La Palma Ending Explained: Who Survives The Tsunami

Netflix’s top-performing miniseries, La Palma, is a thrilling new addition to the disaster movie/TV show genre, and its ending is action-packed, to say the least. La Palma’s cast of characters comprises a host of Norwegian actors, some seasoned and some brand-new. The story centers primarily on one family, consisting of Jennifer, the mother, and Fredrik, the father, and their two children, Sara and Tobias.

The family is enjoying a vacation on the beautiful island of La Palma—a real-life location in the Canary Islands—when volcanic activity triggers a massive landslide that ends in a devastating tsunami. Like many weather disaster movies and shows, the narrative comes to a head as the tsunami strikes, and absolute chaos and carnage ensues. Here’s everything that happens at the end of La Palma.

What Happens To The Main Family In La Palma's Ending

The Fate Of La Palma's Main Family Is Surprising

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As mentioned, the main family in La Palma comprises Jennifer, Fredrik, Sara, and Tobias. Although the vacation is idyllic, the family dynamics are far from perfect. Specifically, Jennifer and Fredrik are clearly experiencing strains on their relationship, which results in some intense arguments.

This is nearly deadly to Sara even before the tsunami hits, as she runs from her parents’ fighting and attempts to fly home, only for that plane to hit a plume of volcanic smoke and crash into the island. Luckily, Sara had decided to get off the plane before it took off, which wasn’t revealed until a bit later on. Soon after this, though, the family is back in danger.

Jennifer’s brother, Jens, holds a position in the government and therefore has inside information about the events unfolding on La Palma. He is able to give the family advance warning to get off the island. The group is almost immediately separated, however, as Fredrik steals a car to get his family safely to a ferry boat and is then apprehended by the owners of the vehicle. This causes him to miss the ferry boat, leaving him trapped on the island as his family sails away.

Things only became so much more dangerous, terrifying, and complicated from there. By the time the tsunami is about to crash onto the shores of the island, Sara is trapped on the stationary airplane with her love interest, Charlie, while her other family members are racing toward a safe spot in a nearby bay. However, Tobias and Jennifer are doing so separately from Fredrik, who is simultaneously trying to get to safety with another character, Marie. Shockingly, every single family member in La Palma's main family ultimately survives the catastrophic events.

Every single family member in La Palma's main family ultimately survives the catastrophic events.

Every Main Character Who Dies In La Palma

Several Significant Characters Do Die In La Palma

Although Sara, Fredrik, Jennifer, and Tobias all survive the tsunami, there are some major characters who die in the series. One of the most prominent is Erik, Marie’s brother. Marie and Erik are both significant, if not main, characters in La Palma. They also already have history with tsunamis, as their parents were killed by one, which makes theirs a particularly interesting perspective throughout the series.

Sadly, Erik meets a very tragic end that is only tangentially tied to the tsunami. Because so many people are trapped on the island while it is heading for complete destruction, tensions run extraordinarily high as people try to find ways off La Palma. When Erik, Marie, and Fredrik get their hands on a boat, someone approaches with a gun, demanding they give him the boat. This tragically ends in Erik’s death, as he tries to get the gun out of the hands of the attacker.

Another significant death in La Palma is that of Arnt, who acts as a family friend throughout the miniseries, including by babysitting Tobias when Fredrik and Jennifer believe Sara has died in the plane crash. After the disaster begins, Arnt works very hard to keep the family safe while also getting himself to safety. In the end, though, he dies along with most other passengers on the plane that never successfully departs. There are also, of course, a number of deaths throughout the series for more minor and at times even unnamed characters, as is common for disaster stories.

The Global Impacts Of La Palma's Tsunami Explained

The End Of La Palma Explores Some Global Effects

The end of the miniseries also reveals that this tsunami on La Palma had ramifications the world over, especially for coastal locations even as far away as the Northeast coast of the United States. While a massive tsunami may not have hit everywhere after the landslide hurled massive chunks of land into the ocean, this event impacted sea levels in myriad other areas. There were also international economic impacts as a result of the damage, casualties, and various side effects of this disaster.

La Palma seems to have captured this fallout somewhat accurately.

Interestingly, La Palma seems to have captured this fallout somewhat accurately. Evidently, were a landslide of this scale to happen in a similar manner, there would be impacts as far-reaching as the East Coast of the United States. The miniseries doesn’t dedicate too much time or attention to addressing the aftermath, but it did seem to recreate somewhat realistically how extensive the global impact would be.

Is La Palma Based On A True Story?

La Palma Has Some Roots In Reality

Although there are some real-life connections in the miniseries, La Palma is not based on a true story. As mentioned, La Palma is an actual location in Spain and is one of the Canary Islands. The island has also experienced some volcanic activity in the past. However, something of this scale has not been seen in La Palma.

There are fears for some researchers that something like this disaster could happen in La Palma’s future.

There are fears for some researchers that something like this disaster could happen in La Palma’s future. Specifically, per the University of California Santa Cruz, there is research on the possibility of a massive tsunami stemming from landslides on the island. Not everyone subscribes to the belief that this could happen, but it seems to be compelling enough as a theory that this miniseries has gained significant traction.

The Backlash Surrounding La Palma Explained

Many Viewers Were Unhappy With La Palma's Ending

La Palma is currently experiencing a fair degree of backlash, specifically about the show’s ending. Although many aspects of disaster movies and shows are seen as par for the course, viewers have expressed disappointment with the unrealistic ending of La Palma. The moment that especially seems to have rubbed viewers the wrong way came when Sara managed to survive being trapped inside a plane on the runway when the 80-foot wave crashed into it, sending glass and water rushing into the plane.

Viewers have expressed disappointment with the unrealistic ending of La Palma.

This is easily the most unrealistic aspect of the show, so it makes sense that so many people contested it. It’s difficult to imagine how someone could possibly live through a tsunami crashing into a trapped plane, especially as La Palma shows the plane filling up with water and ultimately being torn apart. All the worse, Sara emerges from this incident almost entirely unscathed, and Charlie somehow survives too, although almost every other person on the plane dies.

In the end, this controversy is only as egregious as one wants it to be. Disaster movies and shows are known for narrative choices quite similar to this one, so it isn’t all that surprising for La Palma to have at least one survival like Sara’s. It is nevertheless unquestionably unrealistic, so it’s understandable that there’s backlash. In the end, yes, La Palma falls into some of the pitfalls of the disaster movie/show genre, but it is still a thrilling show to watch, with an action-packed ending.