This article discusses the ending of the Peacock film They/Them, which will contain spoilers.
Ready Steady Cut film critic M.N. Miller calls They/Them “a surprisingly tame horror picture.”
They/Them opens with a masked murderer killing Molly. They are on their way to, we assume, the conversion camp up the road. We don’t know why they choose to look like Jason Voorhees with a creepy mask and hoody, but all will be revealed in time. Now, let’s get to the characters and why they are here.
You will notice that the camp employees will use traditional pronouns that refer to someone’s biology (a social construct). The residents will use pronouns that are respectful to their chosen gender identity. We have Owen (Kevin Bacon) and Cora Whistler (The Good Wife’s Carrie Preston), who run a conversion camp in the bible belt of the deep south for young people of the LGBTQ+ community. They have a loyal and talented staff. Cora is the local therapist. Zane (Devotion’s Boone Platt) is the athletic director. He is also a former camp member, and, as Owen says, he is now straight as an arrow. His fiancé, Sarah (The Mysteries of Laura’s Haley Griffith), also a former member, runs the “ladies” portion of the curriculum.
This includes baking pies and testing girls’ lust for same-sex intercourse by making foreplay extra credit. They have a local repair person, who, of course, is creepy and losing his hair. He has installed cameras in local women’s showers and pleasures himself in a cabin (in a camp that is not supposed to have Wi-Fi, by the way). Finally, they have a nurse, Molly (Anna Chlumsky), whose jaw keeps hitting the floor as she keeps discovering the camp’s history and modern conversation techniques.
The new batch of residents has arrived in a bus that I think was used in the filming of The Shawshank Redemption. These are fresh fish for the camp, and their families have sent down all for various indiscretions deemed unacceptable. Jordan (The Politician’s Theo Germaine), who identifies as trans/non-binary. Alexandra pretends to lie to the camp about her biological identity and is currently taking hormone therapy to transition into being female.
When Owen finds out, he forces Alexandra to sleep in the boy’s dormitory. Toby’s (Austin Crute) parents want him to be straight. That goes for Kim (Anna Lore), who likes women, but her parents want her to give them grandchildren like her sister. Cooper is a star athlete whose father is terrified of his homosexual thoughts. And finally, Veronica, a member of the LGBTQ+ community who is there undercover to write about the conversation camp experience. Another prominent resident, Gabriel (Darwin del Fabro), has a secret.
However, let’s get to what has been happening in the camp conversions. Sex, a lot of it. Apparently, conversion camp sex is all the rage because it is happening everywhere. After Kim fights off Sarah’s advances by baking the perfect pie, she confides in Veronica while sitting on the dock by the lake. And let’s say don’t “cum”-a-knockin when the dock-is-Rockin. There must be something in the water because Gabriel makes a move on Stu while he swims in the lake. And after spending a couple of hours in a love shack, that’s a little old place where they can get together.
After, Gabriel drops a bombshell — they are a mole! It was their job to test Stu (just like Sarah flirting with Kim), and he failed. So, Owen and Zane take him to the locked room from aversion therapy. They show pictures of old Abercrombie and Fitch ads of young men without shirts. And when they do, they perform electric shock therapy. The idea is to get Stu to jettison “undesirable” habits; in this case, per Owen, he is attracted to the male body. This is typically used for smoking and overeating, but not on Owen’s watch.
Now, let’s get to the killings. We know the masked murderer killed Molly. They then take care of the camp caretaker by slicing him up. The subsequent murder is of Sarah and Zone. They are on their phones, lying in bed, looking at social media photos of Stu and Kim. When sufficiently turned on, they get on top of each other and start grinding against each other, all while still looking at the photos. Sarah sees the killer come from behind and kill them both. I mean, talk about a “c**k” block.
The entire camp is on high alert. Molly has Alexandra take the younger residents to walk to safety. They take Molly’s cell and will call the police once they find cell service. Owen and Cora are convinced it must be one of the residents, so when Cora goes to grab two rifles, the masked murderer kills her. The remaining residents and Molly are still at camp. Molly tells the remaining residents to go to the infirmary to be with Stu, and she will grab some rifles. A minute passes, and now Jordan says they will go and grab the same weapons. Jordan arrives, hears someone coming, hides in the closet, and finds Cora with her neck cut. That’s when Owen shows up looking for Cora, grabs his handgun in the desk drawer, and the villain shows up and reveals themselves.
Peacock film They/Them ending explained
It’s Molly! Except, her name isn’t Molly, that was the woman killed at the film’s beginning. Her name is Angie, a former student of Owen’s and conversion camp resident. She was also a victim of his aversion therapy techniques. Her plan is to rid the world of these types of facilities, and when she is about to slice open Owen, he knocks the knife out of her hands and chokes her. Jordan comes out of the closet and grabs Owen’s gun. Angie demands that Jordan shoot him but refuses. As they put it, Jordan is “man” enough NOT to kill Owen. So, Angie then pushes her former counselor into the wall with a rhino head attached to it — the horn goes right through his chest. And the cherry on top? Angie cuts his throat open, and blood sprays all over her face.
Angie expects Jordan to cover for her, but the resident refuses. Jordan says that no one, including supporters like Angie, can ever tell them what to do again. Jordan walks away and will not help Angie on her quest to rid the world of these camps. Angie is arrested, and Jordan begins her life over again.
What did you think of the Peacock film They/Them, and the ending? Comment below.
