Let's Sort Out the Dizzying Final Moments of “Blink Twice”
“I feel like my brain is being exposed to the world,” said Zoë Kravitz in our latest cover story. Her directorial debut, Blink Twice, is out now—and she’s both excited and nervous for people to see it. The movie is an exploration of misogyny and power, culminating in a showdown between a woman and her abuser. It’s trippy, suspenseful, and pretty damn crazy.
Blink Twice follows Frida (Naomi Ackie) and Jess (Alia Shawkat), two friends who are invited to join tech billionaire Slater King (Channing Tatum) on his private island. Take a wild guess: It doesn’t end well. Slater impresses the women with free outfits, never-ending Champagne, and five-star meals. There’s even fancy perfume in everyone’s room!
Frida spends her days lounging by the pool, and at night she and her new friends blitz out on psychedelics. It’s paradise until they realize they’ve been duped. Their vacation is really an experiment. Every night, the women are assaulted—and then their memories are wiped. When they wake up, it’s as if nothing happened.
In the end, Frida must make an impossible choice: forgive or forget. She chooses neither. Instead, Frida opts for revenge, leading to a gruesome bloodbath and a disturbing epilogue. Frida wins, but then again… does she?
Here’s the thing: Blink Twice flips between real time and flashbacks to tell its story, which makes the ending a little bit difficult to understand.
So let’s break it down, shall we?
How Does Frida Know She Lost Her Memory?
About midway through the film, Frida senses that something’s off. Jess begs to go home. Frida declines, and the next morning, Jess is gone. Even more disturbing? No one can remember who Jess is.
That afternoon, Sarah (Adria Arjona)—another guest on the island—shows up at Frida’s door. She found Jess’s lighter, but she can’t remember how she got it. The women get to talking and realize shit’s been weird from the get-go. Neither of them knows how long they’ve been on the island. Frida keeps waking up with dirt under her nails. Sarah has a mysterious bruise. And everyone’s always smiling!
Then Frida puts it all together. The men are wiping their memories with the complimentary perfume. That’s why no one’s bothered to ask somewhat important questions, like, you know, What day is it?! The perfume quite literally clouds their judgment.
Why Does Frida Remember Jess?
Snake venom! The island is infested with serpents—and, per Slater’s request—the groundskeepers harvest their poison. Earlier, a maid offered Frida a sip, which she accepted, thinking it was liquor. Frida assumed the woman was just being kind, but really, she was trying to save her. The venom works like an antidote, counteracting the perfume's effects. That’s also why Jess is missing. A snake bit her, so Slater had her killed. He wasn’t even secretive about it! Frida saw everything, but her memory was erased until the maid helped restore it.
Wait, Why Did Slater Wipe Their Memories?
The whole trip is a sick experiment to see if people can forget their trauma. As for the sexual assault? Well, that’s just a gross bonus for Slater and his buddies.
Once they figure it out, Frida and Sarah spring into action. They have some time to plan while the men are out fishing and settle on a two-pronged approach: Sarah grabs the snake venom and infuses it into shots for the other guests. Meanwhile, Frida looks for their phones (they turned them in on day one). She finds them in Slater’s office, along with a bunch of Polaroids—then comes the twist. Slater has a picture of Frida with long hair, which means… she’s been there before.
How Does Frida Escape?
Later that evening, everyone gathers for dinner. Frida and Sarah try to play it cool, but they’re terrified. They’re dining with psychopaths, after all, and the other women are moments away from figuring it out. After some awkward chit-chat, Frida starts dancing to distract the men. Sarah joins in and hides a wine opener in a bush. Then, all hell breaks loose. The women attack their abusers, leading to a wild massacre with only Frida, Sarah, and Slater left standing.
Even Slater’s assistant, Stacy (Geena Davis), bites the dust. She has a run-in with Frida in her hotel room and slams her into a wall. Apparently, Stacy knew what the men were doing and was fine with it. She didn’t want to remember! Frida stabs her during the stand-off, then saunters away, refusing to accept Stacy’s boys-will-be-boys mentality.
Then, she confronts Slater. Now that her memories are back, she recalls meeting Slater the year before at his charity gala. Slater brought her to the island for a “vacation,” which ended with Frida biting a man’s pinky off and hitting her head on a rock (that’s how she got the scar). Afterward, her memory was wiped, and she was sent home. This year, Slater invited her back, and surprise! She figured it out again.
Great. Now What?
While they hash things out, Sarah kills her boyfriend, Cody, and Slater’s prodigy, Lucas. Then she lures Slater outside. He knocks her down and grabs a knife, but before he can deliver the final blow, he…get this, forgets everything. Apparently, Frida spiked his vape with perfume. She was just waiting for it to kick in.
The final moments of the film are quick but vicious. Slater gets knocked out. Then, Frida burns the estate down. Flash forward a year, and Frida’s back at Slater’s annual charity gala. Only this time, she’s the CEO of his company. Whether he’s fully regained consciousness or not is left up for interpretation. Judging by his shaky hands, though, I have a feeling Slater knows exactly what happened.
So, Frida Won?
Sort of. Slater’s shtick was testing the power of memory. He wanted to see how people would react if they could live in blissful ignorance. The women were just collateral damage. As Slater explains in the final showdown, he was inspired by his sister’s inability to overcome their childhood trauma. Maybe she wouldn’t be so messed up if she had some memory-wiping perfume!
The thing is, he rigged the system. Frida and her friends didn’t choose to forget. Their memories were stolen. By poisoning Slater, Frida made him the subject of his own twisted game. It does seem fair—her friends are dead, and her body was violated. But in the end, she becomes part of the problem. Sure, she got the last laugh, but at what cost? Are you really winning if you turn a blind eye to the abuse that shaped you? That’s for us to decide—and if Kravitz has her way, we’ll be debating it for years to come.
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