NBC’s limited series The Thing About Pam episode six – the final episode – opens with Pam (Renee Zellweger) in a bathroom stabbing herself in the neck repeatedly while officers frantically bang on the door.
The episode then moves slightly back in time to inside the Hupp house. Mark (Sean Bridgers) is eating a bowl of cereal while Pam’s cutting up a rug. She’s off on another one of her rants, this time talking about how in every true crime book the person always gets caught because they hold on to something. She’s basically chastising killers for holding on to a souvenir.
Travis (Drew Scheid) comes into the room and Pam tells them they better get to St. Louis and not to hurry home because she has plenty to do herself. Mark questions what she means and Pam brings up that everyone around town thinks she’s some kind of monster and that it’s messing with her business. No one will buy the house they flipped – the one she outbid her daughter to purchase. Pam confirms they’re losing money and someone’s got to do something about it.
Mark eyes her suspiciously and suggests he stay and help out. Pam insists he doesn’t need to. Mark wonders what she’s going to do with the rug she just cut a piece of and Pam doesn’t really answer.
As Pam’s getting ready – you know, doing her hair, makeup, getting out a stack of cash, and making sure her gun is loaded – we hear Keith Morrison question if Pam could become someone else.
Pam exits a Dollar Tree with cleaning supplies and a knife. She’s driving around a mobile home park and scoping it out when she comes across a woman. She introduces herself as Cathy, a producer with Dateline, and explains she’d like to hire her to reenact soundbites from a 911 call. She offers $1000 in cash just to record it.
It’s obvious the woman thinks this is a strange request but agrees to the offer. However, first she needs to put her dog inside her house. Pam tells her she’s not allowed to bring her wallet, phone, keys, or cigarettes. (This is not suspicious at all, right?) Keith Morrison chimes in, “Dateline does not pay people to record soundbites so what was Pam up to?”
The lady puts a knife in her pocket and grabs her cell phone before joining Pam outside. She takes a seat in Pam’s car and asks if the mobile home manager is letting her use one of the trailers there at the park to record the soundbites. After Pam tells her yes, the woman points out she passed the manager’s trailer. Pam claims her brain is all twisted up.
The woman becomes increasingly suspicious as they’re driving away. Pam claims they rented a house for this and the woman lies and says she needs to pick someone up soon. Pam assures her they can do that when they’re done. The woman looks in the back seat and spots a knife hanging out of the grocery bag as she holds onto her own knife in the pocket of her hoodie. She changes her mind and asks to be taken home. Pam plays the money card, attempting to convince her she can use the money unless she’s super-rich.
After Pam reluctantly takes her home, she calls 911 letting them know there’s a woman driving around offering people money while claiming to work for Dateline.
Pam spots a man saying goodbye to his family. After his family leaves, Pam convinces him to come with her by asking if he wants to make some cash. He gets in the car and she counts out the money but then takes some of it back. Pam also hands him something to put in his pocket claiming it’s to record him.
Pam asks him to practice his line – “Do you want me to do to you what we did to Russ’s wife?” The man isn’t responding to her, so a frustrated Pam pulls over to the side of the road. She warns him she can’t give him the money if she doesn’t hear him say this exact line. Plus, they’ll need to film him holding a knife while he says the line.
She tries to hand him the knife and notices his hand doesn’t fully open. He has a bit of a stutter when he attempts to apologize. It turns out he was in a car accident that left him with multiple disabilities.
Pam’s no longer cool, calm, and collected. She takes the knife and begins to push his fingerprints onto its handle. She demands he practice the line again. The poor man can’t get the line right and she yells at him. He becomes upset and tells her he can’t do it. She assures him he’s going to do just fine and just needs to just listen to her words.
They arrive at Pam’s house and she instructs him to stand on top of the square she cut out of the carpet earlier. When he tries to move, she insists he has to stay in that one particular spot because of all the microphones. He glances around to see these microphones but, of course, there aren’t any.
Pam calls 911 and claims someone broke into her house. She prompts the man to say his line, but he messes it up. Pam’s annoyed but continues with her ridiculous plan, shouting into the phone, “No, I’m not going to get in the car with you! Get out!”
She bangs the gun on the wall as the operator asks for her address. She can’t get him to say his line but that doesn’t stop a frustrated Pam from shooting him in his chest. He doesn’t immediately go down so she shoots him several more times, enough to set off the smoke alarm. She informs the 911 operator she just shot an intruder inside her home.
A detective rushing to the scene thinks there’s something off about the 911 call. He asks the 911 operator to play it again, confirming not a single sound was picked up until the operator picked up.
While the detective’s driving to Pam’s house, Keith Morrison says, “Who would stage their own kidnapping? Certainly not here, at a place like this. What truth would he uncover inside this well-kept home? And what lies?”
As Detective Hilke (Cuyle Carvin) enters the house, he finds Pam making a sandwich. She nonchalantly says, “You’re too late for all that. I already took care of it.”
Once outside he asks Pam to walk him through her day. Viewers are treated to a bizarre reenactment of Pam’s description complete with the murdered man portrayed as, basically, a ninja. Pam tells the detective she arrived home to find someone who looked like Russ sitting outside her house in a truck. Suddenly, another man jumped out (literally), doing all kinds of fancy karate moves while swinging a knife around coming right for her. She then claims the man got into her car and demanded she take him to the bank and get Russ’s money. Detective Hilke asks if she knows a Russ and she claims she doesn’t.
Pam’s story continues with a description of her knocking the knife out of the guy’s hand and running inside her house. The man then chased her, broke into her house, and attacked her. The detective informs Pam they need to question her further at the station. Pam oddly suggests that’s a good idea since there’s “a dead body and all” in her house.
No stranger to “helping” the police, Pam reveals she saw some paper hanging out of the guy’s pocket in a strange baggy. She suggests the cops might want to check that out.
Detective Hilke gets the knife out of her car and compares it to the knife inside her house. He asks another officer to take pictures of both.
As the body’s being transferred into a hearse a shocked Mark pulls up with Travis. Hilke gives Mark the rundown of what happened and lets him know he’ll need his fingerprints to clear him. Mark declines. He then piques the defective’s interest by saying there’s a bunch of people after them and lying about his family. There was a murder a few years back and he doesn’t want them to try to pin that on him too.
Mark watches the police bring out the carpet with blood on it just as his neighbor, Minnie (Patricia French), comes out asking if everything’s okay. The detective attempts to shoo her back on her own propriety but stops when she reveals she’s got a lot of stuff on Pam – and she’s not just talking about the “Betsy Faria business.” Minnie explains Pam is always saying weird stuff and she’s positive Pam killed Bushytail the squirrel. She even offers to be a witness, if they need one.
It’s only at that moment that it dawns on the detective Pam’s last name isn’t Huff. He realizes she’s that Pam Hupp – the one from Betsy’s murder case.
Detective Hilke calls another officer over and informs him who Pam really is. He suggests they really need to tighten the scene up because the press will be all over it. “We are definitely going to be on Dateline,” says Hilke.
A short while later Russ Faria (Glenn Fleshler) gets a call from the detective requesting he come by the police station so he can ask him a few questions. Russ informs him he’s in Florida and asks if he really needs to return to Missouri.
As the media gather outside the Hupp house, Pam and Mark are inside and Pam looks out the window at the spectacle. She closes the blinds and rants about all the stuff the police “stole” including her kitchen stuff, two stacks of books, her gun, and even cash out of her nightstand.
As Pam frantically looks through their house, Mark questions what she told the police. She explains Russ hired some guy to get his money and to kill her. Mark asks if they believed her and Pam thinks they did because that’s what really happened. He reminds her it took a full week for them to arrest Russ for the murder of Betsy and wants to know if Pam is in some kind of trouble. Pam becomes upset, insisting she’s the victim here and that he needs to support her. She claims the police told her they found a note in the guy’s pocket from Russ with stuff to do and bank accounts.
Meanwhile, Russ has reluctantly returned and provides the police with a saliva sample. This time he has his attorney, Joel Schwartz (Josh Duhamel), right by his side. Joel lists what the police have – DNA, fingerprints, and handwriting samples – and asks if they need anything else from Russ. Joel hands over proof Russ was in Florida during Louis Gumpenberger’s murder including receipts and flight records. (This is the first time we learn the identity of the man who was ruthlessly murdered by Pam.) The detective tells Russ he’s free to go but suggests he stick around.
Pam has a duffle bag full of cash as she writes out a check for $122,000 to her son, Travis. She’s sneaking around outside at night doing who knows what under the cover of darkness.
Russ and Joel remain waiting at the police station, and Joel explains they just need to stay as open and helpful as possible. Russ reminds him the last time he tried to be helpful he spent three years in jail. The detective finally returns to inform Russ he’s free to go. He’s been cleared of any participation in Louis Gumpenberger’s murder.
The following day Pam and Mark are eating when Mark questions his wife about what she was doing the previous evening. Pam states she was protecting their financials. Mark thinks maybe he shouldn’t even ask for details and Pam replies, “Well a man died on our carpet, Mark.” He points out that’s because she shot him. She counters that she was defending their home like she always does.
Their lunch is interrupted by Detective Hilke knocking at the door. He’s there to arrest Pam for the murder of Louis. Pam rolls her eyes and assures Mark she will be home for dinner. Clearly, she thinks she will get away with yet another murder.
News outlets film Pam being led away in cuffs. After Pam’s placed into the car, she spots a familiar face – none other than Cathy Singer, the producer from Dateline. As the car begins to drive away Keith Morrison says, “Say hi to Cathy.”
After reading Pam her rights Hilke asks her to sign a paper stating he read them to her. She claims the font is too small and she needs her glasses to see. He offers Pam his and adds that he gets his from the Dollar Tree because you can’t beat those prices. Detective Hilke asks if she gets her glasses there as well and Pam says she doesn’t know because she has had hers forever.
Hilke dives right in and discusses the evidence, revealing the knife Louis had with him was from Dollar Tree and they know she was recently there because of her receipt. He asks if she knew Louis was physically unable to hold a knife or chase after her. She continues to insist that’s what happened. He also informs her they have her cell pinging around the Gumpenberger home.
As Pam tries to explain away everything, Hilke drops a bombshell. He reveals they found $900 in Louis’s pocket and the serial number on those bills matches the serial number on a $100 dollar bill they found in her nightstand. Pam lawyers up and Hilke leaves her alone in the interrogation room. She secretly takes a pen the detective left on the table and then asks if she can go to the bathroom.
Pam finally realizes she won’t get away with this murder and begins to stab herself in the neck with the pen. After she collapses on the floor the detective and officers bust in.
The episode moves forward to the courtroom. Mark talks to his kids, Sarah and Travis, and explains he thinks Pam is catching a cold. The camera pans around the courtroom and finds Tina wishing Mike Wood good luck on his election for district attorney. Joel, Nate (Ben Chase), and Cathy (Alice Barrett Mitchell) discuss how Pam didn’t hit any major arteries when she stabbed herself. Joel thinks she wasn’t trying to kill herself since she’s too narcissistic for that. Instead, he thinks she was buying time to figure out her next move.
Pam changes her plea to an Alford Plea, meaning she pleads guilty without admitting guilt.
Before the finale wraps up Keith Morrison asks, “If all Pam cared about was winning, did she? Hard to say because this story isn’t over.”
As The Thing About Pam comes to an end, Pam is shown on the phone with Mark from jail. We see Mark listening while a caption appears telling viewers he divorced Pam and eloped in Vegas. He still lives in the house where Louis was murdered.
A montage of people who were affected by Pam Hupp plays and we learn Betsy’s daughters still live in Missouri. Plus, Mariah named her second child after her mother. Russ doesn’t speak with Betsy’s daughters, but he still has his beloved dog. He also got engaged to Carol, the woman Pam attempted to convince to do soundbites and who would have wound up murdered if she hadn’t been so suspicious of Pam’s motivations. (They met in the courtroom.)
Mike Wood won the election over Leah Askey and one of his first acts as DA was to re-open the Betsy Faria murder case in 2019. Leah Askey’s being investigated for prosecutorial misconduct during the Faria case and denies any wrongdoing.
The death of Pam’s mother remains officially “undetermined” but is now being investigated as part of the re-opened Betsy Faria murder case.
In July 2021 the state of Missouri brought charges against Pam for the murder of Betsy.
As the closing credits play, viewers are treated to clips of the real Pam Hupp from interviews with the police and on the stand during the trials. There’s even a clip of her outside the courtroom with a big smile on her face saying, “Say hi to Cathy.”
Pam Hupp is currently serving a life sentence with no chance of parole for the murder of Louis Gumpenberger at the Missouri Chillicothe Correctional Center.
- The Thing About Pam Episode 1 “She’s a Good Friend” Recap
- The Thing About Pam Episode 2 “She’s a Helper” Recap
- The Thing About Pam Episode 3 “She’s a Star Witness” Recap
- The Thing About Pam Episode 4 “She’s Such a Loving Daughter” Recap
- The Thing About Pam Episode 5 “She’s Not Who You Think She Is” Recap
 airing Apr. 12, 2022. Pam kills an innocent man in a bizarre plan to frame Russ.){kind=link}