Who killed Denise on The Oval? Her beheading went unsolved for a whole season

Jason Franklin, the president's son, killed her. The show didn't let viewers find out until the second season, when his mother opened a chest in his bedroom and found a bloody sword.

Tyler Perry's The Oval premiered on BET on October 23, 2019, created, written and directed by Perry, about a family installed in the White House by powerful backers and the staff who keep the building running. President Hunter Franklin had a long-running mistress, Denise Truesdale (Melissa L. Williams), dating back to his time as governor. Denise was beheaded in season 1, and for the rest of that season the question of who did it hung over the show. TVLine summed up the tone of season 1 as a season of beddings and beheadings.

What happened in season 1

Denise's death set off a cover-up instead of an investigation. The blood-soaked mattress became evidence everyone wanted gone: Kyle, who handled much of the cover-up, eventually shows First Lady Victoria Franklin footage of it being burned in a field. Meanwhile, Diane, the former press secretary, went public with DNA tying the president to a dead woman's underwear, and Hunter later admitted to Victoria that the underwear had belonged to Denise.

The finale, a two-hour episode in July 2020, revealed a different crime. Jason (Daniel Croix Henderson), the Franklins' son, raped and strangled the White House maid Jean and hid her body under his bed. But it didn't close the Denise case.

TVLine's finale recap pointed out the gap plainly: after 25 episodes, the show still hadn't said who killed Denise.

BET's own preview before season 2 put it on its list of questions the new episodes had to answer.

Read more: ‘The Family Disappears’ brings David Harbour and John Cena together in the fifth season

How the show revealed it

The answer arrived early in the next run of episodes, which premiered on February 16, 2021. Here's how it unfolded:

• The discovery — in the first episodes of the new run, Victoria makes a gruesome discovery in the White House: a chest in Jason's bedroom with a bloody sword inside.
• "The Fencer" (March 9, 2021) — Hunter, who doesn't want to believe it, and Victoria confront their son. Victoria slaps him, and he answers by putting her in a chokehold.
• The confession — Jason eventually tells his parents he killed Jean, beheaded Denise and later strangled his grandmother Maude. According to the show's fan wiki, his reason for killing Denise was that his father wouldn't stop bringing her around.

Meanwhile, Max had kept a piece of the bloody mattress as evidence, still believing Kyle and the Franklins were responsible for Denise's death.

One wrinkle for anyone rewatching: some episode guides count these early-2021 episodes as a continuation of season 1, so "The Fencer" shows up in some places as season 1, episode 29. BET aired and promoted them as season 2.

Denise didn't fully disappear from the show either. Williams also played her twin sister, Ruth Truesdale, a member of the cult known as the Rakudushis.

How it ended

The Oval ran seven seasons on BET and aired its series finale in early October 2026. Jason, by then the show's central villain, is taken into Secret Service custody after a bombing, and Victoria, finally getting the chance she has been waiting for, injects him with a syringe. The episode cuts away before confirming whether he dies, which leaves the man who started the show's first mystery as one of its last unanswered questions.

Earlier we wrote: What is The Walking Dead: Dead City about? Maggie needs the man who killed her husband to get her son back