Against ‘The Ending Explained’

In recent years, there has been a proliferation of websites, YouTube channels, blogs, podcasts, or whatever, that seek to explain the ending of series, movies, books: We’re in the era of  “The Ending Explained.”

This is already a kind of genre or subgenre on social networks and I understand that perhaps there are books, movies or series that deserve the opinion of someone, some critic, some connoisseur who, given the possible complexity of the material, can offer the audience a point of clearer view that helps clarify the content.

But this is not the current case. I know many people who are practically addicted to “Ending Explained”, even though they have already understood the ending themselves. The worst thing is that the majority of “wise people” who want to explain everything to us about everything, know nothing about anything. So the question is: aren’t we becoming more stupid as an audience that needs to watch a half an hour video in order to understand what the ending of Barbie is really about? Well, yeah, probably we’re getting dumber.

Trying to prove myself wrong, I started looking for the easiest movies to understand and watch. Many people had dedicated pages to explaining their endings. One of these films was Netflix’s Damsel. I saw it one afternoon while I didn’t have something better to do and it entertained me. My surprise was when I saw the number of sites and YouTubers with the “Ending Explained” thing. But with Damsel you don’t have to explain anything. Nothing! If you didn’t understand the finale, you better go back to high school because there’s something screwed up in your head.

And I warn you that there are spoilers from here on out, which I know you don’t care about because you want to know the end of everything. So here we go, I selected the explained ending of Damsel by none other than the bible of women and I suppose some men too: Cosmopolitan. And I did it because this is publication has been around for many decades. For the “Ending Explained” to reach them, it means that we are talking about a pandemic in which they refer to the audience as idiots who don’t know or are not qualified to understand endings as basic as Damsel’s. Cosmopolitan explains Damsel’s ending like this: “Then Elodie, her sister Floria, and her stepmother just go home! They board a boat with enough supplies to get them through the next two winters and get the heck out of there. The dragon joins them too.” Congratulations, Cosmo, you gave exactly the right explanation of what the ending of this movie is. Bravo!

Then I saw many explained endings of the simplest movies, such as Wonka and the beloved Barbie, whose video is titled: What The Ending Of Barbie Really Means, to which my quick response is; It means the movie is over!

We are not talking about David Lynch’s films, because in any case, for artists of this caliber, the last thing they want is for some teenager to have the courage or lack of respect to try to explain something that perhaps not even Lynch himself knows. Because the magic of cinema and literature is the freedom of interpretation that each person has. That is what it is about absorbing, digesting and filling yourself with the art that others make: that you can own it  and in this way, make it friendly to you. even your confidant or the opposite.

I closed my research hoping NOT to find an explained ending for Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back. Oh my god, that ending is so direct that… well, I was curious to see what the people at secreenrant.com were saying about it and I came across an article full of nonsense like: “Lando’s Double-Cross Explained”; “Why Is They Have Frozen In Carbonite?”; “The ‘I Am Your Father’ Twist Explained”… and “The Real Meaning Of The Empire Strikes Back’s Ending”, which for them is: “As Lando and Chewie take the Millennium Falcon to figure out a way to save Han, Luke and Leia stare out at the stars, positive that their luck will turn around.” Brilliant analysis, right?

But this is about something else

Obviously they didn’t write this for people who know about Star Wars, for those of us who grew up with The Force. The whole Ending Explained thing is generational. This generation needs us to explain everything to them. They don’t have the time or desire to read books (real literature) but look for apps that explain; they need to see contemporary YouTubers “explaining” such basic endings just to feel that they were right and that other people, influencers, YouTubers, podcasters, validate what they think. That’s it: a validation of internal opinion and if what they see in the video is better than what they thought, then it changes the narrative and even their personal point of view.

This is, to say the least, a sad reality about a generation lacking in passion; a generation that would not understand what to do if they had a book by Thomas Mann in their hands, the density of the life and work of a Cormac McCarthy; the importance of Luis Buñuel’s surrealism, so much that it has no place for the closed minds of young people who live locked in their smartphones. I would like to explain a few things to them.