The Ending Of No One Will Save You Explained
Contains spoilers for "No One Will Save You"
After a string of strong films back in 2020 — including breakouts like "Spontaneous" and "Love and Monsters" – writer-director Brian Duffield returns with a new horror-thriller for Hulu called "No One Will Save You." The film follows a quiet young woman named Brynn (Kaitlyn Dever) — who lives on her own in a small town. With Brynn now living alone since her mother's death and being a social outcast after a mysterious incident with her former friend Maude (Dari Lynn Griffin), she's become accustomed to her loneliness but yearns to be more social. Unfortunately, Brynn's life is upended by the arrival of extraterrestrial entities with unclear motives, and she's forced to do anything she can to survive.
With "No One Will Save You," Duffield puts his own unsettling spin on the classic gray aliens and delivers nerve-shredding suspense at every turn. The film quickly turns into a thrilling fight to survive that constantly ramps up the tension and unleashes new horrors that make Brynn's chances of survival dwindle by the second. Within this terrifying alien invasion flick is also a deeply personal story of grief as Brynn is also forced to face the past she's tried to keep buried — adding intriguing shades to her character arc. There's certainly a lot that "No One Will Save You" brings to audiences — including a really weird, head-scratching ending. So let's delve into everything that happens in the film's finale and see how Brynn's night of sci-fi horror changes her.
What you need to remember about the plot
Before we go through the wild finale of "No One Will Save You," let's look at some important details that impact the ending. Our hero, Brynn, lives by herself in an isolated house just outside of a small town. Although she's gotten used to being on her own since her mother died, she's desperately trying to prepare herself to be more social. However, Brynn's plans are changed by the arrival of an alien with unknown motives. The alien is a gray-skinned being with a big head, strange movement, and telekinetic abilities that come through its elongated fingers. While the alien completely trashes Brynn's house and nearly captures her, she's able to kill it by stabbing it in the head.
This encounter terrifies her, and Brynn attempts to get help within the nearby town. She only receives spit in her face from Mrs. Collins (Geraldine Singer) — the mother of her former friend Maude. Based on the letters that Brynn still writes to Maude, it's clear that their friendship ended in tragedy for an unclear reason and that tension has spread to everyone else's view of her. But that isn't the only thing that's been spreading through the town — the aliens have, too, and Brynn comes to realize that they're controlling most of the other residents. Brynn is truly, finally alone. But she's ready to make a stand against the aliens to survive.
What happened at the end of the movie
Ultimately, the aliens capture Brynn. But after seeing her memories, their perspective changes. Maybe it's because they relate to her status as an outcast in her own town — since they are, too — or maybe they are intrigued by the emotion of her story. Either way, the aliens are so moved that they turn to ask some unseen higher power what they should do. Although we can't understand what they're saying, it seems like they're willing to let Brynn go. They send her out of the ship and back to the ground. Brynn is left stunned and laughing by the experience as the glistening lights of the ship reflect off her face.
As the next day comes, Brynn is seen getting ready for her day like she does at the start of the film — but things are a little different. When she leaves her house, other people are fixing and tending to her home. However, these people haven't been liberated — they are still possessed by the aliens. It turns out that Brynn and the aliens are capable of living together — likely due to the connection and impact made through Brynn's memories. Brynn no longer feels like an outcast and dances with the aliens like she's always dreamed of doing with other people. The film ends on a shot of various alien ships flying through the sky as joyful music plays.
What does the end of the movie mean
Given that most of the people around Brynn have been likely turned into mindless servants and that there are tons of flying saucers in the sky, it's very possible that Brynn could be one of the last humans on Earth, if not the final one, full stop. Although the aliens' motivations behind the invasion aren't clear, it seems like they came to Earth to take it over and enslave the human population. Outside of Brynn, there don't appear to be any human survivors, and it should be noted that Brynn was only saved because the aliens grew to like her.
Now, there could obviously be another survivor out there somewhere whom the aliens haven't found yet, or maybe there's someone else like Brynn on Earth with whom the aliens genuinely connected. At the end of the film, though, there's no way of knowing that, so the chances of someone else being out there are slim. The ending basically confirms that humanity has lost — aside from Brynn — and that aliens now rule Earth. Maybe that speaks to why they're so willing to dance with Brynn at the end.
What happened to Brynn after she's infected in the final act
The big twist comes in the film's climax when Brynn is captured by the aliens after a night of battling the invaders, and this twist helps us learn something about how the aliens work. The aliens' tractor beam catches her, and she is unable to move freely. The beam pins Brynn to the wall, and one of the telepaths approaches her to spit up a parasitic organism — the organism that, when ingested, causes people to fall under the alien's control.
Since Brynn can't control her body, the organism goes down her throat and begins to take hold of her. But then, the film cuts to Brynn waking up in her bed — making viewers think that maybe this was all just a bad dream. However, this is just a dream state created by the organism as Brynn sees Maude approach her. She tells Maude that she's sorry and then reaches into her own throat to pull the parasite out. The film cuts back to reality to show Brynn succeeding in yanking the thing loose of her throat, but she's unable to kill the parasite before it heads into a beam of light.
While Brynn runs away, the parasite becomes something unexpected. With the organism having Brynn's DNA, it's now able to become Brynn's clone, and it follows her into the woods to kill her. Luckily, Brynn uses her box cutter to slash at the clone's throat and kill it. Still, the horror of the moment is too much for Brynn, and she sobs while her clone dies in her arms.
What's Brynn and Maude's relationship like
With Brynn fending for her life the whole night and now just killing a clone of herself, most would think that she's been through enough. Unfortunately, after leaving the woods — Brynn is sucked up into one of the alien ships, and it's here that we learn Brynn's secret: What's her relationship like with Maude?
Once inside the ship, Brynn is approached by various telepaths who surround her and then touch her head so that they can look into her memories. Brynn, too, ends up walking down memory lane when they do this. In her mind, she finds herself in her house — where her mother (Lauren L. Murray) and younger self (Elizabeth Kaluev) are working on a project together. Brynn is guided outside, where police cars are seen everywhere and Maude's father looks devastated.
Brynn eventually reaches a memory that shows us what happened between her and Maude. While the two were engaged in an argument as kids, young Maude (Evangeline Rose) pushed Brynn down, and Brynn decided to retaliate by grabbing a rock and striking Maude in the head with it. This ends up killing her, and although Brynn was likely never charged with anything, being a minor at the time, this caused her to become a pariah in the community — especially to Maude's parents. Reliving this moment crushes Brynn and leads to her seeing her younger self writing one of the many letters she still writes to Maude. However, Brynn confronting her grief like this also makes her stronger and more forgiving of herself — which causes an unexpected impact on her alien captors.
Another explanation for the film's ending
While the aliens clearly come out victorious in the end since they've turned most of humanity into mindless puppets, Brynn also has her own personal victory. When we first meet Brynn, she struggles to break past social barriers. She's either ignored or despised by most of the residents in the town because of what happened with Maude and goes through her own issues in moving past her past. The dozens — possibly hundreds — of letters she's written to Maude show how long her grief over what happened has lingered and that it's not going away.
However, Brynn's experience with the aliens ends up being the therapy session she didn't know she needed. Not only is she given the opportunity to say sorry to Maude when she's in a dream sequence spurred by the parasite, but she's also forced to face her past and find forgiveness in herself when she goes through her memories. Plus, her connection to the people around her was already burned to the point where it couldn't be mended. So Brynn forgiving herself was really the only way she was going to move forward, and the aliens gave her that opportunity. Maybe it's Brynn's appreciation for the aliens helping her through a dark personal cloud or her desperation to find a silver lining in all of this, but her experience allows her to coexist with the aliens. In a twisted way, it's the new beginning she always needed.
What were the aliens after
Throughout "No One Will Save You," we don't know what the aliens are after, what the goal of their mission is, or what they hope to gain from enslaving humanity. But there are some clues that potentially hint at why the aliens came to Earth. The most obvious motivation is to simply invade and take over. Their attack-first nature certainly makes them the aggressor, and they seem hellbent on capturing as many humans as they can. Also, let's not forget that they use a parasitic organism to control people's bodies and turn them into mindless slaves. So there's no doubt that their initial goal in coming to Earth was to take over humanity and our planet.
However, there are other aspects to the aliens that possibly show they want to understand humanity. There's this curious nature to them that's often seen in their slow approach of Brynn and the way they stare at her in a thinking manner. The biggest hint that the aliens are there to learn, though, is in how things change in the finale. When they look into Brynn's memories and connect with her emotionally, their entire perspective of her changes. So although the aliens came to Earth looking to conquer, Brynn's journey causes them to change and maybe take a more peaceful approach to understanding humanity.
The fallout from a tragedy
As much as Brynn's arc is about her learning to forgive herself and face her past, "No One Will Save You" also shows how deeply the fallout from a tragedy can affect one's psyche. Despite Maude's death occurring roughly a decade prior to the events in the film, Brynn's actions as a kid continue to haunt her and affect her relationships as a young adult. No one within the town will talk to her, and she's such a social pariah that she doesn't feel comfortable talking to anyone, either. When she does approach Maude's parents, Maude's mother spits in her face.
Brynn's story really opposes the idea of time healing all wounds. No amount of time will heal the impact Maude's death had on the community, and the bad blood between the townspeople and Brynn might never be able to be salvaged. If Brynn's experience in this town is meant to teach viewers anything, it's that after tragedy strikes, you have two courses of action: either work with those hurt to try and move on, or find a way for yourself to move forward. Otherwise, the past will continue to haunt those affected, and broken lives will stay broken.
What does the ending mean for a potential sequel
Now for the big question: Will there be a sequel to "No One Will Save You"? As of right now, there have been no announcements made about a sequel for the film going into development, and based on the film's ending, it's likely that there won't be one. With Brynn potentially being the only human left on Earth and seemingly very happy with her new life among the aliens, her story arc appears to be wrapped up. There could also be another human out there who wants to kill the aliens, or a sequel could take us across the world a la Netflix's spin-off, "Bird Box Barcelona." But the film doesn't hint at any future, so it's just pure speculation for now.
Frankly, not even director Brian Duffield knows what's next. In an interview with MovieWeb, he said there are currently no ideas for a sequel on the table. "Kaitlin and I joked once that this could be our 'Before Sunrise' movie, where every seven years we pop back in, but I don't have a story for what happens next," Duffield said. For now, Duffield's take on dealing with trauma amidst an alien invasion seems like it ends with "No One Will Save You."