Do you have questions after watching the sequel to The Boy?
Because we certainly do.
A lot of them.
To answer them all, here's the ending of Brahms: The Boy II explained.
Spoilers ahead.
2016's The Boy was a middling horror flick redeemed by one heck of a surprise ending.
After spending most of its runtime convincing both its characters and the audience that
the movie's creepy doll, Brahms, was possessed by the spirit of a dead child, The Boy pulled
out the rug from under everyone: The doll really was just a doll.
The film's real villain was the real-life Brahms Heelshire, who didn't actually die
but hid in the walls of his family's home for decades, living vicariously through the
porcelain plaything.
"It's Brahms.
It can't be."
It's a delightfully absurd and oddly elegant twist, and Brahms: The Boy II desperately
wants to recapture the same magic.
As the title implies, Brahms the doll, not the man has somehow returned for the sequel,
and a lot of the movie hinges on that mystery.
After all, we saw the original Brahms die at the end of The Boy, so who's behind this
new set of supernatural shenanigans?
For better or worse, Brahms: The Boy II completely undoes the original film's ending.
The sequel wastes no time showing us that, despite what The Boy said, Brahms is much,
much more than a porcelain doll.
Almost as soon as he appears, Brahms begins moving of his own free will.
He tells his new companion, the young trauma victim Jude, things that the kid couldn't
possibly know.
He flips over tables and rips up teddy bears.
However, it's not until the end that we learn the whole truth.
As Jude's mother Liza, played by Katie Holmes, learns, the porcelain doll is the host for
a malevolent entity that has been tearing families apart for centuries.
Typically, a child adopts the doll, then commits a heinous murder.
At the end of The Boy II, we even see Brahms' real face.
Jude ends up throwing the the doll in the fire, but that's not the end of Brahms.
As it turns out, evil toys aren't that easy to kill.
After Jude, Sean, and Liza return to London, the film unleashes a final twist.
Alone in his room, Jude puts on a porcelain mask modeled after Brahm's face and looks
in the mirror.
Jude thinks Brahms will be very happy in his new home, he says as long as Jude's parents
remember to follow the rules.
If you're not sure what's happening here, recall Joseph's big info dump a little earlier.
Brahms knew that Jude was coming.
He told Joseph to bury the doll where Jude could find him.
"He knew your boy would find him."
Joseph also says that Brahms and Jude will soon "become one."
The implication seems to be that Brahms knew that his doll body would be destroyed and
made plans to possess Jude.
During Brahms: The Boy II's climax, when Jude is pointing the shotgun at Liza, the possession
might've already taken place.
It's clearly Brahms, not Jude, who's really speaking.
Of course, there's another possible reading maybe Brahms really is gone, and poor, mentally
fragile Jude has simply developed a split personality based on the creature but either
way, Brahms lives on through the boy.
So now we know what Brahms does, but what does he want?
Quite simply, to be loved.
In The Boy, Brahms forces the Heelshires, and later Greta, to follow a strict set of
rules.
In The Boy II, Brahms makes Liza, Jude, and Sean follow similar rules.
In both movies, he only lashes out when he's ignored or abused or when people threaten
to separate him from his loved ones.
As long as Brahms is treated with love and respect, he's docile.
"Boo!"
There has to be a reason why Brahms only latches on to families, after all.
He wants to be part of one, and he'll stop anyone who gets in his way.
Sure, he's a creepy doll, tiny demon, and serial killer, but hidden in the two The Boy
movies is the implication that maybe, just maybe, Brahms can also function as a force
for good.
See, Brahms tends to latch on to trauma victims.
In the first movie, Greta is rattled by an abusive relationship and mourning a miscarriage.
The Boy II opens with a home invasion that leaves Liza a paranoid wreck and traumatizes
Jude so badly that he won't even speak.
Joseph says that Brahms likes to prey on the mentally weak, but ironically, all of the
characters actually get better through their association with Brahms, not worse.
Greta essentially adopts the doll once she starts to believe that he's alive, using him
as a surrogate for the child she lost.
The trend continues in Brahms: The Boy II.
Jude regains his ability to speak thanks to his bond with Brahms, and comes to rely on
Brahms as a source of protection.
After her encounter with Brahms, Liza learns how to stick up for herself.
She gets her family back, and her nightmares and panic attacks disappear.
Brahms might have a violent streak, but it turns out that he's also a pretty good therapist.
Just don't make him angry.
"Be good to him and he'll be good to you.
Be bad to him...oh!"
The Boy II's big retcon explains the original movie's biggest unanswered question: Why did
Brahms Heelshire kill his best friend in the first place?
According to The Boy, Brahms and a young girl named Emily Cribbs were close friends who
played together all the time.
Unfortunately, Emily was murdered when Brahms was eight, and the boy was the prime suspect.
In order to protect their son, the Heelshires faked Brahms' death in a fire and hid him
in the walls of their house, where he lived for more than two decades.
But The Boy never says why young Brahms decided to get rid of Emily.
The implication is that Brahms was just a bad little boy, but thanks to Brahms: The
Boy II, we now have a much more concrete explanation.
It wasn't Brahms' idea to kill Emily at all.
It was the entity lurking inside that sinister doll who wanted her dead.
Like Jude, Brahms was just the creature's instrument.
The Boy was clearly designed as a one-and-done.
By the time the movie is over, the bad guy is dead.
The heroes have escaped.
The doll is just a doll.
There really isn't anywhere else to go.
That's fine for a single movie, but if you're trying to build a series it's a non-starter.
Brahms: The Boy II might've sacrificed a lot of the original's charm in order to set up
future installments of the Boy franchise, but now that the work is done the series could
go anywhere.
The most obvious place to take Brahms: The Boy II's sequel would be to follow Jude in
his creepy porcelain mask as he becomes a real killer.
The Boy could also look backwards.
As the sequel established, Brahms has been causing havoc for hundreds of years.
Plenty of families succumbed to Brahms' whims before the Heelshires.
Lakeshore Entertainment could pump out prequels for years.
On the other hand, maybe keeping it simple is best.
Just have another unsuspecting family find a creepy doll out in the woods and you're
well on your way to Boy Story 3.
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