‘Zero Day’ Ending Explained by Angela Bassett & Creators — Is Mitchell a Villain?

Kelli Boyle February 20, 2025, 12:58 pm

Robert De Niro as President George Mullen in the 'Zero Day' finale — Netflix

[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for the Zero Day Season 1 finale.]

When the whole of the United States is hit by a cyberattack that kills 3,000 people, former president George Mullen (Robert De Niro) is called to serve in Netflix‘s Zero Day. President Evelyn Mitchell (Angela Bassett) makes him head of the Zero Day Commission, a task force with the power to arrest without warrants in order to find those responsible for the deadly attack. Monitoring the commission’s actions is a congressional oversight committee led by Mullen’s own daughter, Alex Mullen (Lizzy Caplan), who’s against the “fascist” commission. The mystery unfolds across six episodes (all of which dropped on Thursday, February 20), and while some culprits are revealed early on, it’s not until the end of Episode 5 and the subsequent finale that the real orchestrators of Zero Day are revealed. And the call was coming from inside the house.

TV Insider connected with the cast and creators of Zero Day to discuss the series that’s inspired by present-day American politics and the preservation of the truth. Here, Bassett and showrunners Noah Oppenheim and Eric Newman break down the finale’s most pivotal moments, what they mean, and the message they intended to send with this political thriller.

Angela Bassett as President Mitchell in 'Zero Day' Episode 2

Jojo Whilden / Netflix

Who caused the cyberattack in Zero Day?

Unlike real-life American politics where right-wing extremism from white nationalists is steadily on the rise both in and out of the federal government, Zero Day pulls its bad guys from the other side of the aisle. Mullen’s commission discovered early on that a “leftist militia” was involved in carrying out the Zero Day attack, but it took the remaining episodes to figure out who was leading the group. A billionaire tech mogul, Monica Kidder (Gaby Hoffmann) — who’s an amalgamation of tech moguls like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos — used her social media platform and the cellular data it collected to send the Zero Day malware to every cell phone in America. The “this will happen again” warning was followed by a litany of explosions that killed thousands. Kidder, the “leftist militia,” billionaire Robert Lyndon (Clark Gregg), and their allies in congress communicated through coded language on radios.

Kidder, Lyndon, and their camps were working with a small group of congresspeople to carry out the Zero Day attack. Among the congressional traitors were House Speaker Dreyer (Matthew Modine) and Alex, Mullen’s daughter. Alex had no idea people would die in the attacks; she was led to believe that this mass cyberattack would scare the divided nation into coming together and restoring order. Dreyer, on the other hand, wanted to use this fear and the Zero Day commission as a power vacuum. Mitchell appointing Mullen as the commission head instead of him threw a wrench into his coup plans.

How does Zero Day end?

Matthew Modine as Richard Dreyer and Lizzy Caplan as Alexandra Mullen in 'Zero Day' Episode 2

Sarah Shatz / Netflix

Mitchell reveals in the finale that she and the CIA were aware that bad actors in the government were involved in Zero Day, which is why she appointed Mullen, whom she and the nation trusted to find the real truth. But Mitchell was willing to keep the full truth from Americans in the finale and asked Mullen to help her keep them ignorant to the full scope of the attack.

“The truth is the truth, but it’s not always the most important thing,” she tells Mullen before he addresses congress and the nation with his commission’s findings. “You once told me something that I never forgot. You said that our job is to govern the country as it is, not as we wish it was. The public finds out how deep this really went, right at this moment, I don’t think we survive that. We have an obligation to protect the American people. Maybe a guilty conscience is the least we can bear for them.”

Roush Review: Robert De Niro in 'Zero Day'

“You stopped a coup. We pin this on Kidder alone, it doesn’t bother you that people might never know that?” Mullen replies. Mitchell says that Dreyer is willing to step down and “unlike you, I want a second term, and the road to that just got a whole lot easier. There’s a lot of good to do still, mistakes I’ve learned from that I can correct. That’s the truth that matters most to me. Four more years? I promise there’ll be enough time for unfinished business.”

Mullen mulls it over, but tells the whole truth in his speech in the end, in part inspired by his daughter turning herself in and accepting responsibility for her actions.

Does Mitchell’s willingness to conceal the full truth make her a villain? Bassett thinks that Mitchell was attempting harm reduction with this line.

“No, I never thought of her as a villain,” Bassett explains to TV Insider. “I thought that she wants the best for her constituents. She knows the truth, but also sometimes maybe it wouldn’t be the best thing to lay out all of it, but parse out what’s most important so that we can get a step ahead. Not to keep the community in the dark, but timing is everything. That’s another thing. Timing is everything. And sometimes it could cause chaos, more chaos than you want to happen.”

Angela Bassett as President Mitchell in 'Zero Day' finale

Netflix

Robert De Niro’s Zero Day Ending Explained

After saying, “those are the facts” but it’s not “the truth,” Mullen stands before congress and the nation and reveals the congresspeople who ordered Zero Day after reading his daughter’s confession (and apology) aloud. When Dreyer bites back as the crowd panics, he says that Mullen has destroyed the country. Mullen replies, “Any time we can do the right thing, it’s another chance to save it.” Oppenheim and Newman explain the significance of this line.

“Two separate and really important points. One is that there is a distinction and a difference between facts and truth,” Oppenheim tells TV Insider. “Because I think one of the challenges we see in the world today is that people can take a set of facts, and they can arrange them in very different ways to arrive at very different conclusions. They can omit facts that are inconvenient or uncomfortable and arrive at very different conclusions, so understanding that is really important and is the point that he’s trying to make. If I stop speaking right now, George Mullen is saying, ‘I will have told you facts, but it’s not the complete truth.'”

“The other point he makes is critical to both Eric and I in terms of the hopefully optimistic message of the show, which is that while the world around us may be chaotic, and while our relationship to the truth may be challenged, all of us do have a moral compass inside,” Oppenheim continues. “And every time we choose to do the right thing, it’s another opportunity to turn the larger ship around and save us all.”

Mullen was going to conceal the full truth at first, but Newman says that Alex’s confession inspired him to go off-script and lay it all out clear as day.

“I think people will wonder whether we intended a hopeful ending for the show, and for me, yes, for sure,” Newman explains. “I think that it is optimistic. You do have someone who’s making a big sacrifice, which is what you’re hoping our leaders will do when faced with an unpopular path. They’ll take it even though it may cost them something. And again, that line that you mention of every time you do the right thing, it’s an opportunity. And it is. That’s the thing that — despite our fading relationship with truth, in some ways — it creates an obligation for a higher relationship with compassion and integrity and deliberation and kindness and making decisions that aren’t designed to maintain your own power, but actually to serve the people who elected you.”

What did you think of Zero Day‘s bad guys and ending? Let us know in the comments, below.

Zero Day, Season 1 Available Now, Netflix