The two-hour finale of 'The Curious Case of Natalia Grace' aired Wednesday night on Investigation Discovery.
Curiouser and curiouser. The second season of The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: Natalia Speaks came to an end on Wednesday, and left viewers on a truly shocking cliffhanger.
During the shocking finale, Natalia and her former adoptive father Michael had an emotional confrontation that ended with Michael laying the blame on his ex-wife, Kristine, and sobbing for forgiveness -- which Natalia eventually gave.
It was a surprisingly uplifting conclusion to her relationship with a man who caused her so much pain throughout her childhood.
In the final act of the season finale, Natalie gets legally adopted by Antwon and Cynthia Mans -- her legal guardians who took her in after she was abandoned -- and Natalia seems optimistic about her potential and her future.
However, the closing minute of the episode threw everything on its head.
The show introduced a title card that read, "Two weeks ago, and six months after Natalia's adoption, the producers got a shocking phone call."
Then, an audio recording played -- over an ominous drone shot of Natalia's neighborhood -- that featured Antwon and Cynthia claiming they'd been deceived by Natalia.
"Something ain't right with Natalia. This girl is tweakin'" Antwon can be heard claiming to producers. "I feel like she's the enemy in the house. And she said to us, we have held her hostage. Made us look like we're the enemy."
"Natalia is stabbing her family in the back over a complete lie," Cynthia chimes in.
"She's done other things too, but this was a new low," Antwon claims. "Natalia does not have emotions for nothing but herself. We're done. We're done with her."
Then, a final title card reading, "Natalia's story will continue."
For the uninitiated, in 2010, Michael and Kristine Barnett thought they had adopted a 6-year-old orphaned girl from Ukraine. Not realizing she had a form of dwarfism called spondyloepiphyseal, the Indiana couple claimed that they became suspicious that their newest family member was not actually a child.
In addition to claiming that Natalia showed physical signs of being much older than a kid, the Barnetts accused her of trying to harm them and their children. During the two years Natalia lived with them, they claimed that she tried to poison Kristine and push Michael into an electric fence.
Eventually, believing that she was, in fact, an adult, they had her legal age changed from 6 to 22. By 2013, the Barnett family moved to Canada and left Natalia behind in an apartment in Lafayette, Indiana.
Michael and Kristine -- who are now divorced, as of 2014 -- were eventually charged with abandoning Natalia before Michael was found not guilty of three counts of neglect and conspiracy to commit neglect of a dependent in 2022, while charges against Kristine were dropped in March 2023.
Throughout the ordeal, questions were raised about the Barnetts having fabricated their suspicions and Natalia has vehemently denied the accusations that she threatened or attempted to harm her former adoptive family. The Mans claimed -- up to now -- that they'd never seen her behave in a concerning manner. Clearly, something has changed.
So, fans who thought this whole strange business of orphans, madness, abandonment, betrayal and misrepresentation was over, they're going to have a whole new twisted web to unweave.
RELATED CONTENT:
