‘The Plot Against America’ Ending Explained: The Powerful Message Behind that Ambiguous Final Moment

HBO’s The Plot Against America has been unnerving us for weeks, but all the horror and pain of this alt-history story just crescendoed in its chilling finale. The ending of The Plot Against America features harrowing scenes of mothers being burned to death in their cars and families ripping each other apart. HBO’s miniseries also lands on a very specific explanation for what happened to Charles Lindbergh (Ben Cole), while also leaving the future of the country up in the air.

The Plot Against America is a six-episode-long miniseries created by David Simon and Ed Burns, and adapted from Philip Roth’s novel of the same name. As in the book, The Plot Against America follows what would happen if right-wing aviation hero Charles Lindbergh had run as a Republican against the incumbent Democrat President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in 1940. The Plot Against America posits that Lindberg would win and stir up anti-Semitism in America in the process, creating a climate where Jewish life and liberty would be in peril.

This story comes to a climax in The Plot Against America Episode 6, when Walter Winchell is assassinated, Charles Lindbergh’s plane disappears, and the main family we’ve been following – the Levins — are pulled into the dangerous American heartland to save their former neighbor’s son, Seldon (Jacob Laval). But what happened to Charles Lindbergh in The Plot Against America? Did Alvin (Anthony Boyle) have anything to do with it? And what does the ending of The Plot Against America mean for the future of Herman (Morgan Spector) and Bess (Zoe Kazan) Levin?

Here’s what you need to know about The Plot Against America finale on HBO.

WHAT HAPPENED TO CHARLES LINDBERGH IN THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA FINALE?

In HBO’s version of events, mayhem grips the country after President Charles Lindbergh’s plane disappears. While this also happens in Philip Roth’s book, Roth was more ambiguous about what happened to Lindbergh. David Simon, on the other hand, all but confirms one conspiracy theory to be true.

In Episode 3 of The Plot Against America, Alvin learns about pulsed navigation and how it could be used to track enemy planes from the sky. In The Plot Against America finale, Alvin finds himself manning one of these instruments in the projected flight path of President Charles Lindbergh. After he’s told that he’s done for the night, he assumes the mission was a bust until it is revealed that Lindbergh’s plane disappeared overnight. The implication is that the anti-Lindbergh group Alvin was working for succeeded in locating and then grounding Lindbergh’s plane. Later, it is all but confirmed that Alvin helped take down Lindbergh, as evidenced by how insulted he was when it’s suggested he did nothing to stand up to his presidency.

WHAT DOES THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA ENDING MEAN?

The final moments of The Plot Against America‘s series finale offers dubious hope for the future. After the chaos of Charles Lindbergh’s administration, there is a special election. We see lines and lines of people optimistically voting for President while Frank Sinatra’s “The House I Live In” plays. Between the sunshine and the smiling faces, the implication is that after this election, in which Franklin Delano Roosevelt is running once more for the Presidency, all will be restored to normal.

However, The Plot Against America ends on the disturbing site of ballot boxes being hauled away and votes being burned. We then go to the Levin family’s living room where a nervous Bess and Herman clutch hands as the first returns come in from counties that Lindbergh won handily. The announcer says there’s some confusion in the results, and that’s the end of it.

So we don’t know whether or not FDR would retake the White House, nor do we know for certain who destroyed the ballots at the end of the episode. Anyone who has read Robert Caro’s LBJ biographies knows that ballot tampering was rampant on both sides at this moment in history. In The Path to Power, Caro says that FDR himself allegedly told a young Lyndon B. Johnson in 1941, “When the election is over, you have to sit on the ballot boxes.” So, who knows.

However, what this ambiguity hammers home is the importance of a free democracy where every vote is counted according to the letter of the law. Something worth considering today, in an election year.

Where to stream The Plot Against America