What is up with the Don’t Worry Darling ending? What is the Don’t Worry Darling plot twist? As the Olivia Wilde thriller movie hurtles towards its final act, a lot of secrets about their 1950s utopia, Victory, are revealed.
It’s heavily hinted throughout that things in Victory aren’t what they seem: including yolk-less eggs, the men all working at the same company, the secrecy surrounding their profession, and the town’s cult-like devotion not just to Victory, which is marketed as an experimental community and “a different way” to the rest of society, but also to the town’s creator and architect, Frank (Chris Pine).
At the centre of the drama movie is Alice (Florence Pugh), the devoted 1950s housewife of Jack (Harry Styles). Their relationship, on the outside, seems perfect — but as Alice becomes more convinced that something is amiss in Victory, it becomes clear that Jack, along with everyone else, is hiding things from her. A lot of secrets, lies, and conspiracies are revealed, so here’s the Don’t Worry Darling ending explained.
Don’t Worry Darling plot twist explained
Throughout Don’t Worry Darling, it becomes clear that in Victory, the experimental society headed by the charismatic Frank, not everything is as it seems. For the most part, wives are unable to remember their lives prior to living in Victory, but after Alice is hauled away for electroshock therapy after asking too many questions, it is revealed that this isn’t her first time in a hospital.
This is because, as we find out, prior to her life in Victory, she was actually a doctor living in modern society — smartphone and all. Alice and Jack were still a couple in the ‘real world,’ but it seems like Jack (who is a lot scruffier and… sweatier outside of Victory) got tired of her working long hours and became seduced by Victory through — how else — a podcast hosted by Frank and a Discord server.
But Victory, the utopian society Frank created doesn’t actually exist: it’s actually a complicated simulation wherein participants are effectively hooked up to a feeding tube and have their minds wiped while the simulation plays in front of their comatose eyes. It seems like to be part of the Victory simulation, you have to effectively put yourself into a soft coma, and it is only by going into ‘Victory HQ’ that you are able to get yourself out of the simulation.
This is because, technically, there’s no such thing as Victory HQ, and when the men drive to work in the morning, they aren’t actually going into an office to create mysterious materials: they’re just going out into the real world to recruit new people through their Discord server and podcast, and to make enough money to keep their ‘dream life’ going — so, presumably, paying for a dingy IRL apartment, food, and the upkeep of their wives’ feeding tubes and whatever other drugs they need to keep them in this comatose state.
In Alice’s case, it’s clear that she was put in this state against her will, and that seems to be the case with the majority of ‘wives’, who all have their memories wiped and are forbidden from going out to the desert towards ‘Victory HQ’ — or else, they might end up waking themselves from the simulation. The only wife who seems fully aware of what is going on is Bunny (Olivia Wilde), Alice’s best friend. She reveals to Alice that she chose this life with her husband after their two children, who appear in the simulation, died in the real world.
Don’t Worry Darling ending explained
So, the final act of the science fiction movie shows Alice taking Jack’s car and speeding towards the desert, rushing to break out of the simulation while dozens of red-suited men follow her in hot pursuit.
It seems like she’s going to get caught, but as she enters Victory HQ, the screen goes black and we hear her gasping for breath. Though there’s a little room for interpretation, it seems pretty clear that what we’re hearing is Alice’s IRL body waking up from the simulation. But who knows?