Smile 2 Ending Explained: Did Skye Really Kill Her Mother? Was Morris Real?
Smile 2 Ending is characterized by a series of twists and visions that leave the viewer balanced between reality and hallucination, until a decidedly brutal epilogue. The pop star protagonist, Skye Riley, played by Naomi Scott, is possessed by a supernatural curse that blurs the boundary between the real world and the illusory one. If you are still wondering about the meaning of the final sequence, and if what we have seen happened, fear not: after reading our review dedicated to the film, we are here to try to make sense of the bloody fate of our protagonist, and how these fits into the larger and terribly distressing plan of the mysterious Entity with the smile.
Following in the footsteps of that horror film that gave us nightmares through the most disturbing smiles, Smile 2 presents traumatized characters who are attacked again by the famous demonic parasite. On this occasion, the singer Skye Riley (Naomi Scott), who is in the middle of promoting her tour after rising from the ashes, is the victim and central character of the film, whose outcome is not very different from that of those affected. In the last few minutes of footage, Smile 2 takes the infection of this monstrous parasite that lodges in the minds of its victims to the limit and, as if it were a dream of Resines, plays with the viewer by making us aware that the 122 minutes of the film have been just an illusion.
After discovering that her approach to her best friend was a lie, Skye wakes up on stage in front of an audience full of teenagers and sees herself with a disturbing smile. And she does so dress in the suit that she said she hated because it left her scar exposed. A wound from which the creature was previously born, in the purest Alien style, the eighth passenger, to take control finally. In this last scene, we see how she becomes aware at the last moment that everything she has lived has been a game to drive her crazy, falling headlong into it. The death of her mother at her hands, the conflicts with her best friend, and her disgrace in public have all been the product of deception. The artist is unexpectedly pushed onto the stage in front of a stadium full of fans, where the parasite finally takes over her mind and makes her commit suicide in front of the entire audience, creating a collective trauma and leaving it up in the air whether this curse could affect the thousands of attendees or even millions through the recordings. A chilling moment that is not shown on screen, but in which we feel every stab given with the microphone, as we see in the final frame.
Smile 2 Ending Explained: Did Skye Really Kill Her Mother? Was Morris Real?
The third part of Smile 2 begins after Skye has a major public breakdown while giving a speech at a fundraiser for her record company boss, Darius (Raúl Castillo). Skye retreats into isolation but finally decides to respond to the mysterious text messages to an unknown number she’s been receiving since she was infected with the curse and watched her drug dealer kill himself. Skye meets the mysterious caller who turns out to be Morris (Peter Jacobson), a nurse whose brother was killed by the entity. Morris proposes a theory that the entity is a supernatural parasite that must pass from one living host to another — and that if Skye can isolate herself, stop her heart, and then revive it, she will kill the entity.
As Skye and Morris put their plan into action, the entity attacks Skye in her apartment that night, causing her to bang her head and suffer a concussion as she battles smiling versions of her backing dancers. Skye awakens in a halfway house where her mother Elizabeth (Rosemarie Dewitt) insists that she straighten out her erratic behavior and prepare for her upcoming tour. Skye witnesses the entity possessing her mother, causing her to slash her own neck with a shard of broken mirror, only to suddenly discover that she is the one holding the glass shard and covered in her mother’s blood. Skye grabs a gun and escapes the facility, fleeing with her best friend Gemma — only to realize that she never truly reconciled with Gemma and is on the run alone.
Skye returns to Morris and together they go to an old restaurant that Morris has rented that has a freezer. They try to give Skye a series of injections: one to stop her heart and one to restart it, while the freezing temperature preserves her brain. The plan goes awry, and the entity eventually reveals that it is a hallucination and that Skye cannot actually kill herself. In reality, Skye finds herself on stage at the opening of her tour, with her very much alive mother cheering her on from the front row. Eventually, the entity appears as a smiling version of Skye and then bursts in to reveal its true demonic form. The entity crawls inside Skye’s mouth, completing her possession; Skye takes her microphone and impales herself in the face with it.
What Was Real?
Several points in Smile 2‘s story force viewers to question the film’s reality. The sequel features multiple moments of disruption that challenge what we think we know, such as the final revelation that Gemma never reconnected with her best friend and that every scene the character has in the film is an illusion. With that said, here’s a rundown of some of the more specific questions about what reality is and what is illusion in the film.
Did Skye Really Try to Kill Herself?
During the showdown in the freezer, the entity tells Skye that the whole sequence with Morris and the two injections isn’t real. This is actually a saving grace for the film: up until that point, the whole escape from rehab and the half-baked plan to stage a Flatliners comedy about Skye started to feel like a leap in the dark. Finding out that it was a cruel prank played by the entity makes a lot more sense.
Did Skye Really Kill Her Mother?
No, the whole sequence at the rehab center where Elizabeth was killed and Skye went wild with the gun was an illusion – we know this because Elizabeth is alive in the concert crowd and the concert is still going on, whereas Skye has either been arrested or is in prison.
Was Morris Real?
This area of Smile 2 will remain ambiguous (at least until writer/director Parker Finn or the cast clarify it). There is no concrete evidence that Morris was ever-present: the entity clearly set a trap for Skye with the whole death-and-reanimation plan. Morris was definitely not present the second time they met and tried to use the freezer. At best, Morris was real the first time and is a character who is still out there knowing how to fight/kill the entity. At worst, he was a red herring, and, like all the characters in these films so far, no one has found a way to defeat the entity.
What does Skye’s Death Mean for the Curse?
In one of the film’s most brutal moments, the entity forces Skye to end her life in the middle of a concert, in front of thousands of terrified fans. This moment not only marks the death of the protagonist but also a terrifying new scenario for the curse: with so many eyewitnesses, the entity could spread quickly, turning the event into the start of a global plague of mental destruction. As we saw in the first installment, the curse is transmitted through trauma, infecting those who witness violent suicide. With Skye committing suicide in public, the curse has more avenues than ever to spread, and what was once an isolated phenomenon could now become a psychological pandemic.
Would Skye’s Plan to End the Curse Have Worked?
Halfway through the film, we meet Morris, who offers Skye a possible way out of the curse: to die in a controlled manner, being revived immediately afterward. The idea behind this plan is that if the death does not occur in the presence of another witness, the chain would be broken. But as is often the case in these films, this plan is nothing more than another manipulation by the entity, which lets Skye believe she has found a solution, only to snatch it away at the last moment. The film never confirms whether this plan would have worked, which reinforces the feeling that there is no easy way out of the curse, and hopelessness is a constant in this narrative.
Skye’s Car Accident: A Source of Her Trauma?
One of the key elements that the entity uses to torment Skye is the memory of a car accident in which she lost her boyfriend, Paul. In the final moments, the film reveals that Skye played a direct role in this accident, having lost emotional control and causing the crash. This event deeply scars Skye and the entity exploits this guilt to continue to fuel her anguish. The fact that Skye takes responsibility for Paul’s death adds a powerful emotional dimension to her struggle to overcome the curse, but in the end, the entity uses this against her to unleash ultimate chaos.
