The Ending Of How It Ends Explained

There have been countless films and TV shows depicting different interpretations of the fall of society. Whether by a zombie virus or climate change, it seems that the human race is inevitably headed toward its ultimate doom (at least according to Hollywood).

In 2018, Netflix threw its hat into the ring of apocalyptic cinema with the action-packed original movie "How It Ends," starring Forest Whitaker and Theo James. James plays Will, a white-collar lawyer whose girlfriend, Sam (Kat Graham), is pregnant with their child. He flies across the country to see Sam's father, Tom (Whitaker), to give him the good news and ask for Sam's hand in marriage. Tom is a military man and a traditionalist who clearly does not approve of Tom, which makes things awkward when disaster strikes and the two of them must work together to keep their family safe.

"How It Ends" is a unique take on the end-of-the-world genre. It's an interesting combination of suspense, drama, and buddy-cop action movies. While the first two acts of the movie are jam-packed with high action and thrills, the third act takes quite a different turn. The ending of "How It Ends," ironically, leaves the audience with more questions than answers. So here's a breakdown of what exactly happens at the end of "How It Ends."

"How It Ends" begins with Will flying from Seattle to Chicago to visit his girlfriend's parents. Will and Sam's dad, Tom, have never gotten along, since Tom resents Will for taking his only daughter away from him. Things erupt into an argument between Will and Tom, so Will decides not to go through with his original plan and head back home instead. While on the phone with Sam, Will hears a strange noise on the other end before losing the connection. Soon, all of the power in the western United States is down, and the crisis soon spreads across the country.

Since Will can't fly back to Seattle where Sam is, Tom offers to drive both of them to go and get to her. Their road trip does not go smoothly, to say the least. While on the road, the two men run into hostile civilians, including a man in a police uniform who holds them at gunpoint and a group that steals their gas. They also befriend a mechanic named Ricki (Grace Dove) who accompanies them on their journey for a time.

After a harrowing escape from an exploding car, Tom sustains a serious injury and his lung collapses. As Will attempts to patch him up, he and Tom finally manage to reconcile their differences, and Tom gives his blessing to Will and Sam's marriage. Unfortunately, it's not long before Tom's body fails him and he dies, leaving Will to continue the journey alone.

Eventually, Will makes it back to Seattle. However, by the time he gets there, there isn't much of Seattle left. The whole city is in shambles, with ash falling like snow, bodies everywhere, and buildings collapsed into heaps of rubble. Will manages to find his way to his and Sam's apartment, where Sam has left a message telling him where to find her.

Will finds Sam in a cabin outside of the city staying with a man named Jeremiah. The two of them share a happy reunion as Will relates the tumultuousness of the journey and the sad news of Tom's death. Meanwhile, Jeremiah appears to be in an unstable, paranoid state, which makes Will uneasy. Shortly after, Jeremiah confronts Will, revealing that he is in love with Sam. Will fends off an attack from Jeremiah, killing him in the process.

Will doesn't have time to breathe a sigh of relief, however. A volcanic eruption forces him and Sam to jump into their car and race away from the oncoming wave of smoke and ash. As Will turns to Sam and assures her that they are going to be okay, the car continues speeding down the road with the eruption close on their heels as the credits roll.

Given the abruptness of it all, it's understandable why people might be confused by the way "How It Ends" just — well — ends. There are a lot of layers to peel back before we get there, though, so let's take them one at a time.

As Will and Tom make their journey through the chaos of the unexplained disaster, they find themselves in unprecedented situations. The various people they come across are as desperate as they are to make it out alive, and their actions are just as desperate. A woman feigns needing help just so her group can take Tom and Will's gas cans at gunpoint. Later on, a biker gang attacks them when they try to pass over a bridge. It becomes a dog-eat-dog world in a short amount of time, and survival of the fittest quickly becomes the number one rule for many.

However, not everyone whom Tom and Will encounter shares the same principles. Ricki is willing to help fix the damaged car, as well as accompany Will and Tom in order to aid them. Will also later meets a family who gives him a ride, and in turn, he offers them a place to stay. In other words, a major theme of "How It Ends" is what humanity will do in times of crisis. Do they help one another or turn against each other? And how far will a person go to protect someone they love? In Will's case, he will stop at nothing to get back to Sam and his unborn child.

Perhaps the biggest question in "How It Ends" is the cataclysmic event itself. Was it man-made? Was it Mother Nature on a bad day? The ending leaves it unclear, but it does give a few hints.

There is a strong military presence that appears shortly after the event begins. Fighter planes can be seen flying over Chicago as Will looks out a window, and Tom manages to talk his way through a soldier-manned checkpoint. They also spy a train loaded with tanks and heavy artillery that's no doubt military-grade stuff. It seems very suspicious that the military would react so quickly in such a short time, which suggests a high possibility of an attack of massive proportions from an outside threat.

There are also natural disasters occurring all over the place — wildfires, earthquakes, and the massive volcanic eruption in the film's final moments. The ash that covers Seattle is probably the aftermath of a volcanic event as well. However, there's also evidence that many of these disasters could have been the effects of a nuclear attack. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, a nuclear explosion can cause an earthquake and aftershocks, although the damage is not as devastating as the blast itself. This wouldn't explain the volcanic activity, however, though it might have been just a timely coincidence. To be fair, from a scientific standpoint, not a lot about "How It Ends" makes much sense.

At the beginning of "How It Ends," Tom is a man who's difficult to get along with, to say the least. When Will arrives at his home, Tom is cold and unwelcoming. He passive-aggressively hints that Will is trying to squeeze money out of him and criticizes Will for allowing his daughter to be the breadwinner. He also insinuates that Will stole his daughter from him and moved all the way across the country just to distance himself and Sam from her parents.

No matter how much Will tries, it seems impossible to earn Tom's respect. This changes over the course of the movie as the two men are thrown into dire circumstances. In the scene where Tom is wounded and sitting in the backseat while Will drives, the two bond for the first time. Tom allows himself to be vulnerable in front of Will as he talks about his own father, and how Tom wished to be a better father to his daughter. He then goes on to assure Will that he will be a good father to Sam's baby. Sadly, Tom dies not too long afterward.

By the end of "How It Ends," Tom finally recognizes Will's worth. He sees his willingness to do what's necessary in order to survive and protect the ones he loves. Once he's certain that Will is capable of looking after his daughter, Tom is finally able to let go of his resentment and give his approval to their marriage.

Will goes through his own transition from the beginning of "How It Ends" to its conclusion. Like many millennials, he's reliant on modern technology and has little to no experience in dealing with a real crisis. His job at a law firm also doesn't exactly prepare him for the trials of a world gone mad. By the end of the movie, however, Will learns what he's truly capable of.

In an early scene, Will is shocked and horrified when Tom produces a pistol and uses it to scare off some potential attackers. Later on, however, the same pistol ends up saving his and Tom's life. With instructions from Tom, Will learns how to load and shoot the gun at a man in a police car who attempts to run them off the road. In another scene, Will has to save Tom after an injury causes his lung to collapse. Again following Tom's direction, Will performs an emergency thoracotomy with a needle, and he does so with very little hesitation.

By the end of the film, Will goes from someone who can barely stand up for himself to someone who is resilient and adaptable. Much of that is due to his experiences with Tom. It's also Will's promise to Tom that he will keep Sam safe that steels his resolve. Though the audience doesn't know for sure what happens to Sam and Will in the end, they know that Will can do whatever it takes to keep them both and their coming child alive.

Theo James' and Forest Whitaker's characters butt heads in "How It Ends," but in real life, the actors seem to agree on many things. In an interview with BUILD in 2018, both actors discussed some of the film's themes and how their characters evolve from the beginning of the movie to the end.

"[Forest's] character has a very specific set of rules, the way he sees life, and there's a black-and-white nature to that," James said. "Whereas Will is a little bit complacent and a little softer in that way, but then they get to respect one another on equal terms as the film goes on." Whitaker elaborated on James' thoughts, saying, "The movie starts to explore what you'll do to survive," which is a big part of the relationship between the two characters. "What he will do to save my daughter, and to survive, is very important for me to see. When I start to see that he is even willing to protect himself appropriately, then maybe he'll be able to protect her."

The actors also noted how the movie's themes might relate to current turbulent times. "It reflects how close we feel to the potential for chaos," James said. "In America, in Britain, the way things are evolving in the Middle East, there is a sense that things could change very rapidly on a dime and could throw everything we conceive about our lives into jeopardy." Whitaker added that the film reflects "what's going on with the global system — climate change that's happening in the world and the disasters that are happening all over the world." As Whitaker said, "All these things make you have to look at what will happen if people are put in a situation where they have to deal with these phenomenons [sic]."

With "How It Ends" ending the way it does, it's natural that viewers would have a lot of questions. It's also natural that such an abrupt conclusion might cause audiences to feel cheated. In one particular Reddit discussion, users were very eager to voice their thoughts.

several users pointed out the logical flaw that none of the heroes bother to make use of the military weapons that seem to be everywhere. Redditor u/kraken9911 noted, "I'm even more bothered that Forest Whitaker is supposed to be this hardass military [veteran] that served for 27 years by his own words, and his 'bug out bag' consists of a single pistol with just a few mags." While some of the thread's participants were there to slam the movie, others took to posting their own theories. Several users presented the idea of a strong magnetic field due to shifts in the planet's polar caps, which might explain Tom's compass not working, as well as the appearance of the Northern Lights. Some even suggested (and rooted for) the idea of the movie tying into the "Cloverfield" franchise.

Reddit user u/WeaponsHot offered another unique theory, suggesting that a coronal mass ejection may have caused everything. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, CMEs are "large expulsions of plasma and magnetic field from the Sun's corona," which can cause intense geomagnetic storms. In other words, they're a very possible world-ending event. Whatever may have caused the devastating events in "How It Ends," the general consensus among many viewers appears to be that the filmmakers should have done a little more homework.

The cliffhanger ending of "How It Ends" leaves a big insinuation that there might be a follow-up of some kind. However, it has been five years since the movie first streamed on Netflix, and as of yet there has been no official announcement of a sequel in the works. 

The likelihood of a "How It Ends 2" seems pretty low. It was universally panned by critics and holds a dismal 17% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. If a sequel to "How It Ends" were ever to get up and running, speculation suggests it likely would not make it to Netflix for a few more years at least. A possible plot might pick up where the first movie leaves off, with Will and Sam driving away from the volcano and making it out of danger just in time. Another idea might be to make Ricki the new protagonist and show what happens to her after she leaves Tom and Will. 

Yet another option would be to have an entirely new cast of characters and depict their struggle, while possibly discovering what caused the disaster in the first place. It probably won't happen, but who can say for sure?