‘The Lie’ Ending Explained: Joey King’s Thriller Comes With A Tragic Plot Twist

Warning: This article contains major The Lie spoilers, which you probably knew from the headline.

The world may be falling apart, but at least there’s a new Joey King Amazon movie about lying and murder, right? It’s the little things that keep us going.

The Lie, which began streaming on Amazon Prime Video today, is part of the “Welcome to the Blumhouse” film series, which is a collaboration between Amazon Studios and Blumhouse Television. King stars as a 15-year-old girl named Kayla who kinda-sorta-accidentally pushes her friend Brittany (Devery Jacobs) off a bridge into an icy river.

At least, that’s what Kayla tells her dad Jay (Peter Sarsgaard), who had been driving Kayla and Brittany to a dance competition and pulled over to the side of the road so Brittany could pee in the woods. They don’t find a body, but it’s assumed Brittany is dead. Now it’s up to Jay and Kayla’s mother Rebecca (Mireille Enos) to cover up the murder and protect Kayla from going to prison. But when Brittany’s dad Sam (Cas Anvar)—a man with a short temper who may or may not abuse his daughter—starts asking questions, things get complicated.

If you don’t have the patience to finish The Lie, or if you were confused by the ending, you’ve come to the right place. Let’s get into The Lie ending explained.

WHAT IS THE LIE PLOT TWIST? HOW DOES THE JOEY KING AMAZON MOVIE END?

As you probably already guessed due to the lack of body, Brittany is alive! Unfortunately for Kayla’s parents, they don’t learn this until after Rebecca runs Brittany’s dad over with her car.

While Jay and Rebecca are washing Sam’s blood off of the front of their SUV, Brittany casually appears in the garage, perfectly alive and well.

“We totally didn’t mean for it to go on this long,” Britanny says. “I just wanted to see my boyfriend. Kayla just kind of went along with it.”

Kayla’s justification for lying to her parents about something this huge? She says she was going to fess up, but then she saw that this whole ordeal brought her parents together in a way she hadn’t seen before the divorce. “I just needed time for you to choose each other,” says Kayla. Weird parent trap, Kayla, but OK!

Kayla sobs that she is sorry and begs her parents not to leave her. At first, it seems like Kayla’s parents—in total disbelief that they (probably) committed murder for nothing—might not forgive her. But then Kayla hugs her mom, and, after a long moment, her mom hugs back. The things we do for our kids, etc.

WHAT IS THE LIE ENDING, EXPLAINED?

We don’t receive 100 percent confirmation that Brittany’s dad is dead, but it seems reasonable to assume—based on the shot of his hand twitching and then going still—that he is. In the very final shot of The Lie, Kayla is hugging her parents while the doorbell rings. We hear sirens outside, and we assume the police are here to arrest Kayla’s parents.

The moral of this story is: Don’t lie to your parents, or they might commit murder (or at least serious assault) on your behalf.

Watch The Lie on Amazon Prime