Portrait of a Thief

While Will’s still in handcuffs, a news story breaks about museums trafficking stolen art. A New York Times article contains evidence of museum complicity based on internal documents from the Met, as well as emails between the Met and other major museums. Will denies involvement, but knows Daniel’s father sees the truth—that the article’s evidence was stolen from the Met that day. Being in FBI custody when the story breaks is the crew’s alibi. Yaoxian releases Will, saying trespassing doesn’t warrant FBI involvement.

A flashback of the heist is told from Lily and Daniel’s shared perspective. While Will, Irene, and Alex are “caught” by the FBI in the Chinese art gallery, Lily and Daniel break into a Met office and steal a computer’s hard drive. During the others’ interrogations, Lily uploads the data to her computer and sends it to Zhao Min and Liu Siqi, who forward it to news stations.

Yuling calls Will and congratulates him, saying the three museums that still have zodiac fountainheads made public apologies and acknowledged China’s right to its art; the zodiac fountainheads will be returned. It’s revealed Will wrote the New York Times article ahead of time; Min and Siqi added Lily’s stolen evidence to the article before sending it out. Yuling admits she hadn’t expected the crew to complete the heists, but says she’s glad to be wrong. Will thanks her and thinks about the things for which he wants to be remembered.

Daniel talks to his father, who says he had an idea of what the crew was up to, but would have come home at his request no matter what. Yaoxian tells Daniel that he’s done something all of China will remember, and museums are already starting to make changes to how they treat artifacts. Daniel feels they’ve started to repair their relationship.

After they’re released from FBI custody, Alex tells Irene that she needed to believe in the heists, because she felt like she was drowning. She admits she hated Irene and her success for a while. When Irene asks if she still hates her, Alex kisses her.

Six months pass, and Lily is back in Durham, about to graduate. Her cut of the $50 million is in an offshore bank account, set up to make steady payments of her loans. After her Microsoft summer internship, she’ll spend two weeks in Changsha, China with her parents before joining the crew in Beijing and then Paris. Daniel was accepted to medical school, and Irene was elected student body president at Duke. Lily thinks about taking Will to see Galveston someday, their relationship continuing to blossom after the heists.

Alex finishes packing up her apartment in Silicon Valley, ready to leave for good. She’ll visit her family in New York first, then return to MIT to finish her degree. She knows she doesn’t need it, but wants it anyway. Alex realizes working for a corporate giant was never her dream, that she wasted too much time trying to mold herself to this idea of success.

Daniel’s at the airport, headed to Boston for Will’s graduation, when his father sends a text saying he loves him. He hesitates, but responds “Love you too” (361); this is the first time he’s voiced such to his father. Daniel will graduate in a few weeks and spend the summer in Beijing with his father, as always. He plans to see Liu Siqi while he’s there. In the fall he’ll go to Stanford for medical school.

Tired of always doing what’s expected of her, Irene opts out of her summer internship at the consulting firm. She’ll work for a political campaign in Washington, DC, instead; she’ll be close enough to New York to see Alex often. Daniel invites Irene to spend the summer in China, but she decides America is hers just as much as China, and she has things she wants to do in the US. Alone with Alex, she says she never hated her and that her time is Alex’s.

Will graduates, surrounded by loved ones. He takes his crew to the Sackler Museum and shows them a new exhibit of his art: It’s called “Reclaiming History” and consists of portraits he did of his friends in the style of the old masters, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Botticelli. He reflects on all he’s accomplished in the past year, and for the first time, it’s enough.