The Ending Of Saw III Explained
Spoilers ahead for the entire "Saw" franchise.
After the gruesome events of "Saw II" — in which Detective Eric Matthews (Donnie Wahlberg) tries to rescue his son Daniel (Erik Knudsen) from the latest game of Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) — fresh individuals are challenged to appreciate life in "Saw III."
It's made clear from the original film that John Kramer, aka Jigsaw, is on the brink of death due to an inoperable frontal lobe tumor. But in the third installment of the "Saw" franchise, it's the first time we see him bedridden and truly looking ill. Still, that doesn't stop him from inventing a few final games: One for Jeff Denlon (Angus Macfadyen), one for Jeff's wife, Lynn (Bahar Soomekh), and one for his protege Amanda Young (Shawnee Smith).
Unbeknownst to the three players, all of their challenges are closely intertwined, with the actions of one individual able to positively or negatively affect the fate of another. Even in his final seconds, Jigsaw has a few tricks up his sleeve, tasking the Denlons and Amanda with learning the important lesson of forgiveness if they plan to make it out alive. However, no one wins these games.
What you need to remember about the plot of Saw III
Jigsaw doesn't choose players for his games at random. All, in his opinion, are failing to live life to the fullest due to drug use, crime, or in Jeff Denlon's case, an obsession with vengeance. Following the hit-and-run death of his young son Dylan Denlon (Stefan Georgiou), Jeff dreams of getting even with not only the driver, but the judge who let the driver off easy in court, as well as the woman who witnessed the hit and fled the scene.
Jeff is consumed with anger and obsessed with hoarding Dylan's physical possessions as a way to keep his spirit alive. This, in turn, leads to a pretty stressful living situation for his young daughter, Corbett Denlon (Niamh Wilson). Jigsaw puts Jeff face to face with these three individuals to challenge him to forgive instead of kill.
Meanwhile, Jeff's wife Lynn, a doctor, has been cheating on him, neglecting Corbett and not giving 100% to her patients at the hospital. She's trapped in the same building, forced into a dangerous game of her own: She must keep a dying Jigsaw alive, all with a frantic Amanda — who audiences learn has been helping him from the beginning — nearby. If his heart stops, the collar around Lynn's neck explodes. However, if she keeps Jigsaw breathing until her husband completes his game, she can walk free. Jeff and Lynn have no idea about each other's respective predicaments, and Amanda is unaware of their marriage.
What happened at the end of Saw III?
Jeff tries — and fails — to save driver Timothy Young (Mpho Koaho), Judge Halden (Barry Flatman), and witness Danica (Debra Lynne McCabe). Despite his rage toward them, Jeff expresses grief when he's not quick enough to rescue them from Jigsaw's traps. He even sets fire to Dylan's possessions to prevent Judge Halden from drowning in pig guts, but the judge accidentally gets shot during their attempt to free Timothy.
Still, Jeff's game isn't over just yet. Back at Jigsaw's bedside, Amanda — frustrated that Jigsaw wants to free Lynn — shoots the doctor just as Jeff enters the room. After seeing what Amanda has done to his wife, Jeff fatally shoots her without giving it a second thought. Ultimately, Amanda — who takes a life instead of saving one — fails Jigsaw's final test for her.
Jigsaw pleads with Jeff to forgive him for the pain and trauma he caused the couple that night. In fact, he can have an ambulance on hand within minutes that could possibly save Lynn's life. But rather than do so, Jeff slices Jigsaw's throat open. This, in turn, causes Jigsaw's heart rate to drop and Lynn's explosive collar to detonate, killing her instantly.
One final recording is played, informing Jeff that forgiving Jigsaw was his final test and, like Amanda, he failed. Meanwhile, Jeff is also informed that his daughter Corbett is trapped somewhere with limited oxygen, but he has no idea where without a living Jigsaw to tell him.
What the end of Saw III means
Throughout "Saw III," Jigsaw is testing both Amanda and Jeff, and neither achieves their goal. He's preparing Amanda to carry on his life's work after she wins her first game. However, rather than build games that work to teach players a lesson and help them discover a new lease on life, she's preoccupied by torture and death. For example, although Detective Allison Kerry (Dina Meyer) unlocks herself and even dips her hand in acid to retrieve the key, she still meets a gory demise.
Jigsaw tells Amanda, "Your games are unwinnable, your subjects merely victims." Amanda has one last chance to step away from her murderous ways, but instead takes the life of Lynn, who Jigsaw keeps hinting is more important than she realizes. If Amanda took a second to assess the situation and didn't shoot, Jeff would've had no reason to kill her.
Then there's Jeff, who is unable to shed his vengeful nature. Similar to Amanda, if he just took a moment before slashing Jigsaw's throat, he may have noticed the giant collar around his wife's neck and figured out what it means. However, he lets his desire to get even overtake him, thus causing Lynn's brutal demise. At the beginning, there is a chance for everyone (well, besides Jigsaw), to walk out of that building a little banged up, but otherwise alive. Yet due to the hate and rage that Amanda and Jeff exude, that turns out to be impossible.
Another possible ending of Saw III
At a glance, what Jigsaw puts Jeff, Lynn, and even Amanda through seems cruel, vicious, and unnecessary. However, there's a method to his madness. Jigsaw doesn't think of himself as a murderer. Though people certainly die violent deaths while playing his games, he doesn't physically attack them. In his mind, they're causing their own demise by not thinking their predicaments through. For example, in "Saw V," everyone has the chance to escape, yet because of their egos and cutthroat natures, this isn't recognized until there are only two people left.
Jigsaw actually detests more conventional murderers and thrusts an unsuspecting Amanda into a new game when he fears that's what she's becoming. Her players have zero chance of escaping, even if they saw off a limb or two. In Amanda's games, there's always a bolted door with no key or a murder trap that goes off even if the player completes the task at hand. This isn't the kind of legacy that Jigsaw wants to leave behind.
As for Jeff, he has a wife and daughter, but is so consumed by his desire for vengeance that he neglects them. It's a life that Jigsaw almost had, until his pregnant wife Jill Tuck (Betsy Russell) lost their son Gideon John Kramer during a violent robbery, as seen in "Saw IV." Jigsaw doesn't want to kill Jeff — he wants him to understand that there are more important things in life to focus on than revenge.
What has the director said about the ending?
Throughout the first two "Saw" films, Jigsaw wholeheartedly believes that his brutal games are for the greater good. Even as Eric Matthews frantically figures out how to save his son, Jigsaw doesn't waver. However, according to director Darren Lynn Bousman, that confidence begins to drop at the end of "Saw III," just before he dies. He hoped that Amanda — the sole survivor of his games thus far — would be a changed person, free from her past life of drugs and self-harm, but that's not the case.
Bousman said in an interview with IGN, "What makes this movie so tragic is it invalidates his philosophy in the other two films, this whole philosophy that people can change, people can win. No, they can't." He added, "Amanda never changed, just kept it below the surface. And it was a struggle with her every day to keep it below the surface..."
In his final moments, Jigsaw is emotional and pleading with Amanda to not do what he knows she's going to — kill Lynn. If Amanda spared her life, he could've exited this world knowing he changed at least one person for the better. However, he dies having helped no one in the way he thought he could. As Bousman observed, "Imagine your entire life's work. You're on your deathbed. You know there's nothing else you can do and here's how you'll be remembered: as a killer, as a murderer. Not as someone who helped people."
What has Shawnee Smith said about the ending?
In a behind-the-scenes interview for "Saw III," Shawnee Smith described the story of Amanda as tragic. Though the character wants to carry on Jigsaw's legacy and turn a new leaf, she lived such a hard life prior to meeting him that it proves impossible. "There's this little piece of Amanda that's unsolvable," said Smith. "It's unfixable and that's tragic."
According to Smith, there's about 5% of Amanda that remains dark and out of her control. She desperately tries to master it, and even tries to hide slip-ups from Jigsaw. This is evident in the scene that shows her cutting her legs, where Jigsaw isn't able to see her scars. Yet in the end, her dark side always ends up winning.
The entire movie, added Smith, hinges on the toxic connection between Amanda and Jigsaw. It's a deep bond, with "Saw III" filling in some gaps of how it formed in the first place. Viewers finally know how Adam (Leigh Whannell) and Dr. Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes) end up in their predicament in "Saw," and why the most recent games of Jigsaw are inescapable — they're Amanda's, not his. As time goes on, Jigsaw realizes their relationship isn't what he thought — she's not his ideal protege, which is why he secretly makes Jeff and Lynn pawns in his own game for Amanda to give her one last chance at redemption.
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What has Tobin Bell said about the ending?
"Saw III" is certainly a gore fest, from the twisting limbs of Timothy to the bloody brain surgery of Jigsaw himself. However, according to Tobin Bell in an interview with MTV, there's much more to the film than just scaring — and nauseating — the masses. The message is intended to help viewers self-reflect on their own choices, whether good or bad.
Ultimately, the "Saw" franchise raises a main question — in Tobin's words: "If you knew the exact moment of your own death, how would you live your life differently today?" It's highly likely that, had Jeff known the predicament in which he'd end up, he would've tried to find peace with his son's death rather than seek vengeance and alienate his remaining loved ones. Had Amanda known killing Lynn would get her shot seconds later, it's safe to say she wouldn't have pulled the trigger. She also may have followed Jigsaw's teachings more closely and refrained from becoming a normal murderer, all of which would've prevented her from being tested in such a way.
Bell explained how such questions are making teens and young adults think more deeply about the types of lives they're living. Are they doing anything that would land them in Jigsaw's next game? "If the fact that the questions that we're asking are food for thought for such a broad range of young people, to me, it means we're doing something [right]," he said.
What the end of Saw III could mean for the franchise
It's revealed in "Saw III" that beginning with the game involving Adam and Dr. Gordon, Jigsaw isn't acting alone. Amanda is by his side for everything, even donning the pig's mask to knock out and capture Jigsaw's intended players. It turns everything that audiences thought they knew about the first two films on its head, and welcomes the idea that Jigsaw has a team of sorts behind him. The only question is, how big is his staff?
When law enforcement begins to stumble upon larger male victims, it introduces the possibility that there's a third person pulling the strings now that the identities of the first two game makers are known. Jigsaw is too frail to lift such individuals, and Amanda is too tiny, which means a man with a bit of strength is in on the games as well. But who? There are a few police officers and detectives who fit the bill, including Officer Daniel Rigg (Lyriq Bent), who is certainly made to look guilty, and Special Agent Peter Strahm (Scott Patterson).
However, it's actually Detective Lieutenant Mark Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) who is Jigsaw's second game maker in training, helping to pull the reins from behind the scenes. Even during the bedside debacle between Amanda and the Denlons, Hoffman is ever present. Therefore, while Amanda doesn't prove herself worthy to follow in Jigsaw's footsteps, his legacy does live on thanks to this corrupt detective.
Jeff's daughter is also a pawn in the games
There are a few open-ended storylines at the end of "Saw III," mainly involving the fate of Jeff and his daughter, Corbett. Does he find her in time before she runs out of oxygen? Does Jeff even make it out of the building alive? The answer to the second question is in "Saw IV," which sees Special Agent Peter Strahm, who is navigating the building during the final events of "Saw III," shoot Jeff, who wildly appears in front of him, in self-defense. As for Corbett, "Saw V" sees Detective Lieutenant Mark Hoffman rescuing her in a seemingly heroic act.
This scene is important for a number of reasons. First, the events of "Saw III" go deeper than just putting Amanda and the Denlons to the test and revealing Amanda's history in assisting Jigsaw in his games. "Saw III" is also meant to position Hoffman, who is investigating Jigsaw's crimes, as one of the good guys, making the reveal of his sinister true self all the more shocking for his fellow detectives and audiences alike.
Second, "Saw III" shows that the timelines of these films are closely intertwined and, in many cases, happening simultaneously. For example, Hoffman's rescue of Corbett in "Saw V" takes place moments after Jigsaw's death two films prior, or possibly at the same time.
Saw III's alternate ending
The final scene of "Saw III" is heartbreaking for any viewers rooting for the Denlons. As Lynn's faceless corpse sits in the corner, Jeff plays Jigsaw's final tape, which informs him of his last test. A montage of victims is shown as Jeff listens to the message, devastated at what he's done. Yet a director's cut of that scene is even more heart wrenching. This version is longer, with Jeff going to sit beside his deceased wife before playing the tape. He holds her bloody hand, promising that he'll get her out of there, as he listens to Jigsaw's last — and already failed — test for him. In the shorter scene from the theatrical cut, Jeff doesn't go anywhere near Lynn.
Still, according to director Darren Lynn Bousman in an interview with IGN, there was originally supposed to be another ending to "Saw III" that may have shed even more light on the events of the inaugural film. He said, "There was a lot more of the Adam character. But when you look at a movie, you look at playability. Some things that I think are excellent, they just don't play, especially in the context of the story. So you have to do a lot of trims."