Triangle is a film that centers on a single mum, trapped in two intersecting time loops,
trying desperately to get back to her son.
In this video we will first work through the time loops, then go on to analyse the story
in more detail.
From the very start of the film we are thrown into the middle of a time loop in progress.
Jess is joining Greg and his group of friends on a boating trip.
Let’s call this Jess, Jess 3 and the group of friends Group 3.
We will meet the previous versions of Jess, i.e. Jess 1 and Jess 2 later on.
The day starts out well until the wind suddenly drops and they notice clouds gathering in
the distance.
Greg 3 attempts to make a call to the coast guard for help and intercepts a distress call
from a female.
Their boat - The Triangle - then gets well and truly caught up in the eye of a storm
and their friend Heather 3 is torn away.
She won’t make a repparenace in the film and so after the storm we are left with:
Sally 3 and Downey 3, Greg 3, Victor 3 and of course Jess 3.
The group are drifting on their upturned boat when they spot a huge ship heading toward
them. Thinking they have found rescue everyone enthusiastically yells for help - everyone,
that is, except for Jess 3 who is wary.
She seems to feel like there’s something not quite right.
The group spot someone on board but they can’t see the person’s face.
Once aboard the ship they try to find crew members but the ship appears to be mysteriously
deserted. The group find themselves traversing multiple corridors and hallways which all
look the same as they search for someone to help them.
They then hear a noise and find that someone has dropped a set of keys and Jess 3 is shocked
to find that they are her own.
The group then make their way to the dining hall and Jess 3 spots someone running away.
She tells the group and Victor 3 immediately runs after the person.
Greg 3 is impatient to find someone and after telling Sally 3 and Downey 3 to stay put in
the dining hall, he and Jess 3 leave.
The pair then find themselves in room 237 - the room number is a nod to The Shining,
a horror novel written by Stephen King which was later adapted into the classic film of
the same name by director Stanley Kubrick.
In the room Jess 3 and Greg 3 find a message, written in blood on the mirror. The message
tellis them to go to the theatre.
Jess 3 is freaked out and she and Greg 3 argue as he tries to put it down to a prank being
played on them by the absent crew members.
The pair separate and Jess 3 heads back to the dining hall and Greg 3 heads to the theatre
as instructed in the message.
Once back in the dining hall Jess 3 finds that both Sally 3 and Downey 3 have left despite
being told to wait there.
Then suddenly a bloodied Victor 3 appears and attacks Jess 3.
The two fight and Jess 3 ends up killing him.
Hearing a gunshot Jess 3 runs to the theatre where she sees that Greg 3 is now dead and
a distressed Sally 3 and Downey 3 are bent over his body.
The pair accuse Jess 3 of being the murderer telling her that Greg 3 had told them it was
Jess who shot him before he died. They also ask her why she told them to go to the theatre.
A confused Jess 3 denies both killing Greg 3 and telling Sally 3 and Downey 3 to head to the
theatre but before their conversation can continue a hooded gunman starts shooting at
them from a balcony up above.
Both Sally 3 and Downey 3 are gunned down but Jess 3 manages to escape.
The hooded gunman chases after Jess 3 and the pair meet above board. Despite initially
trying to hide, the gunman manages to catch up with Jess 3 twice. The two are quite evenly
matched and at one point when the gunman seems to have got the better of Jess 3, Jess 3 pleads
for her life and mentions her son. The gunman hesitates and Jess 3 manages to escape and
luckily for her the gunman runs out of bullets.
Jess 3 eventually manages to get the better of the gunman and she demands to know who
her attacker is. But the gunman’s words are muffled and unclear and when Jess 3 swings
at them with an axe the gunman falls overboard without their message being heard.
This is when Jess 3 sees something incredible - a group of doppelgangers of the original
group, approaching on their upturned boat.
She shies away but the group still spot her - the way Group 3 spotted someone when they
first approached the ship.
That’s when we realise that the person Group 3 saw must have been another Jess - Jess 2.
And this group, Group 4 are seeing Jess 3.
In this time loop diagram we’re going to try and keep the same or similar events that
happen side by side in order to illustrate the loop more clearly.
Jess 3 follows Group 4 as they traverse the corridors and hallways as before and this
is when she drops her keys.
Group 4 find the set of keys and Jess 4 is shocked to find that it is her set of keys.
Jess 3 then follows Group 4 into the dining hall and she realises Jess 4 could potentially
spot her reflection in the mirror.
Earlier when Jess 3 spotted someone in the dining hall, that must have been a previous
version of herself, Jess 2, and now it is Jess 4 spotting her, Jess 3.
Jess 3 runs away and as before Victor 4 runs after her.
Jess 3 makes it above board and sees Downey’s dead body in the ocean. We know that Downey 4
is currently in the dining hall and Downey 3 was killed in the theatre earlier by the
hooded gunman so this floating dead Downey must be a previous version of Downey - Downey 2.
So who has killed this Downey 2? We don’t know yet.
Victor 4 appears and Jess 3 tries to explain the situation to him.
Unsurprisingly, he doesn’t believe what he takes to be garbled nonsense and in desperation
Jess 3 grabs Victor 4 and pushes him back against a wall not noticing a metal spike
sticking out of the wall.
Unfortunately she has pushed Victor 4 onto the spike causing him to suffer an injury
and this explains how Victor 3, who we saw earlier in the dining hall also got his injury.
A previous Jess, Jess 2 must have injured him in the previous loop.
After injuring Victor 4 Jess 3 runs away and this is when she realises that the hooded
gunman that she fought off was another version of herself.
That hooded gunman was Jess 1.
We’ll find out that it wasn’t Jess 2 because Jess 2 appears later in the film as yet another
hooded gunman. Jess 2 is actually earlier in her time loop and hasn’t been thrown overboard yet.
Jess 3 vows to not become Jess 1 - she is going to do things differently.
She wants to rescue Group 4. Her previous Group 3 are now all dead but that doesn’t
mean she can’t rescue this new Group 4.
Armed with a gun she goes back to the dining hall in time to interrupt
Victor 4 and Jess 4’s encounter.
Jess 3 knows that there can only be one Jess but she can’t bring herself
to kill Jess 4 and Jess 4 runs away.
Jess 3 then hears a gunshot and realising what is taking place in the theater she races
over there. It’s too late for Greg 4 who is already dead but she manages to save both
Sally 4 and Downey 4.
She even shoots the hooded gunman grazing the top of their head.
We already know that hooded gunman Jess 1 has been thrown overboard so this must be
Jess 2 in the cycle.
Jess 3 is the Jess that we’re following in the film and Jess 4 is the one that she
let escape.
Jess 3 warns Sally 4 and Downey 4 not to trust anyone and makes her way to the dining hall
to collect Victor 4 but he is no longer there.
She follows a blood smear out to the deck and sees that he must have been thrown overboard.
At this moment in time there is only one crazed killer Jess on board the ship, Jess 2 and she
must have killed Victor 4.
By this point Jess 2 has also tracked down Sally 4 and Downey 4.
She has taken off her hood, revealing a head injury which is the result of Jess 3’s shot
at her in the theatre.
Taken in by Jess 2, Sally 4 and Downey 4 follow her to room 237 where she violently attacks them.
Jess 2 slits Downey 4’s throat, killing him and she stabs Sally 4 in the stomach.
Sally 4 manages to escape and Jess 3 runs after her.
Sally 4 is terrified and can’t trust any Jess and she attempts to make a distress call.
This is the distress call that we saw earlier in the film.
Group 3 must have been picking up a Sally 2’s distress call and this time Group 5
who has yet to come aboard the ship must be picking up Sally 4’s distress call.
Sally 4 eventually flees to the upper levels of the ship only to find a place littered
with dead Sallys who have been stabbed in the stomach. Jess 3 catches up with her and
attempts to tend to Sally 4’s wound, trying to reassure her, but it’s too late,
Sally 4 dies.
Jess 3 also see two other Jess’s duke it out.
One of them is the gunman, i.e. Jess 2 and the other one who is hacking Jess 2 to death
and then throwing her overboard is Jess 4.
It seems as if the odd number Jesses, Jess 1 and Jess 3 exist in an alternate loop
to the even Jesses.
Because an odd number Jess, in our case Jess 3, let the even number Jess, Jess 4 go free,
the time loops play out slightly differently for the odd number Jesses and
the even number Jesses.
In this video we are tracking the time loop of the odd number Jesses as that’s the one
shown in full in the film.
After Jess 3 witnesses Jess 4 killing Jess 2 she spots Group 5 approaching the ship.
Group 5 spots Jess 4 who is the shadowy figure that the group sees
every time just before they board.
Jess 3 is way out of sight in the upper levels but she realises something very important,
only when everyone in a particular group is dead, does the boat come back.
She thinks that the upturned boat is her only chance to get back to her life
and to her son, Tommy.
She desperately tries to stop the ship but to no avail and her opportunity to go home
slips through her fingers.
This is when she comes up with a plan. She will kill all of Group 5 and when Group 6
return she won’t let them board, but will insist that they let her get on The Triangle
and they will all navigate back to land.
Jess 3 spots Jess 4 and Victor 5 having a similar conversation
to what she and Victor 4 had previously.
After Jess 4 injures Victor 5 by mistake Jess 3 goes up to him and tells him that she knows
how to save him and then she leaves him.
Jess 3 however doesn’t actually intend to save him. Her plan is to save Group 6 and
therefore Victor 6.
She leaves this Victor 5 to make his way into the dining hall where she knows Jess 5 will
kill him by mistake when he attacks her.
Jess 3 then gets busy as she sets the scene for the death of the other members of Group 5.
She first goes to room 237 and collects Downey 4’s dead body. Before she proceeds to throw
him overboard she takes a moment to write the bloody ‘Go to the theatre’ message
on the mirror knowing that this will cause an argument between Jess 5 and Greg 5 causing
them to separate.
Jess 3 goes to the theatre before the carnage of Group 5 can take place and she hides Greg 4's body.
She then goes to the dining hall where Sally 5 and Downey 5 were previously told to wait
and Jess 3 tells them to head to the theatre.
She then transforms into the hooded gunman and she seeks out Greg 5.
As soon as he spots her he immediately puts up his hands and tries to reason with her.
He then notices her distinctive shoes and realises that it’s Jess and he’s taken
aback and wants to know what she’s thinking.
Jess 3 relays - what must sound like a crazy plan. She describes how she will save Group 6
and then she shoots Greg 5 in the chest.
Greg 5 falls backwards off a balcony and into the theatre where both
Sally 5 and Downey 5 are waiting.
Greg 5 manages to tell them it was Jess who shot him so when Jess 5 rushes into the theatre
both Sally 5 and Downey 5 accuse her of killing Greg and telling them to go to the theatre.
Jess 3 then proceeds to kill Sally 5 and Downey 5 mimicking what previously happened
to Sally 3 and Downey 3 and this time it is Jess 5 who escapes.
Jess 3 pursues Jess 5 in order to kills her and despite having gone through the fight
previously, albeit in another role, Jess 3 is still outwitted by Jess 5.
When Jess 3 is about to go overboard she repeats the instructions that Jess 1 gave her.
She tells Jess 5 to 'kill them, kill them all' as it’s the only way to get home and the only
way to save their son.
We then cut to Jess 3 waking up on the beach, she’s been washed ashore and she races home
to Tommy.
Once home she finds that it’s earlier in the day and another Jess is with Tommy.
Tommy spots Jess 3 in the window and jumps, spilling some paint on the floor. The Jess
in the house is furious and smacks him while Jess 3 overhears and jumps with guilt as she
knows that’s exactly what she did earlier in the day.
Jess 3 wants her son and she won’t stop at anything to get him. She grabs a hammer
from the shed and enters the house. Without hesitation she kills the other Jess.
Contrast this to her previous reaction to Jess 4.
Jess 3 couldn’t bring herself to kill Jess 4 then but having experienced the time loop a few
times she has become hardened.
Unfortunately Tommy sees Jess 3’s attack on the Jess in the house.
Jess 3 tries to comfort him in vain.
She then stuffs the dead Jess in a bag and loads her up in the trunk of her car.
She bundles a distressed Tommy into the car before she speeds off - attempting to escape everything
that has gone on before.
A distracted Jess 3 hits a seagull.
Jess 3 stops the car and locates the dead bird on the road. She then goes over to the
side of the road and drops the seagull onto the beach below only to see a whole heap of
other dead seagulls piled up high.
This is when we the audience and Jess 3 realise that she has not escaped the time loop.
Other Jesses must have escaped the ship and returned home and gone through the same motions
as this Jess 3.
Jess 3 gets back in the car and drives off but Tommy is upset by the blood left on the
windshield by the dead bird and as Jess 3 turns around to calm him, they collide,
head on with a truck.
Tommy is killed, the dead Jess in the boot of the car is thrown out onto the road and
a miraculously uninjured Jess 3 watches on.
A seemingly sympathetic taxi driver tells her that nothing can be done for the boy and
then he asks if he can take her anywhere.
Jess 3 can’t accept that Tommy is dead and she asks the taxi driver to take her to the harbour.
She wants to repeat the time loop again to return home and to prevent Tommy’s death.
Once at the harbour the taxi driver asks her to promise to return and Jess 3 promises but
we know that she won’t return as the time loop will start all over again.
As Jess 3 will proceed through this time loop she forgets what has gone on before.
At first her memory is intact, she apologises to Greg when she first sees him, knowing that
he will be killed by a version of herself.
But once Jess 3 succumbs to sleeping below deck her memory seems to reset.
She appears to have some awareness that things are not quite right but she doesn’t know
why she feels this way.
Jess’s story is based on a Greek myth that revolves around a character called Sisyphus
who failed to keep a promise to death and as a consequence was condemned to push a huge
rock up a mountain only for it to roll back down again.
Sisyphus spends all of eternity repeating this action just as Jess is spending all her
time repeating her time loop.
But why is Jess being punished? What has she done?
Well it’s likely that she killed her son.
In the film Victor and Greg have a brief conversation about Jess and Tommy, and it seems that they
were expecting her to bring him along for the day of sailing, but of course she doesn’t.
When Jess hit Tommy for spilling the paint, the clock behind her indicates that it is 8.15am.
Later on the ship we see that Jess’s watch, as well as the clock on board the ship, stopped
just a couple of minutes later. This implies that this is when she died.
There are two alternative explanations for what may have led to her and Tommy’s death.
When Jess lost her temper at Tommy, she may have ended up killing him and upon realising
what she’d done, she killed herself too.
Or alternatively she changed into a fresh set of clothes, bundled Tommy into her car
and raced to the harbour to meet her friends but ended up in a tragic car accident instead.
However she and Tommy died, Jess cannot accept what has happened and instead of crossing
over to the other side, Jess cheats death and tries to bring Tommy back, but, like Sisyphus,
she is doomed to fail in her mission time and time again.
And that brings us to the conclusion of my illustrated explanation of Triangle. I hope
you found this video helpful in understanding the film and as always please remember to
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