This dissonance is over Woman of the hour: a serial killer who wins a dating game show, a date with death. Below, we look at how the film wraps up the stories of up-and-coming actors Sheryl Bradshaw (Kendrick) and Rodney Alcala – and what happened next in the characters’ real lives.

Who is Rodney Alcala? Woman of the hour?

It may seem too strange to be true, but the film depicts Alcala and Bradshaw’s first meeting as candidates The dating game based on reality. Yes, a serial killer actually appeared on and won the game show in the 1970s amid a series of brutal murders. The real Alcala had already killed at least three women before his appearance on the series, and after his episode he killed at least two more – as stated in the film, some have estimated his number of victims to be as high as 130.

For the filmmakers, Alcala was a starting point for exploring a larger cultural narrative. “He wasn’t what I was interested in,” screenwriter Ian McDonald tells Tudum. “The context around him was what I found really interesting. He seemed to represent something that we as a country were kind of struggling with at the time, which was ordinary people looking the other way so that bad people could get away with bad behavior.”

The film depicts this slow-motion tragedy throughout. In a subplot, Laura (Nicolette Robinson), a friend of one of Alcala’s victims, recognizes him The dating game. For the film, it is a fictionalized moment that represents the many instances of ordinary people looking the other way. “Laura really acts as a kind of representative of all the people who tried to raise the alarm but were ignored,” says Kendrick. “There are so many heroes in this story, but the heroes were outnumbered and outnumbered due to incompetence and negligence and a culture that did not prioritize victims.”

McDonald agrees. “Rodney Alcala really seems to have ignored a lot of his worst tendencies,” he says. “So it wasn’t because he was sneaky, it was because other people…were actively looking the other way.”

When is that the case? Woman of the hour take place?

The film jumps through time to follow several of Alcala’s crimes:

1977: Woman of the hour begins with Alcala’s murder of a pregnant young woman in Wyoming after he photographs her.

1978: The film jumps forward to Sheryl Bradshaw’s life in Hollywood and the year she became close to Alcala during his appearance in 1978 The dating game. It is the narrative center of the story and a sequence to which the film returns again and again.

1979: The story follows that of Alcala dating game Appears when he takes in teenage runaway Amy in San Gabriel, California. This is another subplot that the film returns to throughout.

1978: Back to The dating gamewhile Sheryl prepares for her performance.

1971: Jump back to Alcala’s time in New York City, where he kills a young woman after helping her move.

1978: The dating game begins with Sheryl and her three admirers. Laura sits down in the audience.

1977: A look back at the year 1977. During his work in Los Angeles TimesAlcala is questioned by the police in connection with the crimes of another serial killer.

1978: Back The dating game, Laura recognizes Alcala as the man who was last seen with a murdered friend of hers. She tries to warn production. Meanwhile, Alcala wins the date with Sheryl.

1979: Alcala and Amy continue their journey and he reveals his true nature.

1978: Alcala and Sheryl have an awkward date and he threatens her in the parking lot. Only the intervention of a few potential witnesses prevents Alcala from killing her. Laura reconciles with her boyfriend and reports Alcala’s television appearance to the police; Sheryl moves home.

1979: After Alcala’s attack, Amy sees her chance to escape. When Alcala stops to get gas, she manages to get to a nearby restaurant and call the police.

The historic setting required McDonald and Kendrick to recreate Alcala’s dating game Performance for today’s viewers. “He’s charming by 1978 standards, but in 2024 viewers would see that and think, ‘He’s a serial killer,'” McDonald says. “We wanted to make sure that modern audiences could experience essentially the same emotional journey as Sheryl, so we fictionalized his dialogue to connect it a little more with modern sensibilities.”

Sheryl also received a little update inspired by another episode of The dating game. “I saw one … where a woman was asking questions that were clearly combative,” McDonald says. “She tried to pick a fight with the host, thought the show was sexist and really disapproved of it, and she made that disapproval clear through the questions she asked.” McDonald applied that bachelorette’s style to Sheryl’s character – a fictionalization with one true core.

How did Rodney Alcala get caught? Woman of the hour?

Alcala is undone by Amy (Best), the runaway he takes in in San Gabriel. After driving her into the middle of the desert, he attacks her and – in a perverse moment of self-pity – bursts into tears. “The story where the young drifter wakes up after he’s been attacked and she looks over at him and he’s crying – I still don’t quite know what to make of that,” McDonald says. “I don’t think these types of people are truly capable of empathy. So I don’t think that’s the issue. I think in some ways it’s probably more something (like) shame or embarrassment.”

Whatever caused Alcala’s tears, it gives Amy a chance to escape. She flips the script on her would-be killer and begs him not to tell anyone what happened, which somehow convinces him to spare her. When they arrive at a gas station, she runs for help.

Deep in the desert, Alcala is finally arrested. It’s a landscape that Kendrick returns to several times throughout the film, particularly in her depictions of the murders. “It was important to me to connect these women to nature for several reasons, but one of them was that I wanted to somehow take them to places that spoke to the vastness of their lives beyond this moment,” she says. “It’s a 90-minute film. There’s only so much screen time anyone can have. And I wanted, regardless of how we meet them, their surroundings to reflect the beauty and fullness of their entire lives before and what they should have had after.”

What happens to Sheryl? Woman of the hour?

Sheryl, played by Kendrick, lives on after a date with Alcala and can barely escape his violent nature. It’s a small victory for women amid his crime spree. After appearing on The dating gameSheryl decides she’s not cut out for Hollywood and moves home – but not before standing up for herself once again alongside her pushy neighbor (Pete Holmes).

“Ian and I thought about maybe having a little dialogue or a conversation between Sheryl and her neighbor at the end of the film, but nothing felt right,” Kendrick recalls. “And Ian suddenly suggested, ‘Well, what if Sheryl just stands her ground in the hallway and he has to move around her?’ I think I threw my highlighter across the room – I was so excited.”

It’s a moment that defines the final act of Woman of the hour. McDonald “has this great way of illustrating the complexity of a victory that is small but significant to this character,” says Kendrick. Amy and Sheryl will carry on despite all the pain they have been through.

Woman of the hour is now streaming on Netflix.

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