This article contains discussions of mental illness and MAJOR SPOILERSfor Before!
Billy Crystal’s Before follows the connection between a child psychologist named Eli and his young patient named Noah, leading to a strange ending that explores themes of reincarnation and trauma. The Apple TV+ Original miniseries starts with Noah showing up at Eli’s house a few times despite the pair not knowing one another. He then agrees to take on Noah as a patient. However, he soon learns that he and Noah have a strange, almost paranormal connection that ties back to a farmhouse.
Over the course of the series, Eli realizes that Noah’s symptoms don’t fit medical explanations. He hallucinates a worm, dark water, and ice. The child becomes freezing cold suddenly and speaks languages that he doesn’t know. Eli’s behavior turns erratic with him exposing Noah to environments from his past life. However, this leads to the doctors thinking Eli is having a mental breakdown related to the death of his wife, Lynn. After Eli breaks out of a psychiatric facility and kidnaps Noah, the pair return to the site of their past life in an ending that discusses the impact of trauma.
How Eli Saves Noah's Life In Before
Eli Realizes That Healing The Past Life Will Heal The Present
Throughout Before, Noah’s health deteriorates rapidly, showing abnormal symptoms that defy the typical bounds of medical explanations. The doctors do everything they can to help him, but he’s on the brink of death when Eli kidnaps him by driving his ambulance away from the hospital at the end of Before episode 9. Luckily, Eli figures out after entering the farmhouse that the way to save Noah’s life is to recreate the events of their past life while changing the ending.
Stephen King shares his praise for a new Apple TV+ thriller, matching the audience’s sentiment about a series that has drawn unfavorable reviews.
Eli grabs Noah and dives under the water with him. After taking him out of the water, Noah gives him chest compressions. Though it seems not to be working, Noah regains consciousness and doesn’t remember anything about how they got there and what happened. He no longer shows any symptoms, and he displays his usual personality, which he’d lost as his symptoms increased.
What Happened At The Farmhouse In Noah & Eli's Past Life
Eli Accidentally Killed Noah At The Farmhouse And Fled The Scene
The central question that has continued throughout the entire series is what happened at the farmhouse and why it’s impacting Noah. Eli finally pieces together the fact that Noah is experiencing symptoms because of a past life trauma that occurred at the farmhouse, even visiting the location inBefore episode 8. The show even hints that the farmhouse could be connected with Lynn’s children’s book. However, they don’t reveal the full truth until the finale, when Eli and Noah go back to the farmhouse.
When turning, the little boy (Eli) pushes his shoulder into the little girl (Noah), causing her to fall backwards and hit her head on the ice.
Eli is flooded with memories that he and Eli were looking for their friend. They find their friend out by the lake. They go over to look at a bee's nest and run away when the bees come after them. When turning, the little boy (Eli) pushes his shoulder into the little girl (Noah), causing her to fall backwards and hit her head on the ice. Her weight then cracked the ice, causing her to sink into the frozen lake water. Even though the friend tells him to jump in after Noah’s past self, he runs away in fear.
This event is why Noah hallucinates bees, dark water, and ice in Before. His fear comes with the subconscious knowledge that those elements all factored into his death in the past life, even if he’s not consciously aware of it. The weather and ice in their past life are why both Noah and Eli’s lips turn blue and their breath becomes visible.
Why Eli Continues Hallucinating The Worm
Eli Hasn't Resolved His Past Traumas
Image via Apple TV+
After Noah’s trauma is resolved at the farmhouse, he doesn’t display any more symptoms of his past life. He goes back to being the vibrant child he was previously, living with Denise and playing at the playground. However, Eli’s epilogue shows that he’s still hallucinating the worm under his skin. The hallucination is peculiar because the past life events at the farmhouse don’t involve worms. This could be a loose end in Before that the creative team simply forgot about.
Screen Rant interviews Before stars Billy Crystal and Jacobi Jupe about working off one another in Apple TV+’s new psychological thriller.
Alternatively, the worm hallucination could imply that the farmhouse wasn’t the first time Noah, Lynn, and Ei shared a life. They could have a history that stretches further back, with a past life that involves a worm. In this case, the fact that Eli continues to see the worm implies that he hasn’t resolved the trauma related to that particular past life. After all, his symptoms should have subsided when Noah’s did.
Another explanation is that Eli hasn’t forgiven himself for his actions in his past life by the end of Before, so the trauma and hallucinations linger on. However, this explanation only works if the farmhouse incident involves a worm. Noah might have forgiven Eli – hence the lack of symptoms – but Eli tends to hold onto the past.
Was Noah Benjamin Or Lynn In His Past Life?
Noah's Past Life Becomes Murky In The Climax Of The Finale
Image via Apple TV+
Once reincarnation is brought into the story, questions naturally arise about who is whom. The mark on Noah’s chest matches up with Benjamin’s bruise at the time of his death, implying that the two are different incarnations of the same person. Even Eli believes this to be true in Before episode 6. This is furthered by the fact that Benjamin says, “We have to find our friend” in Eli’s dream. The little Dutch girl says this in the farmhouse memory, and she’s a confirmed past life of Noah.
If Noah were Lynn in a past life, he would be much younger than he is in the series, as eight years haven’t passed since her death.
However, the climax of Before’s finale adds a question mark to this assumption. Eli remembers Lynn’s death while under the water. Back on the shore, he lays down next to Noah on the ground in the same position that he and Lynn laid after her death. These scenes make it seem like Lynn, Noah, and the Dutch girl are all the same person.
Ultimately, there’s no clear answer as to which character was Noah’s past life, but it can be inferred from the birthmark as well as the amount of time that passed since Lynn and Benjamin’s deaths. If Noah were Lynn in a past life, he would be much younger than he is in the series, as eight years haven’t passed since her death. As such, it seems more likely that Noah is a reincarnated version of Benjamin.
The True Meaning Of Before's Ending
Before's Ending Sends Two Core Messages About Life
Rather than letting the audience infer the message, Before includes its core thesis as part of Eli’s ending monologue. He suggests that if there’s an afterlife, there must also be a beforelife. Eli proposes that there’s no reason to believe in one without the other. It’s an interesting philosophical question that fits within the confines of the show.
However, the other message in Before’s ending is a little dangerous based onBefore’s characters and plot. The Apple TV+ original suggests that unresolved trauma will never stop impacting a person until it’s faced head-on. At face value, this is very true. People should absolutely seek psychological treatment for their traumatic experiences. Unfortunately, this message isn’t safe to hear from a show where a psychologist behaves in unethical and hazardous ways. Eli repeatedly behaves in reckless ways with zero plan and puts Noah in danger. As such, viewers would be wise to take the basic message but ignore where it originated.
Your changes have been saved
Release Date
October 24, 2024
Cast
Billy Crystal
, Judith Light
, Rosie Perez
, Jacobi Jupe
, Maria Dizzia
, Ava Lalezarzadeh
Character(s)
Dr. Eli Adler
, Lynn
, Denise
, Noah
, Barbara
, Cleo
Custom Image by Yailin Chacon
English (US) ·