Cabinet of Curiosities Episode 4 Ending Explained: “The Outside” Why Does Stacey Kill Keith?
The introverted Stacey, anxious to please her co-workers, begins to use a lotion that provokes an alarming, dangerous reaction and transforms her in a completely disturbing way. This is the premise of “The Outside” Episode 4 of Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities, the new Netflix series that is sweeping the streaming platform. If you got lost during the episode, or simply want to know what the end of episode 4 of Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities was like, read on and discover the keys to a close that lives up to expectations: we may be witnessing the best horror series since the first seasons of American Horror Story.
Cabinet of Curiosities Episode 4: Plot Summary
Stacey is a woman unlike any other. She is not beautiful (at least not as her beauty of her is understood among her colleagues, who adore make-up, big breasts, and surgery), she is clumsy, and she has passions that we would dare to say are special. The fact remains that Stacey does not know what her beauty is: passionate and a practitioner of taxidermy, she stuffs animals, making them perfect for eternity. Pearly eyes, entrails removed and replaced with threads, carefully washed: Stacey’s animals correspond to the ideal of beauty on which she would like to be mirrored. Which can finally happen when, during a night spent in front of the TV and after using a face cream that caused a reaction on her skin, Stacey decides to change.
Convinced by the commercial that seems to be aimed directly at her, Stacey orders a case of cosmetics, which do not stop irritating her skin, and which – according to her partner – are brainwashing her. It will not be enough to stop the achievement of our protagonist’s goal: to be beautiful like the others, to stop being different, and to be accepted and envied. It is a plot, that of The Outside, an explanatory title of the theme of the episode, presented as always by Guillermo del Toro, ready to immediately explain the metaphor (and without however being able to deny the fascination of the vision) that speaks to our contemporaneity, even if referring to an aesthetic and a taste for storytelling linked to the Eighties. There are many references to Stephen King’s classics (Carrie above all), to those of Clive Barker (Hellraiser applied to personal aesthetics) and obviously to Cronenberg’s body horror, expertly mixed by Amirpour who gives the episode an unexpected and surprising quality.
Cabinet of Curiosities Episode 4 Ending Explained: Ending Explained
Stacey couldn’t fit in with her co-workers, and when she received a bottle of Alo Glo, a luxury skincare brand, she had an allergic reaction that caused her to go home. For the next few days, she continues to use this product no matter how much it affected her skin (despite her husband’s complaints that she saw the terrible effects of it). She even bought a new box to keep using them: her insecurities and being unable to fit into her job forces him to use a lotion that hurts her, and she begins to transform it under her skin.
At one point, when Stacey is about to apply more lotion, the remaining bottles open and come to life, forcing the woman to run to the bed. The next morning, her skin begins to heal, and she expresses her joy to her husband; but he keeps convincing her to stop using a cream that is doing her more harm than good, something that pisses off her wife. She flees to the basement and here a brutal scene occurs: the boat tower takes on human form and they share moments of intimacy. The transformation has begun, especially when she reacts and plunges a scalpel into her husband’s forehead, who ends up bleeding to death trying to ask for help Stacey instead finishes him off.
She gets into the bathtub covered in Alo Glo lotion, and when she gets out, she looks in the mirror and finds that all her wounds have healed: when she realizes that she has killed her husband (she thought it was a bad dream), she decides to use his taxidermy (animal dissection) skills and adopt a new attitude: he disposes of Keith‘s guts and places his body on the sofa. Immediately, she goes to work and her colleagues praise the physical change she has undergone without knowing what is behind it. Finally, Ella Stacey rises into the air, facing the camera and continually changing expressions. What if the real Stacey is trapped inside her head?
