What is Chantaines in The Assassin?

WARNING: This article contains major spoilers from The Assassin on Prime Video

The Assassin only landed last week, but the show has already shot to the top of Prime Video in the UK as audiences binge through the thriller.

The six-part series follows retired hit woman Julie Green (played by Keeley Hawes), who is pulled onto one last job - but there’s more to it than she could ever have imagined.

Adding another layer of complexity is that Julie’s estranged son Edward Green (Freddie Highmore) has come to visit her after several years.

What starts out as a run-of-the-mill job turns into something much bigger with Julie and Edward going on the run as they try to uncover the truth.

The series from the makers of The Tourist and The Missing has left fans with many questions and surprise after realising one cast member's iconic role - here’s the answer to two of the biggest mysteries of the show.

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What is Chantaines in The Assassin?

The big mystery of the show was the word ‘Chantaines’ after Kayla Cross (Shalom Brune-Franklin) asked right from episode one what it all meant.

Chantaines was the name of Kayla’s mother’s French poodle, which was in turn was named after a marmalade that she’d become obsessed with.

However, Chantaines was actually the codeword for the hit Kayla’s parents ordered on a French arms dealer Jean-Luc Bertrand.

Aaron Cross (Alan Dale) and his wife ordered the hit to “erase” Jean-Luc after they borrowed money from him when their lucrative company CGM fell on hard times during its early days.

Details of Chantaines were in Kayla’s mother’s suicide note, which Aaron had tried to keep from his children.

Sadly, the guilt of the ordered murder pushed her to take her own life, while Aaron was left living with their decision.

Julie confirmed she had been assigned to the French Poodle hit, which also had another shocking twist and coincidence to it.

Who is Edward's dad in The Assassin?

There were plenty of red herrings before Edward’s father was finally revealed.

Edward’s father was Jean-Luc, who was killed by Julie and the same arms dealer the Cross family had ordered the hit on.

Julie had believed the house was empty apart from the arms dealer and was shocked to discover Jean-Luc’s family, including his wife Marie (Gina Gershon) and infant son Florent were also in the property.

Marie revealed to Edward that Julie had shot her in the head after killing Jean-Luc, believing she was dead.

Julie had then heard Florent crying out and had kidnapped him, hoping to provide the child with a better and less dangerous life.

So, she had lied to Edward/Florent to protect him from the truth.

Despite getting shot, Marie had survived and remained in a coma before eventually coming to. She had vowed to take revenge on Julie and be reunited with her surrogate son Florent.

Marie also confirmed she wasn’t Edard’s mother and never wanted children, so Jean-Luc had used a surrogate to have a child.

The show ended with Edward/Florent going off to meet his real mother with Julie accompanying him and Kayla.

The Assassin is streaming on Prime Video now