‘Hypnotic’ on Netflix: That Confusing Ending, Explained

There are still a few more days in October, and Netflix isn’t done with the spooky content quite yet. Today’s new spooky original Netflix film is called Hypnotic, and it’s about, you guessed it, hypnosis.

Hypnosis has long been a fascination of horror movie writers and is a frequent trope in thrillers. While science says that you can’t actually use hypnosis to make them do something they really don’t want to do, in the movies, evil scientists are always using it for nefarious purposes. In the case of Hypnotic, Kate Siegel (best known for her role in Netflix’s Midnight Mass) starts to suspect something fishy is going on with her hypnotherapy sessions.

Unfortunately, like a lot of these Netflix original horror movies, Hypnotic‘s plot fails to come together in a satisfying way. Several of the story beats don’t make very much sense. But never fear, because Decider is here to help. If you were confused by the film you just saw, read on for Decider’s breakdown of the Hypnotic plot and the Hypnotic ending explained.

WHAT HAPPENS IN HYPNOTIC? HYPNOTIC (2021) PLOT SUMMARY:

The movie opens with a woman named Andrea leaving her office building for the day. She appears frightened and leaves a message for a detective insisting that “he” is still after her. While in the elevator, she receives a call from an unknown number that tells her, “Andrea, this is how the world ends.” Andrea then sees the elevator walls closing in on her, as she screams in terror.

Meanwhile, protagonist Jenn (Kate Siegel), starts seeing a therapist named Dr. Meade (Jason O’Mara) recommended to her by her friend Gina (Lucie Guest). Jenn is going through a tough time after a late-term miscarriage and the dissolution of her engagement to her fiancé, Brian. (Brian, by the way, is deathly allergic to sesame. This will be important later.) Dr. Meade suggests that Jenn might find hypnosis helpful as a form of therapy, and Jenn reluctantly agrees.

The hypnosis works surprisingly well on Jenn—so well, in fact, that Jenn completely blacks out for the duration of the hypnosis session. She also starts having dreams about waking up in bed with Dr. Meade. But this is fine, surely! The good news is Jenn starts feeling much happier and starts seeing Dr. Meade less often.

One day, Dr. Meade convinces Jenn to invite her ex, Brian, to dinner. The idea is supposedly to help Jenn find closure in that relationship. Jenn dutifully invites her ex to dinner, and then she receives a call on from an unknown number. The next thing she knows—and the next thing we see—she is waking up at the dinner table, and Brian is in her bathroom having a severe allergic reaction. Jenn frantically administers his EpiPen, and Brian is rushed to the hospital, where he enters a coma. Jenn finds a receipt in her home for sesame oil, and remembers deliberately adding sesame oil to the salad in a hypnotic state.

Jenn begins to suspect that Dr. Meade is controlling her using hypnosis. She does a quick Google search and discovers a story about a woman named Andrea—the woman from the opening scene—who filed a restraining order against Dr. Meade. Three days later, Andrea died of a heart attack. Jenn tracks down the detective on Andrea’s case, Detective Rollins (Dulé Hill), to enlist his help in taking down Dr. Meade. She also fills in her friend Gina, who is another Dr. Meade patient. Gina admits she let Dr. Meade hypnotize her too.

Jenn decides to record her next hypnosis session with Dr. Meade. Unfortunately, he is onto her. He gets the truth out of her and learns that Gina knows about him too, but he says it in a way that is not incriminating. Jenn tries to warn Gina that she is in danger, but it’s too late. Dr. Meade calls Gina while she is driving and tells her, “This is how the world ends.” Gina, whose greatest phobia is spiders, is instantly hypnotized into believing there is a tarantula on her. She crashes her car and dies.

WHAT IS THE HYPNOTIC ENDING EXPLAINED?

Detective Rollins and Jenn know Dr. Meade is responsible for both Gina and Andrea’s death. But they don’t have a way to prove it. Dr. Meade breaks into Jenn’s home and hypnotizes her, and forces her to attack Detective Rollins. Rollins lands in the hospital, and Jenn decides to try counter-hypnosis with a non-evil therapist in an attempt to remember any information that might help them nail Dr. Meade.

During her counter-hypnosis, Jenn remembers the name “Xavier Sullivan,” an address, and a bracelet that Dr. Meade gave her with the date “March 6” etched into it. Hey, that’s today! Jenn decides to go to the address by herself because people in horror movies are silly like that. But first, the nice therapist plants a “counter trigger” in an attempt to offer her some protection against Dr. Meade.

Jenn goes to the address in her head, expecting to meet Xavier Sullivan. According to some literal driveby exposition dialogue, Xavier Sullivan is a hypnotist who worked on a CIA project in the 60s to implant false memories in people’s brains. (You’d think this might make Jenn more suspicious of driving to a random address that’s been planted in her brain, but sure!)

Surprise, when Jenn arrives at the address, she discovers it’s a trap. This is Dr. Meade’s house, and Xavier was his father. Dr. Meaded targeted Jenn because she bears a striking resemblance to his dead wife. During the hypnosis sessions, Meade was giving Jenn his dead wife’s memories, hoping to replace her. March 6 is the day of Meade’s wedding anniversary. Sure!

Detective Rollins goes to rescue Jenn, but sends the backup to the wrong location. The three have a showdown in the house. Jenn, dizzy and still kinda under hypnosis, points a gun in the direction of both Meade and Rollins and pulls the trigger. When she wakes up, she’s in Rollins’ arms, who tells her that she shot Meade and that it’s all over. “I promise, my love,” he says.

The phrase “my love” was the trigger word for Jenn’s counter-hypnosis from the other, nice therapist. Jenn wakes up and realizes’s she’s actually in Meade’s arms, and that she shot Rollins by mistake. Jenn manages to get the better of Meade, shoot him dead, and get Rollins to the hospital.

The rest of the movie shows Jenn returning to her normal life. In the film’s final scene, Rollins offers Jenn a parting gift—a self-hypnosis CD. That jokester! With that, the movie ends.

Let’s just hope no one thinks hypnosis actually works that way.

Watch Hypnotic on Netflix