Apple TV’s Margo’s Got Money Troubles has concluded its first season with a perfect finale to Margo’s brave journey into the taboo to provide for her son Bodhi. The series started with her as a promising writer studying at Fullerton College, but an unfateful encounter with a professor there left her a teen single mother with mounting bills and no way to pay them. In such a gloomy situation, OnlyFans emerged as a beacon of light, offering a quick fix to her money troubles. But little did she know that this beacon of hope would one day become the very reason she had to fight for her son’s custody.

The last episode, titled Lock and Load, gives a satisfying end to Margo’s custody battle with Bodhi’s biological father and Margo’s ex-professor, Mark. After everything that happened with the lawyers and mediation meetings with the Child Protective Services also getting involved, the whole battle in this episode shifted to the court.

Margo came out of all this with flying colors, and the way she did it is what makes it a satisfying ending.

The trial for Bodhi’s custody was a given after all the tactics applied by Mark and his mother, and Margo’s resilience to everything that was thrown at her. However, it was not a traditional trial as one would assume. Actually, before the trial, Lace dreaded that Margo had drawn a nasty judge who might jeopardize her case. Not sure about the nasty part, but he sure was hyperactive and too sharp with his judgment.

He made an energetic entry to the court and kept circling the whole court area, muttering the case details and how unacceptable the whole events of the custody battle were. He did not waste any time and went straight to examining the facts and scenarios of the case himself, leaving little to no work for the lawyers to earn their paychecks.

He questioned everyone, right from Margo and her family to Mark and his mother, and tried to make sense of their motives and expectations for this case. He finally took a test of Bodhi’s attachment to either side by passing him to every one of his family members on both sides, one by one.

On Margo’s side, the only hiccup was Shyanne and Bodhi’s complicated relationship, where the kid almost always cries whenever his grandmother tries to hold him. Margo and everyone else feared the same would happen when the judge ordered Bodhi to be passed to Shayanne. But in a surprising turn of events, Bodhi did not cry this time; it almost felt like he had mended her relationship with his grandmother, and Shyanne also could not hold her tears back at this joyous moment.

With Margo’s side looking all familiar and soothing to Bodhi, the judge now wanted to see what would happen if the kid were passed to his father. With palpable tension in the air, Mark slowly tries to hold his estranged son for the very first time, but as expected, Mark was a stranger to him, so Bodhi cries as soon as he realizes that he is with someone he did not know. The judge could perceive through the child’s attachment to both parties, and it seemed like he had almost made up his mind.

But then Mark broke into tears seeing his son’s indifference to him and what he had done to Margo, the mother of his child, dragging her online career out in the public just to tear her apart from her son. He expressed his desire to just have a chance to get to know his son. Margo responded immediately, reminding him that he was the one who cut off his son from his life, and it was she who had been raising the child all alone. She also mentioned that she was not ashamed of what she does to provide for her son, even if people find it to be distasteful.

Hearing both sides and after examining the best scenario for Bodhi’s future, the judge gave a swift judgment. He gave Bodhi’s permanent custody to Margo while granting Mark visitation rights and a weekends-only custody, citing that the child should know about his father and the father also has a right to be involved in the child’s life. Thus, Margo won the custody battle and also, in some way, mended her relationship with Mark.

'Margo’s Got Money Troubles' Episode 1–3 Recap: Can Margo Survive the Emotional and Financial Burden of Being a Single Mother?

Now, apart from the custody battle, several other things unfolded in the finale episode that set things up for the next chapter of Margo’s saga.

The previous episode saw Jinx relapse and overdose in Margo’s apartment. Margo almost died trying to bring her father back to the world of the living. Although nothing happened to Bodhi, this was an alarming situation, as an addict cannot be trusted around a toddler. Keeping her son’s best interests in mind, Margo asks Jinx to move out of her apartment on Lace’s advice.

Jinx also accepts, as he too cares about Bodhi’s well-being above everything else. He shifts to Shayanne’s old apartment and will be living there until his treatment is over. Margo asks for the spare keys to her apartment back from him just for the sake of safety precautions. She reminds him that although she loves him, she has to do all of this to keep Bodhi safe, as he is her number one priority now.

Even though he is sad about what is happening and even ashamed of himself a bit, he accepts the circumstances for what they are and tries to keep his distance. He is seen in the episode trying to show up unannounced once, but is intercepted by Susie at the door, explaining to him that she cannot let him near Bodhi right now, especially with Margo away. However, Jinx was not there to cause trouble; he was just there to apologize to Susie, as he had hurt her as well with his actions.

Right till the very end, Jinx tried to stay as supportive as possible despite his challenges and fight with his inner demons. Whatever, Margo needed help with him was there; he even readily volunteered to remove himself from Bodhi’s life without a second thought. This kind of devotion to his family, even in times of personal crisis, is admirable. However, in my opinion, Jinx as a character is still left largely unexplored, and there are a lot of things that we still do not know about him. His character might get even more fleshed out in the seasons ahead.

While her biological father was trying his best to make her life a little easier for her, Margo’s stepfather went ahead and tried to torpedo all that she held dear.

After the trial, Mark and Margo seemed satisfied with the court’s decision and were even on talking terms with each other. So, in an effort to clear things up, Mark told Margo that he was not the one to send the Child Protective Services after her. Margo was baffled at this revelation as she could not think of any other person benefiting from her getting in trouble with the CPS.

However, it happened to be someone who had no direct motive to snitch on Margo but did so out of his twisted conscience that somehow convinced him that sending the CPS after Margo would be helpful to Bodhi. It was none other than Kenny, Margo’s stepfather. He very innocently explained that he did not think that alerting the CPS about the current conditions around Bodhi would cause serious trouble to Margo.

Somewhere, with Kenny’s character development, we forgot that at the end of the day, he is the uptight, goody-two-shoes churchgoer that we met in the first episode. He really thought that he was doing the right thing and protecting Shyanne from the burden of doing it herself. Shyanne seemed to be at a loss for words at Kenny’s completely foolish logic. This really sets up for a tumultuous relationship that will further unfold in the next season.

With the judgment in her favor and her identity already in the public eye, as we saw in episode 6, Margo decides to fully commit to her OnlyFans career with a big reveal of her nether region, which is a big deal in her profession, as informed by JB and Rose. But she does not simply show it in an ordinary or banal manner. She wants it to be as artistically marvellous as possible. Ever since she started her career in this field, she has maintained that what she does is simply more than adult content - it is an artistic expression of explicit content.

For the sole purpose of the big reveal, she, along with Susie, built an extravagant set that resembles that of an alien pod where her online persona, HungryGhost, will reveal what her fans were waiting for all along. The episode ends with her doing a solo shoot in the brilliantly made setup.

The first season of Margo’s Got Money Troubles came to an end with Margo’s journey as a single mother becoming a bit easier now with a successful career, and Bodhi’s future accounted for. But this does not mean an end to Margo’s story. The show leaves plenty of doors open to lead up to the next chapter. And above all, being a single mother is not easy at all, and there are a plethora of obstacles that Margo can encounter in the chapters ahead. Therefore, the hope for a subsequent season is not out of bounds.

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Did you find the conclusion of Margo’s Got Money Troubles season 1 as per your expectations? Share your thoughts in the comments.