Is Shane a Bad Guy in Fool Me Once?

Fool Me Once isn’t short on suspicious characters, and if you’ve heard anything at all about the show, you’ll go in expecting a twist or two. But even after you’ve watched all eight episodes, you could be wondering, is Shane a bad guy in Fool Me Once?

Is Shane a Bad Guy in Fool Me Once?

If you’ve not seen the show, I’m going to be getting into serious spoiler territory here. Shane Tessier is a friend of the protagonist, Maya, who served in the military at the same time as her. And while Maya has left the service, Shane is still on the inside with the military police, which gives him access to all sorts of useful profiling tools.

But can he be trusted? He seems friendly enough, but there are things that could be viewed as suspicious. In Episode 4, Maya thinks her house has been broken into and, with a pistol drawn, moves to confront the intruder. This is a British show, but, as ex-military, it’s not a stretch to see her having a gun. She discovers Shane standing there, holding her daughter Lily, which, at that moment, seems strange.

He explains that he knocked, no one answered, and that he broke in because Maya was screaming from a nightmare and Lily was crying. And later in that same episode, we see a hooded figure putting a GPS device on Maya’s car, which triggers the alarm. As Maya deactivates it, the figure is revealed to be Shane.

So what’s going on? Is Shane really a bad guy, or is the show trying to make us think he is? Going by reactions to the show, a lot of people think Shane’s behavior is deeply, deeply suspicious. And Fool Me Once never really explains it.

But I’m in the latter camp. I don’t think Shane has ill intent – he’s watching over her because he’s concerned about what’s going on with her, both for her and her daughter, Lily. He’s a good friend, perhaps a best friend, but the show just frames his actions to misdirect the viewer.

Because, as a show, Fool Me Once withholds information from the viewer that, if we knew it at the time, would have painted both Maya and Shane’s actions in a new light. We’re supposed to view Maya as the main character, to emphasize with her, but it’s not until the show’s end that we discover she murdered Joe and that she’s also killed innocent civilians.

Related: Where Netflix’s Fool Me Once Was Filmed

What Does Fool Me Once Author Harlan Cobden Say About Shane?

Harlan Cobden, who wrote the book the series is based on, has weighed in on the topic. Via X, he confirms that Shane is indeed concerned about Maya’s behavior, particularly the way she thinks her husband is still alive.

“You’re military police. Your best friend suffers PTSD. She is taking medication, lying to you, lost two close family members to murders, has you test a bullet – and says she’s seeing her dead husband. You might want to (track) keep an eye on her and her little girl…”, he writes.

Maya is, after all, a person who’s been trained to kill. In the UK, where the series is set, you can’t just walk into a gun store and buy an assault rifle. But Maya both owns weapons and knows how to use them. If she did become manic and barricade herself in her home, taking her own daughter hostage, it probably wouldn’t end well. And Shane almost certainly knows that.

So, as confirmed by the author of the book Fool Me Once is based on, Shane is not, at his core, a bad guy. He’s concerned about his friend’s erratic and possibly dangerous behavior. But the show does its best to frame him as a possible bad guy just to keep viewers guessing.