Spoiler warning: This article contains major spoilers for Netflix’s The Perfect Lie.
Netflix’s The Perfect Lie answers the biggest mystery surrounding Evert’s death, but it deliberately leaves another question unresolved: Who pushed Hanneke off the balcony?
The obvious suspect is Babette. But the final scene strongly suggests that the answer may not be that simple.
Did Babette Push Hanneke?
For most viewers, Babette is the easiest suspect.
She believes Hanneke has feelings for Evert, and by the finale we already know Babette is capable of extreme violence. The series reveals that Babette was responsible for the house fire that killed Evert.
That revelation makes it tempting to blame her for Hanneke’s fall as well.
But Babette repeatedly denies pushing Hanneke—and the finale gives viewers a major reason to reconsider the accusation.
The Hospital Scene Changes Everything
Near the end of Episode 7, Karen visits Hanneke, who has been lying in a coma.
Hanneke’s hand suddenly moves, suggesting that she may finally be waking up. Karen leaves the room to find a doctor.
Then someone else enters.
A mysterious person wearing a black hoodie and carrying a red heart-shaped balloon walks into Hanneke’s hospital room. The series cuts away without revealing the visitor’s identity.
Here is the crucial detail:
Babette is with the police at this point.
That means the mysterious hospital visitor cannot be Babette, assuming the scenes are presented contemporaneously as the finale indicates. It does not definitively prove who pushed Hanneke, but it clearly keeps another attacker in play.
So Who Pushed Hanneke?
The Netflix series does not reveal the answer in Season 1. Current ending explanations likewise identify Hanneke’s attacker as the finale’s major unresolved mystery.
And that appears intentional.
The show spends much of the season encouraging viewers to suspect Babette, only to introduce an unidentified person at the exact moment Hanneke might regain consciousness.
Why would someone visit her then?
The obvious narrative possibility is that Hanneke knows something that person does not want revealed.
But until the series identifies the hooded visitor, that remains a theory—not a confirmed answer.
The Book Gives Us a Different Answer
Here things get especially interesting.
The Perfect Lie is based on Saskia Noort’s 2004 novel The Dinner Club. Netflix confirms that the series is an adaptation of Noort’s bestseller.
In the novel, the mystery plays out differently: Babette pushes Hanneke, and Hanneke dies rather than surviving in a coma.
Netflix therefore appears to have deliberately changed this part of the story.
That makes the unidentified hospital visitor more than a simple cliffhanger. It gives the adaptation a mystery that cannot necessarily be solved just by reading the original novel.
Final Answer
Who pushed Hanneke in The Perfect Lie?
For now, Netflix has not told us.
Babette looks like the obvious suspect for much of the story, but the final hospital scene deliberately complicates that conclusion. Someone else appears to have a powerful reason to fear Hanneke waking up.
And that may be the most important clue the finale gives us.