Triangle is broken into what I would call 5 Acts, with a Prologue and Epilogue. Each Act is important, and this movie has a great habit of building backwards - that is, the events in Act 2 become more meaningful after you see Act 3, and so forth.
Prologue
The Prologue is a deceptive act, and sets up a lot of things that you will find out play quite different later on. Jess is established as a caring mother with the challenging task of raising her son (who it is later revealed is autistic, explaining some of the difficulties observed here).
The important events are:
- She comforts her son after he has a nightmare
- She cleans up paint that he has spilled
- She packs some clothes and puts them in the trunk of her car
- She hears the door-bell ring, but nobody is there.
- She sees a note on the fridge about her sailing date on the Triangle later that day.
The scene leaves with her driving in her car, as a seagull flies alongside.
Act I - Sailing
The first Act is one of the least interesting acts of the film. It starts by introducing the five characters other than Jess:
- (Greg (the love interest),
- Downy (his friend) and Sally (his wife),
- Heather (the girl they brought on board to match up with Greg)
- and Victor (a youth Greg is helping out)) , giving each of them a chance to introduce themselves.
After boarding the boat, she takes a nap, during which we see her dreaming of lying on the beach (seemingly dead) with crabs crawling in the sand. When she wakes up, she tells Heather that she had a terrible dream that she no longer remembers.
The group sail for some time before a storm comes out of nowhere. While radioing coast guard, Greg hears a distress call that he is unable to help. (This will be explained in Act 3). Shortly afterwards, a giant wave approaches and capsizes their boat. Heather goes missing, and from here on in Jess' biggest motivation is to find a way back home to her son (further cementing her character as a good mother) and Sally's is to find her missing friend. After drifting on the bottom of the capsized boat, the five survivors see a large cruise ship coming towards them. They see someone on the boat looking at them
Act 2 - Abandoned Ship
Greg, Victor, Downy, Sally, and Jess are able to board the boat, but find it abandoned empty. Greg believes that the crew of the ship are playing a big joke on them, because the ship does seem to be recently used (fresh fruit is found on board, for example).
The ship is named the Aeolus, and is revealed to have been a ship from the 1930s. A display is found outlining how the ship is named after the greek god of the winds who fathered Sisyphus, was punished by being given the task of rolling a rock up a mountain, only to have it roll down again.
If you've seen the movie, you know that Jess has in fact just been caught on a loop, and that there are in fact three known versions of Jess on the boat at a time. Henceforth, I will refer to the Jess that the movie follows Jess Prime; the Jess that has been on the boat for a single loop thus far will be referred to as 2nd-loop Jess; and the Jess that is on the third loop will be called Jess Prime 3. (Because she is in fact the same as Jess Prime, but on her third loop through the boat).
If you've seen the movie, you know that Jess has in fact just been caught on a loop, and that there are in fact three known versions of Jess on the boat at a time. Henceforth, I will refer to the Jess that the movie follows Jess Prime; the Jess that has been on the boat for a single loop thus far will be referred to as 2nd-loop Jess; and the Jess that is on the third loop will be called Jess Prime 3. (Because she is in fact the same as Jess Prime, but on her third loop through the boat).
The sense of deja-vu that will become important for the rest of the plot starts when Jess claims that she recognises a hallway. Shortly after that, they hear a noise, and find Jess' keys on the ground (which she had lost on the plot). From this point on, Sally becomes obsessed with the idea that Heather is on the boat, and that she had rescued Jess' keys and dropped them (only to vanish).
In Act 3, it is revealed that the keys were dropped by 2nd-loop Jess. Although there is evidence that she is still on the ship a bit in the future, she does not appear again in Act 3 or 4. This means that the pattern we observe in the film, is not the only pattern.
The survivors find their way into a room with a welcome party - that is, a restaurant with fruit, instruments, tables, chairs, and no people. A clock on the wall shows the time to be different than the time of day Gregs watch shows, yes Jesses watch shows the same time as the clock on the wall.
While in this room, Jess sees someone in a mirror. When Jess points it out, Victor goes after whoever it is. It is revealed in Act 3 that this is 2nd-loop Jess. While Victor is gone, Greg and Jess go in search of anyone on the ship, while Downy and Sally await Victors return. From this point on, until the end of this act, is the only time when this movie feels like a horror movie to me, starting with the cliche splitting-up of the characters.
In their journey, Greg and Jess hear water running in a room. Upon investigating, they see the words "Go to theater" written in blood on the mirror. It is later revealed that Jess does this between the 2nd and 3rd loop.
After an argument about Jess' son, Jess leaves Greg. The show briefly cuts to Downy and Sally, who are going to the theater despite the fact that last time we saw them, they intended to stay in the reception hall. As such, when Jess gets back to the restaurant, she finds it empty.
In the next two minutes, the movie utterly shocked me. Victor comes back to the reception hall, but for no reason we have seen thus far he is covered in blood. This is 2nd loop Jess; it is also the last evidence that she is behaving the same as Jess Prime does on her second loop. Victor tries to strangle Jess, but in fighting him off, she sticks her fingers in the hole in the back of his head and kills him. A second later, she hears a gunshot, and runs upstairs to the theater to find Downy and Sally holding a dead Greg (who was shot by Jess Prime 3). They accuse Jess of killing Greg (correct, but wrong Jess), and ask Jess why she told them to go to the theater anyways (also actually Jess Prime 3). Jess is flabbergasted until suddenly, a person with a bag hiding their head appears on a balcony with a shotgun (again, Jess Prime 3), who shoots and kills Downy and Sally, and narrowly misses Jess.
Anyone else love how in a two minute period, pretty much all of the characters were killed? This is one of the big shocking moments in the movie, to me.
Anyways, Jess runs away and the masked hunter hunts her. They fight for a while, but in the end Jess pushes Jess Prime 3 off the edge, but not before she attempts to explain to Jess that Triangle comes back when they all die. All Jess hears properly is "kill them! kill them! kill them!"
It is important to note that when Jess Prime encounters Jess Prime 3 face to face for the first time, she hears footprints above her. This indicates that there is still a third Jess alive on the boat!
It is important to note that when Jess Prime encounters Jess Prime 3 face to face for the first time, she hears footprints above her. This indicates that there is still a third Jess alive on the boat!
Act 3 - Broken Pattern
If this were a horror movie, it would now be over - all the characters have died, so is the villain. But this is where things are just getting started. There's a short sequence with Jess finding a record stuck at the end of a song, and she moves it back. When she does, it starts playing the song again, and she hears in the distance people calling for help. Upon looking over the edge of the boat, Jess sees hereself and her companions on the capsized sailboat hailing the ship. In shock, she retreats, but hits the record player and it starts to skip. The camera skips a bit too, hopping back a few frames whenever the record skips.
This starts the second iteration through the ship loop, and this is the part of the movie that leaves the least answered. Once again there are at least three Jesses on the ship. There is our Jess, Jess prime, who is now on her second time through the loop. There is a new Jess who at this point behaves the same as Jess Prime, although there will be some differences soon. And there is a third Jess, who hasn't been seen yet at this point and who I will refer to as Dark Jess.
She follows the survivors, and drops her keys (fleeing afterwards), revealing that it was her all along and not Heather. After following the new survivors to the reception hall again, Jess Prime is spotted by the new Jess (henceforth referred to as Innocent Jess), revealing that the person that had been seen by Jess when she was in the restaurant was herself on her second loop.
After running away, Jess sees a body in the water, which she identifies as Downy. This is consistent with what we find in Act 4, that third-loop Jess drags Greg and Downy away from where they were killed. She has to do this because, even though the ship is on a loop, bodies/etc. do not go away when the loop restarts, and if Greg or Downy saw their bodies there would be problems.
This raises some interesting questions, because we never see Jess do away with the bodies of the Greg, Sally and Downy killed in the original loop, so another version of Jess must have. Again, this would probably have been Dark Jess.
Anyways, Victor finds Jess and she tries to explain to Victor what's happening, but of course comes off looking completely insane. In an attempt to explain, she grabs his head, but accidentally pushes it onto a sharp pole sticking out of the wall. This is still consistent with what Jess saw on her first loop, as it explains the hole in Victors head and why he tried to strangle her.
This starts the second iteration through the ship loop, and this is the part of the movie that leaves the least answered. Once again there are at least three Jesses on the ship. There is our Jess, Jess prime, who is now on her second time through the loop. There is a new Jess who at this point behaves the same as Jess Prime, although there will be some differences soon. And there is a third Jess, who hasn't been seen yet at this point and who I will refer to as Dark Jess.
She follows the survivors, and drops her keys (fleeing afterwards), revealing that it was her all along and not Heather. After following the new survivors to the reception hall again, Jess Prime is spotted by the new Jess (henceforth referred to as Innocent Jess), revealing that the person that had been seen by Jess when she was in the restaurant was herself on her second loop.
After running away, Jess sees a body in the water, which she identifies as Downy. This is consistent with what we find in Act 4, that third-loop Jess drags Greg and Downy away from where they were killed. She has to do this because, even though the ship is on a loop, bodies/etc. do not go away when the loop restarts, and if Greg or Downy saw their bodies there would be problems.
This raises some interesting questions, because we never see Jess do away with the bodies of the Greg, Sally and Downy killed in the original loop, so another version of Jess must have. Again, this would probably have been Dark Jess.
Anyways, Victor finds Jess and she tries to explain to Victor what's happening, but of course comes off looking completely insane. In an attempt to explain, she grabs his head, but accidentally pushes it onto a sharp pole sticking out of the wall. This is still consistent with what Jess saw on her first loop, as it explains the hole in Victors head and why he tried to strangle her.
Jess suffers with both the implications of what she has done to Victor, and what is happening. She hear's a voice in her head saying, "Who are you?"
She then finds a bunch of scrunched up pieces of paper with the text "If they board, kill them all" written on them. Upon finding a notepad and pencil, she writes the same message, and sees that all the notes are her own notepaper. This is the first indication that what is happening has been happening for a long time, as well as that certain things do not rever to normal when the loop restarts.
Jess re-lives her exchange with the masked attacker and realises that it was herself, on a future loop. She rejects this future, and decides to attempts to change the pattern. She finds an armory and takes a shotgun. She then takes a moment to cry, when she notices a copy of her necklace with the picture of her son dangling from a grate. At the bottom of the grate lie dozens more; and as she is looking at them, hers falls off into the grate.
From this point on, what happens in this loop will be different than what happened the first time. The reason for this is unclear; so far, Jess has been doing what 2nd-loop Jess did when she had been on her first loop (dropping her keys, following the survivors, stabbing Victor). Yet after this point, things change, leaving me to believe that something happened to 2nd-loop Jess while Jess Prime was on her first loop. Perhaps Dark Jess was already on the boat, and killed 2nd-loop Jess at this point; we do know that Dark Jess was not the same as 3rd-loop Jess, yet she's on the boat now and not on her first loop, so she must have been on the boat when Jess Prime got on the boat. The other alternative was that at this point, something happened to 2nd-loop Jess differently (I don't know how or why) and she turned into Dark Jess. I do not support this theory.
There is some creepy humor in the way, as Jess finds Victor going towards the restaurant, she points a shotgun and says, "You know I'd never mean to hurt you."
Victor and Innocent Jess do meet in the restaurant again, but Jess Prime enteres with her shotgun and prevents the conflict. Jess Prime almost kills Innocent Jess, but instead lets her go. Victor, weak from his wounds, collapses.
Unfortunately, Jess isn't in time to save Greg, and is distracted when she hears the same gunshot as before. She runs upstairs and finds, as before, Downy and Sally holding a dead Greg and accusing her of it. This time, she doesn't bother to defend herself, instead watching the balcony and shooting at the masked attacker when she appears. This time, she saves Downy and Sally and is able to hit the masked attacker in the head.
The masked attacker this time is Dark Jess. Thus far, she has acted the same as third-loop Jess did, both when Jess Prime was on her first loop and as she will on her third loop (that is, telling Downy and Sally to go to the theater, and killing Greg). Yet, like Jess Prime, on this loop she behaves differently. Unlike Jess Prime, this version of Jess is cold and unafraid of killing. Whether or not this is fuelled by the gunshot to the head is up for debate. She does not have the same conscience as Jess Prime does, that's for sure.
After escaping the theater, Jess gives Downy and Sally the shotgun and informs them to shoot anyone who comes to them, then goes to retrieve Victor with the intention of getting off the boat. However, when she gets back to the restaurant, Victor is absent and there's a trail of blood instead that leads over the side of the boat. Dark Jess finished him off. Jess Prime doesn't get a chance to figure it out, as she hears a gunshot.
Back to Downy and Sally, Dark Jess approaches them. Since they don't know that there are multiple Jesses, they trust her despite Jess Primes instructions to shoot anyone. Jess Prime calls to Downy and Sally as they are being lead away, but Dark Jess instructs them not to respond and tells them that it's not who they think. She then leads them to the room where Greg and Jess found the blood on the mirror that reads "Go To Theater", only this time there is no water running and nothing written on the mirror. Without delay, she slashes Downies throat, stabs Sally in the stomach, and starts repeatedly stabbing Downy. (Even Dark Jess isn't pro enough to kill in one hit). Sally escapes, and Jess Prime sees her and starts chasing her (although of course now Sally isn't trustworthy at all). After Dark Jess finishes off Downy, she says, "I'm sorry, but I love my son." To me, this indicates that she is, despite being a much more heartless version of Jess Prime, a possible future version of her.
While evading Jess Prime, Sally comes across a communication room, where she makes a distress call. Greg responds; this is the distress call that Greg heard before the storm. This is important, because the way Sally was killed on the first loop did not give her the chance to make the call. This means that in the loop before Jess Prime got on the boat, Dark Jess must have been the masked attacker, and that third loop Jess (who Jess Prime pushed off the boat) had all the same experiences that Jess Prime had.
Jess eventually catches up with Sally, but by that point in time her stab wound is close to killing her. Sally finds herself surrounded by corpses of herself, once again indicating both that this has been going on for a long time, and that things don't reset completely when the loop restarts.
While comforting Sally (poorly), Jess hears sounds of a struggle, and looking at the main deck, sees Innocent Jess and Dark Jess fighting. Innocent Jess kills Dark Jess with an axe, and pushes Dark Jess over the edge.
Sally dies from her wounds, and once again Jess hears the sounds of Greg, Victor, Downey, Sally and herself on the Triangle approaching the boat. "It comes back when they all die," she concludes.
Act 4 - Here We Go Again
This Act is pretty much the same as Act 2, only this time we see it from the point of view of Jess on her third loop instead of Jess on her first loop. A new version of Jess comes onto the boat but she experiences the same things as Jess Prime did on her first version; we will call her New Jess Prime.
Jess does try to stop the Aeolus, but without success, before she decides to go through with it - that is, kill the other survivors.
Things from Jess' perspective are as we suspect for the most part, although there are some slight differences. For example, Jess Prime overhears Innocent Jess speaking with Victor, only she mentions how she has killed Dark Jess; something that never came up on Jess Primes second time through the loop. Other than that, the encounter is almost the exact same.
Jess goes to the room where Dark Jess had killed Downy and wounded Sally, and finds that Downy had cleared the mirror and started to write her name on it as a warning for anyone who was still alive. She writes the original theater message on the mirror, and throws Downy overboard. She then gets Greg's body from the theater and disposes of it. Note that this creates a discrepancy between the events that happened to Jess Prime on her second loop on the boat; she saw Downy's body floating before her encounter with Victor, whereas Innocent Jess had already had the encounter with Victor before Jess disposed of the bodies.
Jess tells Downy and Sally to meet her in the theater, finds herself another shot gun, and disguises herself with a full-body coat and a bag over her head; she has now become the masked attacker we saw the first time.
Before long, Jess finds Greg. Despite her disguise, he recognises her, and she reveals that she was only dressed that way so that he wouldn't see her face. This suggests that Dark Jess had the same fear, since she also wore the bag over her head. (Yet she did not mind Downy and Sally seeing it).
Jess Prime kills Greg, which is the only death that has been the exact same each time. By this time, New Jess Prime has killed Victor by accidentally finding the hole in the back of her head, and she rushes upstairs to witness Downy and Sally dying the same way she, too, will kill them in two loops.
I find Jesses behaviour at this point a bit odd, surely she remembers how her own fight against Jess Prime 3 went, yet she still chases New Jess Prime again, and pretty much the exact same fight ensues. As before, footsteps are heard overheard, distracting New Jess Prime and giving Jess Prime a chance to hit her on the head with the shotgun.
What are these footsteps? At this point there should only be one other Jess on the ship - Innocent Jess - who, experiencing a different set of events, did not know how to stop the pattern Jess Prime experienced. Why she is running we cannot say for sure.
I suppose that Jess Prime believed that, with her knowledge of how the fight would go, she would be able to get the advantage, and she does get a stronger fight than Jess Prime 3 had. However, the end result is the same and she is knocked overboard.
Act 5 - A loop within a loop
Surprisingly, instead of dying, Jess is washed to shore, and we see the scene she saw when she was dreaming on the boat. Finding herself still alive, she finds her way to the road and hitches a ride back home. From here on in, we see most of the same things we saw in the prologue, only in a different order.
Much like on the boat, there are multiple versions of Jess here, but this time there are only two: Jess Prime, who we have been following thus far, and Bitch Jess, aka, the Jess who has not yet boarded the Triangle. Bitch Jess' name is appropriate, as we learn quickly, for she berates her son for leaving his toys in the yard, as well as hitting him after he spills the paint, then swearing at him some more. The quiet "Shit" when she sees she got paint on her dress is a bit more sinister with what we've just steen.
Jess Prime rings the doorbell to get Bitch Jess out of the house, then sneaks in the back door after getting a hammer from the shed. She then ambushes Bitch Jess in her room, bludgeoning her to death with the hammer (which her son witnesses).
This is where we see the scene with Jess comforting her son from a nightmare, saying the same thing ("Sometimes bad dreams make you see things you haven't seen.") However, there is still a question to be raised here. At the beginning of the movie, this was shown before it was shown that Jess had cleaned up the paint, so things seem to be happening in a different order. If we could see what Jess was wearing in the intro, we would be able to tell if it was Jess coming back from the boat (in the white tank top) or Jess before she got on the boat (in the dress), but her son covers her clothes with his hug.
The same scene with the clothes being stuffed in the bag is shown, although this time it is revealed that the bag (this time) contains a body. It is ambiguous if it did last time as well, but it is implied that it may have.
Jess attempts to convince Tommy that things will be different between them in the future, but as she does so, a bird hits the window, and is killed. When she picks it up and throws it off the cliff at the side of the road, at the bottom we see a pile of dead birds - implying that she is somehow, still in the loop.
Jess tries to escape the loop, but in doing so, drives distracted and drives into a truck, causing the car to flip, Tommy to go into a coma, and the body of Jess to be lying on the road. At this point, sad music plays and it seems that the movie is about to end.
However, Jess Prime is revealed to be completely unharmed. A taxi driver (who, when asked who he is, says, "Just a driver") tells her that there's no point trying to save the boy. I don't know how he knows that there's no point, but when he asks Jess if he can give her a ride, she accepts and he takes her to the harbour.
"You Will come back, won't you?" the tax driver asks her after he drops her off. "Yes, I promise," she says. She then gets on the boat, and we see the initial exchange with Victor. From there on in, things proceed the same way they did in Act 1, and the movie ends with Greg saying, "Let's go sailing!"
She then finds a bunch of scrunched up pieces of paper with the text "If they board, kill them all" written on them. Upon finding a notepad and pencil, she writes the same message, and sees that all the notes are her own notepaper. This is the first indication that what is happening has been happening for a long time, as well as that certain things do not rever to normal when the loop restarts.
Jess re-lives her exchange with the masked attacker and realises that it was herself, on a future loop. She rejects this future, and decides to attempts to change the pattern. She finds an armory and takes a shotgun. She then takes a moment to cry, when she notices a copy of her necklace with the picture of her son dangling from a grate. At the bottom of the grate lie dozens more; and as she is looking at them, hers falls off into the grate.
From this point on, what happens in this loop will be different than what happened the first time. The reason for this is unclear; so far, Jess has been doing what 2nd-loop Jess did when she had been on her first loop (dropping her keys, following the survivors, stabbing Victor). Yet after this point, things change, leaving me to believe that something happened to 2nd-loop Jess while Jess Prime was on her first loop. Perhaps Dark Jess was already on the boat, and killed 2nd-loop Jess at this point; we do know that Dark Jess was not the same as 3rd-loop Jess, yet she's on the boat now and not on her first loop, so she must have been on the boat when Jess Prime got on the boat. The other alternative was that at this point, something happened to 2nd-loop Jess differently (I don't know how or why) and she turned into Dark Jess. I do not support this theory.
There is some creepy humor in the way, as Jess finds Victor going towards the restaurant, she points a shotgun and says, "You know I'd never mean to hurt you."
Victor and Innocent Jess do meet in the restaurant again, but Jess Prime enteres with her shotgun and prevents the conflict. Jess Prime almost kills Innocent Jess, but instead lets her go. Victor, weak from his wounds, collapses.
Unfortunately, Jess isn't in time to save Greg, and is distracted when she hears the same gunshot as before. She runs upstairs and finds, as before, Downy and Sally holding a dead Greg and accusing her of it. This time, she doesn't bother to defend herself, instead watching the balcony and shooting at the masked attacker when she appears. This time, she saves Downy and Sally and is able to hit the masked attacker in the head.
The masked attacker this time is Dark Jess. Thus far, she has acted the same as third-loop Jess did, both when Jess Prime was on her first loop and as she will on her third loop (that is, telling Downy and Sally to go to the theater, and killing Greg). Yet, like Jess Prime, on this loop she behaves differently. Unlike Jess Prime, this version of Jess is cold and unafraid of killing. Whether or not this is fuelled by the gunshot to the head is up for debate. She does not have the same conscience as Jess Prime does, that's for sure.
After escaping the theater, Jess gives Downy and Sally the shotgun and informs them to shoot anyone who comes to them, then goes to retrieve Victor with the intention of getting off the boat. However, when she gets back to the restaurant, Victor is absent and there's a trail of blood instead that leads over the side of the boat. Dark Jess finished him off. Jess Prime doesn't get a chance to figure it out, as she hears a gunshot.
Back to Downy and Sally, Dark Jess approaches them. Since they don't know that there are multiple Jesses, they trust her despite Jess Primes instructions to shoot anyone. Jess Prime calls to Downy and Sally as they are being lead away, but Dark Jess instructs them not to respond and tells them that it's not who they think. She then leads them to the room where Greg and Jess found the blood on the mirror that reads "Go To Theater", only this time there is no water running and nothing written on the mirror. Without delay, she slashes Downies throat, stabs Sally in the stomach, and starts repeatedly stabbing Downy. (Even Dark Jess isn't pro enough to kill in one hit). Sally escapes, and Jess Prime sees her and starts chasing her (although of course now Sally isn't trustworthy at all). After Dark Jess finishes off Downy, she says, "I'm sorry, but I love my son." To me, this indicates that she is, despite being a much more heartless version of Jess Prime, a possible future version of her.
While evading Jess Prime, Sally comes across a communication room, where she makes a distress call. Greg responds; this is the distress call that Greg heard before the storm. This is important, because the way Sally was killed on the first loop did not give her the chance to make the call. This means that in the loop before Jess Prime got on the boat, Dark Jess must have been the masked attacker, and that third loop Jess (who Jess Prime pushed off the boat) had all the same experiences that Jess Prime had.
Jess eventually catches up with Sally, but by that point in time her stab wound is close to killing her. Sally finds herself surrounded by corpses of herself, once again indicating both that this has been going on for a long time, and that things don't reset completely when the loop restarts.
While comforting Sally (poorly), Jess hears sounds of a struggle, and looking at the main deck, sees Innocent Jess and Dark Jess fighting. Innocent Jess kills Dark Jess with an axe, and pushes Dark Jess over the edge.
Sally dies from her wounds, and once again Jess hears the sounds of Greg, Victor, Downey, Sally and herself on the Triangle approaching the boat. "It comes back when they all die," she concludes.
Act 4 - Here We Go Again
This Act is pretty much the same as Act 2, only this time we see it from the point of view of Jess on her third loop instead of Jess on her first loop. A new version of Jess comes onto the boat but she experiences the same things as Jess Prime did on her first version; we will call her New Jess Prime.
Jess does try to stop the Aeolus, but without success, before she decides to go through with it - that is, kill the other survivors.
Things from Jess' perspective are as we suspect for the most part, although there are some slight differences. For example, Jess Prime overhears Innocent Jess speaking with Victor, only she mentions how she has killed Dark Jess; something that never came up on Jess Primes second time through the loop. Other than that, the encounter is almost the exact same.
Jess goes to the room where Dark Jess had killed Downy and wounded Sally, and finds that Downy had cleared the mirror and started to write her name on it as a warning for anyone who was still alive. She writes the original theater message on the mirror, and throws Downy overboard. She then gets Greg's body from the theater and disposes of it. Note that this creates a discrepancy between the events that happened to Jess Prime on her second loop on the boat; she saw Downy's body floating before her encounter with Victor, whereas Innocent Jess had already had the encounter with Victor before Jess disposed of the bodies.
Jess tells Downy and Sally to meet her in the theater, finds herself another shot gun, and disguises herself with a full-body coat and a bag over her head; she has now become the masked attacker we saw the first time.
Before long, Jess finds Greg. Despite her disguise, he recognises her, and she reveals that she was only dressed that way so that he wouldn't see her face. This suggests that Dark Jess had the same fear, since she also wore the bag over her head. (Yet she did not mind Downy and Sally seeing it).
Jess Prime kills Greg, which is the only death that has been the exact same each time. By this time, New Jess Prime has killed Victor by accidentally finding the hole in the back of her head, and she rushes upstairs to witness Downy and Sally dying the same way she, too, will kill them in two loops.
I find Jesses behaviour at this point a bit odd, surely she remembers how her own fight against Jess Prime 3 went, yet she still chases New Jess Prime again, and pretty much the exact same fight ensues. As before, footsteps are heard overheard, distracting New Jess Prime and giving Jess Prime a chance to hit her on the head with the shotgun.
What are these footsteps? At this point there should only be one other Jess on the ship - Innocent Jess - who, experiencing a different set of events, did not know how to stop the pattern Jess Prime experienced. Why she is running we cannot say for sure.
I suppose that Jess Prime believed that, with her knowledge of how the fight would go, she would be able to get the advantage, and she does get a stronger fight than Jess Prime 3 had. However, the end result is the same and she is knocked overboard.
Act 5 - A loop within a loop
Surprisingly, instead of dying, Jess is washed to shore, and we see the scene she saw when she was dreaming on the boat. Finding herself still alive, she finds her way to the road and hitches a ride back home. From here on in, we see most of the same things we saw in the prologue, only in a different order.
Much like on the boat, there are multiple versions of Jess here, but this time there are only two: Jess Prime, who we have been following thus far, and Bitch Jess, aka, the Jess who has not yet boarded the Triangle. Bitch Jess' name is appropriate, as we learn quickly, for she berates her son for leaving his toys in the yard, as well as hitting him after he spills the paint, then swearing at him some more. The quiet "Shit" when she sees she got paint on her dress is a bit more sinister with what we've just steen.
Jess Prime rings the doorbell to get Bitch Jess out of the house, then sneaks in the back door after getting a hammer from the shed. She then ambushes Bitch Jess in her room, bludgeoning her to death with the hammer (which her son witnesses).
This is where we see the scene with Jess comforting her son from a nightmare, saying the same thing ("Sometimes bad dreams make you see things you haven't seen.") However, there is still a question to be raised here. At the beginning of the movie, this was shown before it was shown that Jess had cleaned up the paint, so things seem to be happening in a different order. If we could see what Jess was wearing in the intro, we would be able to tell if it was Jess coming back from the boat (in the white tank top) or Jess before she got on the boat (in the dress), but her son covers her clothes with his hug.
The same scene with the clothes being stuffed in the bag is shown, although this time it is revealed that the bag (this time) contains a body. It is ambiguous if it did last time as well, but it is implied that it may have.
Jess attempts to convince Tommy that things will be different between them in the future, but as she does so, a bird hits the window, and is killed. When she picks it up and throws it off the cliff at the side of the road, at the bottom we see a pile of dead birds - implying that she is somehow, still in the loop.
Jess tries to escape the loop, but in doing so, drives distracted and drives into a truck, causing the car to flip, Tommy to go into a coma, and the body of Jess to be lying on the road. At this point, sad music plays and it seems that the movie is about to end.
However, Jess Prime is revealed to be completely unharmed. A taxi driver (who, when asked who he is, says, "Just a driver") tells her that there's no point trying to save the boy. I don't know how he knows that there's no point, but when he asks Jess if he can give her a ride, she accepts and he takes her to the harbour.
"You Will come back, won't you?" the tax driver asks her after he drops her off. "Yes, I promise," she says. She then gets on the boat, and we see the initial exchange with Victor. From there on in, things proceed the same way they did in Act 1, and the movie ends with Greg saying, "Let's go sailing!"
Plot Interpretations
Versions of Jess
Throughout the movie, we see six versions of Jess, but only three or four major variations. The versions of Jess are:
Is Innocent Jess also Jess Dark Jess?
One possible theory is that Innocent Jess and Dark Jess are the same. It is true that we don't know a whole lot about either. We see Innocent Jess on her first loop kill Dark Jess, and presumably on her second loop she tries to stop the deaths of everyone (based on her conversation with Victor). Unlike Jess Prime, she doesn't seem to have any luck with this, since she did not see how her friends died on her first loop. As such, it is difficult to imagine what would have happened to her to convince her so strongly that she needed to kill everyone; without Jess Prime 3 telling her to kill them all, or encountering the notes, there was nothing we saw that would prompt her to even go down that course of action. However; if Dark Jess was also Innocent Jess, then she could have informed Innocent Jess that all the others needed to be killed before she was killed. This seems unlikely to me, because when Jess Prime 3 informed Jess Prime of the need to kill them all, it was because she knew she was defeated.
Is Bitch Jess also Jess Prime?
Another excellent question and the answer to this is the answer to an even more important question, which is: Was this Jess Primes first time through the loop? Act 5 strongly hints that Jess Prime had been there before; in fact, if Act 5 is to be believed, it may be that that Jess we saw in the prologue isn't even the same Jess that we saw in Act 1. However, there is on major difference, that being the scene with Jess comforting Tommy - even though it happens both in the prologue and in Act 5, it happens in different orders, and we cannot see what Jess is wearing to tell if it is the tank top (Jess Prime) or the dress (Bitch Dress). If Bitch Jess is Jess Prime (aka, it was Jess Primes first time through the loop), it does beg the question - who rang her doorbell?
Is Jess alive?
It is possible that the events leading up to the car crash still happened; that is, the car hit a bird, Tommy became upset, and Jess was distracted, causing her to crash into the truck. Perhaps then, for being an abusive mother, Jess was cast into a form of purgatory not unlike the myth of Sisyphus (which was hinted at in the story) - that of experiencing the same set of events to get back to land, only to watch Tommy die again and end up back on the Triangle.
Does Jess save her son?
Now here is a mystery worth pondering. There are multiple versions of Jess, and there is a lot we don't know about them. For example, what does Jess Prime do after she gets back on the boat? Does she remember what happened before and try to change things, becoming Dark Jess? If not, why is Dark Jess so different, and where does she come from? Jess Prime becoming Dark Jess makes sense to me, because she now realises a) that killing these people doesn't matter, because she's already seen it three times, and they still keep coming back, and b) that it might be her only chance to save her son. (Dark Jess does say, "I'm sorry, but I love my son" after killing Downy - implying that her intent is still to save and/or be re-united with Tommy). However, if THIS is the case, then Jess Prime fails because Innocent Jess kills Dark Jess. We still don't know the ultimate fate of Innocent Jess.
Does the Triangle return when they're dead?
I believe this is a misconception that Jess gets, partially from herself and partially from the timing of Sally's death. On her first loop, the Triangle didn't return until a few moments after she had pushed Jess Prime 3 overboard; furthermore, by that point in time all the other survivors had been dead for some time. It wasn't until after Jess had replaced the record needle that the Triangle returned.
Yet on her second loop through, as soon as Sally had drawn her last breath, the Triangle returned. This was a few moments after Innocent Jess had killed Dark Jess; is it possible that Innocent Jess had found herself in a similar situation that Jess Prime had (alone on the boat, lost) and wandered into the same room - resetting the record? Was the record, perhaps, the controlling factor in bringing back the Triangle? It is of course possible to speculate and there is no definitive answer given, but because of the discrepancy in time between the returns, I think this is more likely.
Is the loop infinite?
This is the big question that ultimately answers most of the rest. I really want the loop to not be infinite; I want to believe that Jess finds a way to save Tommy and become a better person. For sure, during the first four Acts she didn't seem like a bitch (well, except for Dark Jess), and so the potential for good is there. However, there are certain clues that have to be considered. For one, the myth of Sisyphus being present is a strong clue that she is stuck in an eternal punishment. She may not have pissed off the gods, but she did do wrong. It is possible that this is in there as a red herring, but I don't think so. For another, the movie ends when Jess re-boards the Triangle. This implies that Bitch Jess never sees the triangle - in her hell, Jess gets to repeat these same experiences over and over.
Versions of Jess
Throughout the movie, we see six versions of Jess, but only three or four major variations. The versions of Jess are:
- Jess Prime / Jess Prime 3 / New Jess Prime:
As far as can be told, these three versions of Jess all experience the same set of events. Each accidentally kills Victor, witnesses the death of Greg, Sally, and Downy, and then defeats a future version of themself in the first loop; attempts to change the plan but is foiled by Dark Jess in the second loop; and becomes the masked attacker in the third loop, to then go back home, kill Bitch Jess, and attempt (and fail) to fix things with her son in the fourth loop (off ship) only to see Tommy killed and end up back on the dock. Jess Prime is considered the neutral Jess. Of course, we can only assume that Jess Prime 3 experienced the same events in her first and second loop, just as we can only assume that New Jess Prime experienced the same events on her first and second loop, as we only saw each for one loop. - Bitch Jess
Bitch Jess may in fact be the same as the Jess Prime line. It depends on one crucial question: Was this movie the first time that Jess Prime had been on the boat, or had she been going through this loop (and forgetting during her nap on the Triangle) for a long time? This is the version of Jess that has not boarded the triangle, and that is abusive to her son. - Dark Jess
Dark Jess is the most mysterious of all the Jesses, because we don't actually know how many loops she has been on in the boat. We only see her on Jess Primes second loop. Due to the fact that she is the masked attacker, we can guess that she is on her third loop, but this cannot be verified. Dark Jess kills Greg the same way Jess Prime does, then finishes off Victor, kills Downy, and mortally wounds Sally. She is the only version of Jess to be the cause of the death of all four characters, and as such represents evil. - Innocent Jess
I refer to her as Innocent Jess because of one simple fact; from what we saw, she was not involved in a single murder, other than Dark Jess. Innocent Jess is one loop behind Jess Prime, and experiences a different set of events. On her first loop, she encountered Jess Prime, then didn't see anyone again until she killed Dark Jess (although presumably she saw the bodies of the dead). In the second loop, she informs Victor of what she has seen (hurting him again), then is not seen again. Innocent Jess, due to having only hurt Dark Jess (who represents bad), is considered good.
Is Innocent Jess also Jess Dark Jess?
One possible theory is that Innocent Jess and Dark Jess are the same. It is true that we don't know a whole lot about either. We see Innocent Jess on her first loop kill Dark Jess, and presumably on her second loop she tries to stop the deaths of everyone (based on her conversation with Victor). Unlike Jess Prime, she doesn't seem to have any luck with this, since she did not see how her friends died on her first loop. As such, it is difficult to imagine what would have happened to her to convince her so strongly that she needed to kill everyone; without Jess Prime 3 telling her to kill them all, or encountering the notes, there was nothing we saw that would prompt her to even go down that course of action. However; if Dark Jess was also Innocent Jess, then she could have informed Innocent Jess that all the others needed to be killed before she was killed. This seems unlikely to me, because when Jess Prime 3 informed Jess Prime of the need to kill them all, it was because she knew she was defeated.
Is Bitch Jess also Jess Prime?
Another excellent question and the answer to this is the answer to an even more important question, which is: Was this Jess Primes first time through the loop? Act 5 strongly hints that Jess Prime had been there before; in fact, if Act 5 is to be believed, it may be that that Jess we saw in the prologue isn't even the same Jess that we saw in Act 1. However, there is on major difference, that being the scene with Jess comforting Tommy - even though it happens both in the prologue and in Act 5, it happens in different orders, and we cannot see what Jess is wearing to tell if it is the tank top (Jess Prime) or the dress (Bitch Dress). If Bitch Jess is Jess Prime (aka, it was Jess Primes first time through the loop), it does beg the question - who rang her doorbell?
Is Jess alive?
It is possible that the events leading up to the car crash still happened; that is, the car hit a bird, Tommy became upset, and Jess was distracted, causing her to crash into the truck. Perhaps then, for being an abusive mother, Jess was cast into a form of purgatory not unlike the myth of Sisyphus (which was hinted at in the story) - that of experiencing the same set of events to get back to land, only to watch Tommy die again and end up back on the Triangle.
Does Jess save her son?
Now here is a mystery worth pondering. There are multiple versions of Jess, and there is a lot we don't know about them. For example, what does Jess Prime do after she gets back on the boat? Does she remember what happened before and try to change things, becoming Dark Jess? If not, why is Dark Jess so different, and where does she come from? Jess Prime becoming Dark Jess makes sense to me, because she now realises a) that killing these people doesn't matter, because she's already seen it three times, and they still keep coming back, and b) that it might be her only chance to save her son. (Dark Jess does say, "I'm sorry, but I love my son" after killing Downy - implying that her intent is still to save and/or be re-united with Tommy). However, if THIS is the case, then Jess Prime fails because Innocent Jess kills Dark Jess. We still don't know the ultimate fate of Innocent Jess.
Does the Triangle return when they're dead?
I believe this is a misconception that Jess gets, partially from herself and partially from the timing of Sally's death. On her first loop, the Triangle didn't return until a few moments after she had pushed Jess Prime 3 overboard; furthermore, by that point in time all the other survivors had been dead for some time. It wasn't until after Jess had replaced the record needle that the Triangle returned.
Yet on her second loop through, as soon as Sally had drawn her last breath, the Triangle returned. This was a few moments after Innocent Jess had killed Dark Jess; is it possible that Innocent Jess had found herself in a similar situation that Jess Prime had (alone on the boat, lost) and wandered into the same room - resetting the record? Was the record, perhaps, the controlling factor in bringing back the Triangle? It is of course possible to speculate and there is no definitive answer given, but because of the discrepancy in time between the returns, I think this is more likely.
Is the loop infinite?
This is the big question that ultimately answers most of the rest. I really want the loop to not be infinite; I want to believe that Jess finds a way to save Tommy and become a better person. For sure, during the first four Acts she didn't seem like a bitch (well, except for Dark Jess), and so the potential for good is there. However, there are certain clues that have to be considered. For one, the myth of Sisyphus being present is a strong clue that she is stuck in an eternal punishment. She may not have pissed off the gods, but she did do wrong. It is possible that this is in there as a red herring, but I don't think so. For another, the movie ends when Jess re-boards the Triangle. This implies that Bitch Jess never sees the triangle - in her hell, Jess gets to repeat these same experiences over and over.
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