Summary
The penultimate episode of The Changeling is a polarizing and confusing watch. It’s an unnecessary detour that feels like needless filler on the whole. It will have its admirers though, as it includes some great acting, cinematic imagery and intriguing ideas. This might just split fans straight down the middle though, a rather strange digression before the show’s season finale.
Episode 7 of The Changeling ignores Apollo (LaKeith Stanfield) and Emma’s (Clark Backo) story entirely, focusing instead on Lillian’s (Adina Porter) own traumatic life. This is played out in a dingy hotel room as Lillian relives the biggest moments from her past as she tries to come to terms with her life choices in the present. We break down the penultimate chapter en route to the Season 1 grand finale.
The Changeling Season 1 Episode 7 Recap and Breakdown
The episode begins with Lillian walking the streets of New York City looking for her son Apollo, who has gone missing. He is of course on a mysterious island looking for his wife, but Lillian isn’t to know. She comes across the Elk Hotel, a place that she is intrinsically linked with.
The rest of the installment is set within the hotel, told in jumbled memories and artsy monologues. It’s implied that all of these events have already taken place and Lillian is just remembering them. But the past and the present do intertwine, which can make this a confusing watch overall. It’s probably best to assume that all of the scenes that follow are just memories being replayed in Lillian’s mind.
Lillian asks to stay in room 205 at the hotel, the very room she spent the night in decades earlier. Whilst walking through the hotel, she sees visions of her former self and hears her husband Brian’s voice echoing through the walls.
READ: Will there be a Season 2 of The Changeling?
She brings items to help her reconnect with the past. She wears an old dress, smokes cigarettes, and drinks booze to cause all of the forgotten memories to come flooding back. She remembers her time in Uganda and her first date with Brian in New York.
Lillian recounts her childhood in Africa and then how she struggled to be a good mother to Apollo in America. She felt like she had to sacrifice her own culture and forget her own upbringing just to survive in this foreign land. She felt like an outcast, like this wasn’t her home.
Next, Lillian analyses her relationship with Brian. He was bipolar, either lavishing Lillian with attention or belittling her and her heritage instead. He was exactly the same with Apollo. Brian loved his son, but he could be violent towards him as well.
Why did Brian think Lillian was having an affair?
One day, Brian found a receipt from the Elk Hotel. He accused Lillian of cheating on him, but she denied ever staying at the hotel. Brian thought she was sleeping with her boss, Charles Blackwood. Lillian continued to deny the accusations, but Brian would later find the hotel bill and then he really lost his temper.
Lillian feared that Brian would take Apollo away from her, due to his race and status. She came home from work one day to find Brian drowning Apollo in the bathtub. Lillian didn’t hesitate to act, she attacked Brian, killing him with a fatal blow to the back of the head. This scene explains the recurring nightmare that Apollo has.
READ: What does Emma do in The Changeling?
After killing Brian, Lillian went to the Elk Hotel to kill herself. But she managed to talk herself around in the end. She didn’t want Brian to win. She chose to bury his body both figuratively and literally instead, hiding the evidence from the world.
Lillian would then pretend Brian had ditched the family and left them to fend for themselves. She told this lie to Apollo and promised to be a better mother. The next morning, Lillian felt free and hopeful for the future.
The Changeling Season 1 Episode 7 Ending Explained
The episode ends back in the present. Lillian is stood outside the Elk Hotel. The camera roams the corridors of the building. It is in tatters now and has long since been abandoned. Here it becomes evident that Lillian did not spend the night in the hotel, but that the entire episode was all in Lillian’s head.
Did Lillian cheat on Brian?
The camera then lingers over the hotel’s sign-in book, revealing that Lillian and Charles did in fact stay at the hotel together, as their names are written underneath each other. This twist ending reveals that Brian was right, Lillian and Charles were having an affair together. This also implies that maybe Charles is Apollo’s biological father, after all, not Brian.
Throughout the episode, Lillian blames herself for what happened to Apollo in the present. She believes that somehow, her crimes in the past led to Apollo’s misfortune in the present. In the final shot, Lillian buries her secrets in a suitcase in the ocean, where a sinister creature is lurking.
What did you think of Apple TV+’s The Changeling Season 1 Episode 7? Comment below.
