Primetime Ending Explained: Why To Catch A Predator Came To An End

Spoilers follow.

"Primetime" (read our review here) is a dramatized look at Chris Hansen and his hit TV show "To Catch a Predator." In the early 2000s, "To Catch a Predator," which was a "Dateline" production, became a pop culture phenomenon and turned Hansen into a star. Suspected pedophiles would be lured to a location by decoys posing as minors, and Hansen would appear and question these suspects — who would then be arrested by local law enforcement when they left the house.

While "Primetime" fictionalizes many of these events, it also draws on a real story, specifically a shocking moment that might have lead to the inevitable end of "To Catch a Predator." The focus of the film is Hansen, played with manic energy by Robert Pattinson, who has been turning out a string of great films lately. The Hansen we see here is megalomaniacal, obsessed with ratings and unconcerned with any moral quandaries his show might raise.

Backed up by his producer Andie (Merritt Wever), Hansen strives to turn "To Catch a Predator" into an unstoppable force that can even beat hit TV show "Lost" in the ratings. And to do that, he knows he needs something big.

While Hansen's story is unfolding, we also follow Dan Plumb (played by Jimmy Olsen himself, Skyler Gisondo), an actor hired to be a decoy on "To Catch a Predator." Dan doesn't know what he's getting into when he joins the show, but he soon finds himself excelling, especially after he's given a pep talk by Hansen. However, as the story progresses, Dan begins to grow uneasy about his involvement with "To Catch a Predator."

Also working on the show is Xavier Von Erck (Matthew Maher), founder of Perverted-Justice, an organization that strove to catch pedophiles and that teamed with "To Catch a Predator" to help lure suspects in. While searching for subjects for the show, Xavier makes contact with a man from Texas he deduces is in a position of power — a CIA agent, perhaps, or a politician. Hansen sees this as the ultimate get, a "whale" that will send "To Catch a Predator" into the stratosphere.

Desperate and spiraling out because his own infidelities are about to be published in a tabloid magazine, Hansen instructs Xavier, with the assistance of decoy Dan, to lure the whale in.

The whale turns out to be a Texas District Attorney, played by Alex Winter. Hansen and his team assemble in Texas and work to draw the DA out. Dan plays along, but begins to feel uneasy about the entire ordeal.

Everything comes to a head when the local cops and the "To Catch a Predator" crew surround the DA's house — at which point the suspected predator shoot himself. It's a shocking moment that seemingly rattles Hansen, who is last seen mumbling to himself on the lawn of the house as the cameras turn off, looking almost like Cillian Murphy at the end of "Oppenheimer" as his character realizes he might have unleashed inevitable armageddon.

An epilogue scene catches up with Dan, who finally gets a SAG card for his work on "To Catch a Predator," a fact that he clearly feels a bit conflicted about judging by the look on his face right before the credits roll.

The suicide is based on a real event: Bill Conradt, assistant district attorney of Rockwall County, Texas, killed himself when police and the "Predator" crew tried to perform a sting to draw him out. "Primetime" takes liberties with the moment, though. For example: director Lance Oppenheim portrays the scene as taking place on a dark and stormy night for dramatic event, but the real sting actually happened early in the morning in daylight.

The event also seemingly brings about the end of "To Catch a Predator" and Chris Hansen, but that's not entirely accurate. In truth, "To Catch a Predator" actually continued on a few more years after the suicide, and Hansen seemingly has no regrets about what happened. When asked by THR if he had "sleepless nights, second thoughts or a change of heart after that incident," Hansen said: "No. We continued to conduct investigations after that."

However, the incident did lead to blowback. Hansen and his crew were criticized by several journalist organizations, and eventually, Conradt's sister sued "To Catch a Predator" network NBC. A district judge wrote that the show "crossed the line from responsible journalism to irresponsible and reckless intrusion into law enforcement." Ultimately, there was no ruling that established liability on the part of the network, and NBC settled with Conradt's sister for an undisclosed amount.

Like the excellent documentary "Predators," "Primetime" is asking tough questions about "To Catch a Predator." Far from being some sort of defense of the predators on the show, the film is instead trying to get to the dark heart of the matter, which was that "To Catch a Predator" essentially turned potential sex crimes into entertainment. Hansen became a pop culture icon, and his lines on the show — "Have a seat over there" — became punchlines.

"[T]his film is an exploration of what this kind of work does to the people who make it," director Lance Oppenheim said in an interview. "It's based on and inspired by the experiences of working inside an extremely dark world 24/7, attempting to do extremely serious journalism, and how that becomes also extremely confusing when you're tasked with turning it into an entertaining television show."

Hansen and his team may have talked about delivering some kind of justice — in the film, Hansen delivers a monologue about trying to stop a kind of eternal, always-spreading evil in the world — but in the end, they were also trying to manufacture entertainment for ratings. Whether or not that's a good thing is ultimately up to the viewer.