adam knows something is amiss. There are too many things Rob doesn't know about Louise, and the transfer doesn't go as smoothly as he perhaps wishes. Adam plays a vital role in this story, especially when you look at his bedroom.
When Adam goes to bed, we see he has a nightlight. This particular item changes color, and there are scenes where we see it go from green to blue. This is important because later in the series, we see how Louise's astral projection is green in color. Meanwhile, Rob's is blue.
On top of that, the nightlight's in the shape of a hippo that looks as though it watches over Adam as he sleeps. It almost suggests that Louise won't watch over Adam for much longer because Rob is about to take control.
The flashbacks always contain Rob
It's an incredible twist to learn that we haven't actually been seeing Adele this entire time. We've seen Rob inhabiting Adele's body, and once you have that knowledge, everything that comes before makes sense.
The present-day scenes are intercut with flashbacks of Adele and Rob's friendship when they were younger. They both attended rehab together, looking to get better, and then when they're both released, they meet up, which is how Rob finally meets David. On the first watch, we assume we're getting Adele's backstory so that we can see how she came to become so possessive over her husband. In actuality, we're getting all of the exposition we need on Rob.
All of the flashbacks feature Rob. You don't notice it at first because he spends so much time with Adele. But slowly, we understand Rob would feel the need to switch souls with someone to escape his bleak life. The only flashback where Rob doesn't physically appear is when Adele tells David that Rob overdosed and died, and she threw the body into a well to dispose of the evidence. Of course, it's not long until we realize that Rob's the one inhabiting Adele at that point. The actual Adele is in Rob's body, which is now decaying.
One last hint
There's one way you can see the twist of "Behind Her Eyes" coming before it happens. At the beginning of the final episode, we get a flashback of Rob astral projecting while staying at David and Adele's house. It's at this moment we see this entity defined as a blue orb. When the show jumps forward to the present, Louise makes a mad dash to Adele's new house to prevent her from dying. She does this by astral projecting outside the abode and going into the bedroom.
When she's in there, the camera pans to a corner in the ceiling where we see a blue orb. That should've given away the game right then and there that Adele isn't actually who she says she is. After the switch takes place, we receive another flashback where Rob and Adele switched bodies, and initially, Adele's orb was pink.
The blue orb in the bedroom is like the final bread crumb, desperately trying to tell you what's going on. Of course, it's not long until everything is revealed plain as day.
The pigeon theory
Anyone who goes back to watch "Behind Her Eyes" a second time owes it to themselves to pay attention to the pigeons. No, we haven't gone crazy. Just hear us out.
After Rob assumes control of Louise's body, he goes back to her apartment, where a pigeon stands on the counter. After staring at it for a few moments, taking in its bright green shading, the pigeon flies off. Some believe this pigeon actually housed the spirit of Louise. It's possible that right before she died in Adele's body, she astral projected one more time into whatever vessel was nearest — in this case, a pigeon (via The Tab). The theory suggests Louise is still alive, and when rewatching "Behind Her Eyes," it kind of makes sense.
Pigeons feature prominently in the show. Before the finale, a pigeon goes up to Louise in Episode 3 while she's on a smoke break. A lot of attention goes toward the birds, but for what reason? What if the animals house the astrally projected forms of humans with nowhere else to go? Louise could've gone into a pigeon, and her breaking into the apartment was a way of telling Rob that she's still out there, perhaps waiting to get back inside her body.
And if you want to go into the deep end with this theory, what if that pigeon from Episode 3 contained Adele's spirit? Maybe she wanted to warn Louise of what Rob would do to her. It's a lot to chew on and just one of the many reasons why there's always something new to get out of a second viewing of "Behind Her Eyes."