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The Maze Runner: The Death Cure ending brings the trilogy of dystopian YA movies based on James Dashner's novels to a close, though it wasn't always obvious how the various plot threads running through the franchise connected for the finale. Even though the Maze Runner 3 ending explained a lot, it also left behind several questions. The Death Cure is the third and final installment in 20th Century's Maze Runner movie franchise. It follows 2014’s first film and the 2015 sequel Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials, wrapping up the stories of Thomas, Newt, and Minho, and their fight against WCKD.
The third movie in the series, based on James Dashner's 2011 novel The Death Cure, arrived in 2018. While the final movie tied up several plot threads, the Maze Runner ending still warrants further explanation, as some of the conclusions in its multi-layered story aren't quite clear on first viewing. Maze Runner: The Death Cure builds on story threads established in both previous installments, but also introduces new key concepts that become integral to the concluding chapter. However, with the Maze Runner: The Death Cure ending explained, the significance of the many parts in director Wes Ball's movie is revealed.
How The Death Cure Wraps Up Maze Runner Character Arcs
The Group Flee To Rebuild Society Away From WKCD And The Flare Virus
The Maze Runner: The Death Cure's ending wrapped up the storylines of the franchise's main characters. Thomas (O'Brien) and Newt (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) attempt to rescue their friend Minho (Ki Hong Lee) from the clutches of WCKD, where he's being experimented on along with other teenaged Immunes — those who are immune to the Flare virus that turns humans into zombie-like Cranks. Minho is only WCKD's prisoner because Teresa (Kaya Scodelario) betrayed Thomas and their friends by telling WCKD's leader Ava Page (Patricia Clarkson) and head of security Janson (Aidan Gillen) about their location after they had escaped.
As a result, Thomas, Newt, Frypan (Dexter Darden), Jorge (Giancarlo Esposito), and Brenda (Rosa Salazar) leave Vince (Barry Pepper) and the rest of the resistance group, the Right Arm, to infiltrate the last standing city and save Minho. The Right Arm saved several Immunes and planned to find a haven away from the reach of the Flare and WCKD.
Although Thomas and his friends — who meet up with former Glader Gally (Will Poulter) on the outskirts of the city — are successful in rescuing Minho from WCKD, they're unable to get the cure to save Newt, who isn't immune like his friends thought.
Gally is revealed to be alive after seemingly dying in The Maze Runner and turns from villain to hero.
When Teresa convinces Thomas he may be the only answer to producing a viable cure toward the end of The Maze Runner 3, he goes back. But thanks to an uprising led by Lawrence (Walton Goggins) and a hostile takeover of WCKD led by Janson, Thomas barely makes it out of the city alive. He flees with his remaining friends to the haven Vince has found where those immune from the Flare will attempt to rebuild society after The Maze Runner: The Death Cure ending.
|
Actor |
Character Name |
The Death Cure Fate |
|
Dylan O'Brien |
Thomas |
Alive at Safe Haven with the cure |
|
Kaya Scodelario |
Teresa |
Dies helping Thomas escape WCKD |
|
Thomas Brodie-Sangster |
Newt |
Dies fighting Thomas after becoming infected |
|
Ki Hong Lee |
Minho |
Alive at Safe Haven |
|
Dexter Darden |
Frypan |
|
|
Will Poulter |
Gally |
|
|
Nathalie Emmanuel |
Harriet |
|
|
Rosa Salazar |
Brenda |
|
|
Giancarlo Esposito |
Jorge |
|
|
Barry Pepper |
Vince |
|
|
Jacob Lofland |
Aris |
|
|
Katherine McNamara |
Sonya |
|
|
Walton Goggins |
Lawrence |
Dies from explosion to begin attack on the Last City |
|
Patricia Clarkson |
Ava Paige |
Dies from gunshot by Janson |
|
Aidan Gillen |
Janson |
Dies from Cranks/explosion |
What Happened to The Cure At The End?
Thomas Escapes With A Cure To The Flare Virus In Maze Runner 3
The Maze Runner 3 ending explained crucial mysterious elements from the previous films, including the Flare virus and how it tied into the construction of the maze in the first movie. The concepts of the Flare and the cure weren't truly introduced until the end of The Maze Runner. Since Thomas and the rest of the Gladers were put into the Maze after having their memories wiped, they didn't discover its purpose until they'd escaped.
At the end of The Maze Runner, Ava Paige appears on a video screen and explains to the Gladers that Earth was devastated by a solar flare, and then humankind's already dwindling numbers were ravaged by the Flare virus. Then, in The Scorch Trials, Thomas and his friends are housed at a facility with survivors of other Maze experiments, but they soon learn it's run by WCKD. When Thomas learns this, he and his friends escape and search out the Right Arm.
Along the way, they meet Brenda, Jorge, and their group. Brenda is infected with the Flare virus, but one of the members of the Right Arm — a former WCKD scientist — uses an enzyme cure that fully heals her. The scientist reveals the cure can only be harvested from an Immune's body, not manufactured. The scientist disagreed with Paige about how to harvest the cure and revealed that's why she left WCKD.
When 2018's Maze Runner: The Death Cure begins, Teresa struggles to discover a viable cure. Despite harvesting blood and enzymes from Immunes, she and Paige are only able to slow down the Flare virus. However, after Teresa sees a healed Brenda, she has suspicions Thomas might be the solution to stopping the virus entirely. She tests his blood and proves her hypothesis, then convinces him to return to help her create the cure.
Amid the uprising, Janson — now infected — takes the opportunity of Thomas being defenseless to force him and Teresa to create the cure. Instead, Thomas and Teresa fight back, but then Teresa dies in The Death Cure after helping Thomas flee with the Right Arm. At the end of The Maze Runner 3, it's revealed Thomas did escape with a vial of the cure. He keeps the vial with him as he and his fellow survivors begin their new life.
The Flare Virus Cure Was A MacGuffin
The Maze Runner Ending Revealed The Story Was Actually About Self-Sacrifice
By the end of Maze Runner: The Death Cure, the cure for the Flare virus becomes somewhat secondary to the other crises playing out. Though WCKD attempts to evacuate to keep pursuing a cure, the organization is in chaos after multiple deaths. Plus, with Thomas unable to get the "cure" to Newt in time to save his life, Thomas doesn't have much personal incentive to help resolve the pandemic, since everyone else he cares about is immune. Thomas offering himself up to Teresa and WCKD is a move of self-sacrifice with little hope for his own future or freedom.
By the time The Death Cure ends, it seems the majority of humanity has descended into the chaotic world seen outside the city walls throughout the entire film franchise. Meanwhile, the Right Arm, Thomas, and the remainder of his friends attempt to build a new society on an island away from the rest of the world. Presumably, they'll let the rest of humanity die off — either through violence or by way of the Flare — and try to rebuild anew. The Maze Runner 3 ending explained little else about their fates after the movie's events.
Thomas still has that vial of the viable cure at the end, but it seemingly becomes moot as many of the survivors are Immunes. Further, everyone Thomas is aware of who knows how to harvest the cure — Teresa, Paige, the defected WCKD scientist — are all dead. Between not needing the cure, and no one being capable of harvesting it, Thomas's vial of the cure is essentially just symbolic of everything he went through in order to gain his freedom and build a better life.
How Does The Death Cure Movie's Ending Differ From the Book?
Newt's Note And The Epilogue Were The Major Chances In Maze Runner 3
The note offers hope for the future and gives the final moments of The Death Cure a distinctly optimistic conclusion.
Newt's note is among the major changes director Wes Ball and screenwriter T.S. Nowlin made to the ending. In the book, Newt gives a note to Thomas in hopes that he'll read it before the former is consumed by the Flare. However, Thomas doesn't read it until after, and it's incredibly bleak: "Kill me. If you ever were my friend, kill me." Essentially, Newt asked Thomas to kill him before turning into a Crank. The Maze Runner movie made the change to have this play out on screen as Newt struggles to maintain his humanity while begging to die.
Instead of a deeply unsettling message showcasing the bleakness of the world in which these characters live, Maze Runner: The Death Cure employs a classic movie trope of having the deceased character offer the lead some advice and/or hope through a letter. Newt's note speaks of a better world built by Thomas and the remaining survivors. Newt implores Thomas that "the future's in your hands" and tells Thomas to look after everyone left, thanking him for his friendship. The note offers hope for the future and gives the final moments of The Death Cure a distinctly optimistic conclusion.
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The other major change is that Maze Runner: The Death Cure eliminated the epilogue from Dashner's original novel. Written from the perspective of Ava Paige, the original epilogue explained that the government actually created the Flare virus as population control following the devastating solar flare. However, while the virus was designed to kill a portion of the human population and then die out, it lived on and began to ravage the remnants of humanity. WCKD (called WICKED in the novels) was tasked with finding a cure, but Paige eventually realized it wouldn't be possible and devised a new plan.
Notably, the Maze Runner 3 ending explained nothing about the virus' origin because the epilogue was omitted. Moreover, in the Death Cure novel, it's revealed earlier on that Thomas's allies Jorge and Brenda actually work for WCKD. The epilogue also sees Paige revealing that this was part of her plan to gather all the Immunes and transport them to a safe haven where they can survive the rest of the world collapsing and have some hope of rebuilding.
The Death Cure Epilogue Undermines The Franchise Narrative
Changes Were Made To Allow The Movie Trilogy To Definitively End
...it seems unlikely Fox will adapt those two prequel novels...
The epilogue falls in line with the ending of Maze Runner: The Death Cure since it reinforces the idea that the search for a cure was abandoned in favor of the safe haven for Immunes. The epilogue also establishes this plan was in motion long before the beginning of the movie and would have offered further credence to the idea of Thomas and his friends removing themselves from the rest of the world to rebuild society.
However, it also overcomplicates the narrative and, more importantly, sets the stage for Dashner's prequel novels, The Kill Order and The Fever Code. These novels take place before The Maze Runner and follow the initial outbreak of the Flare virus as well as Thomas working with WCKD to build the Maze.
But, it seems unlikely Fox will adapt those two prequel novels — especially since Disney acquired The Maze Runner film franchise along with the rest of 20th Century Fox. So, The Death Cure needed to tie up all the loose ends of the series, and it did so by eliminating, or simply not including, certain aspects of the mythology, like the source of the Flare virus and the secret plan WCKD had for the Immunes all along.
Why Were They In The Maze In The First Place (And Other Unanswered Questions)?
The Death Cure Ending Left Plenty Of Maze Runner Mysteries
There are a number of unanswered questions left after Maze Runner: The Death Cure. It's still unclear what happened to the rest of the world after Thomas and the Right Arm founded their safe haven, and how the island is safe from the Flare. The movies also didn't reveal how the cure was harvested from an Immune and why the Maze was so integral to developing it. The Maze Runner 3 ending explained much, but also ultimately left audiences with only vague clues for some of its biggest mysteries.
It's reasonable that the rest of the world eventually died out, consumed by the Flare virus and the violence it inspires. It's also likely the island was scouted by the Right Arm (or, based on the books, its location was given to the Right Arm by WCKD). However, since it's unclear how the Flare virus transfers between humans — direct contact can result in infection, but it's also stated in the movie that the virus is airborne — and whether animals can transfer the virus, it's impossible to know whether the island is truly safe.
The Death Cure ending leaves much to be inferred by the viewer...
The science of Maze Runner: The Death Cure is one aspect that the ending explained too little about. The best explanation that's given for how the cure is harvested from an Immune is when Minho is being terrorized with hallucinations of the Maze and Grievers and his blood is taken and turned into a light blue liquid. Further, one of the WCKD scientists states that the best samples for a viable cure were taken from those Immunes who experienced the Maze trials. Its a tease of the type of questions Maze Runner 4 could answer.
The Maze somehow creates a reaction within the body of an Immune that has the highest chance of producing a viable cure — but why exactly the Maze, and nothing else, can cause this reaction within the body is never explained. It can perhaps be presumed that the Maze was designed based on WCKD's previous research for a cure, but that's not directly stated within the films. How the Maze was built is the premise for the prequel novel, The Fever Code.
Essentially, Thomas and his friends were in the Maze under the guise of WCKD searching for a cure, but all along Paige had abandoned the hope of a cure and was working on sending all the Immunes to a safe haven where they could rebuild society away from the Flare and the Cranks. Although the Maze Runner: The Death Cure ending leaves much to be inferred by the viewer, it does offer at least an optimistic — if fatalistic — conclusion to The Maze Runner trilogy.
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The Real Meaning Of The Death Cure Ending
The Death Cure Favors Self-Sacrifice And Hope
Custom Image by Yailin Chacon
It can be inferred that the real meaning behind the ending of The Death Cure is that there’s always hope even in the most bleak of situations. After all, there is a long time in which the audience believes that all hope rests in finding a cure, only to see every person who knows how to harvest and synthesize a cure die on screen.
That would seemingly indicate that the world has no hope. Instead, it’s made clear repeatedly that a number of the population is immune to the virus. Those who are immune can survive, no matter how harsh the conditions might get. While in the case of the movie, that hopeful ending seems to be a matter of convenience rather than perseverance, just what those people who are immune go through in order to begin rebuilding society cannot be discounted. They let nothing and no one stop them from finding a way to live their lives.
The Death Cure’s ending, however, also has that heavy theme of self-sacrifice. Just as Thomas is willing to place himself on the chopping block, so to speak, to find a cure for the rest of humanity, Teresa is also willing to sacrifice her own life for his. She repeatedly knowingly puts herself in harm’s way, and ultimately, dies, in order to keep Thomas alive. The willingness to sacrifice themselves for the greater good is at the heart of the ending, despite the group of Immunes isolating themselves from the rest of humanity in The Death Cure.
How The Death Cure's Ending Sets Up The Maze Runner Franchise's Future
Maze Runner 4 Doesn't Look Likely
...The Death Cure's ending still leaves room for the franchise to grow.
Despite being the conclusion of an entire trilogy narrative, Maze Runner: The Death Cure's ending still leaves room for the franchise to grow. Newt's letter to Thomas briefly speaks about the promise of the future. With the Gladers and other Immunes now living in solidarity, the setup is in place for an adaptation of The Maze Cutter - James Dashner's sequel/spinoff novel that takes place over 70 years after the conclusion of The Death Cure. That moment alone provides potential hope for the Maze Runner franchise to continue if Disney wants it to.
It currently doesn't seem as though Maze Runner: The Death Cure will be getting a sequel, as development on new films in the franchise has been quiet. Disney confirmed plans to make Maze Runner 4 in 2019, but no additional news has come since then, even though the entire Maze Runner series can be viewed on Disney+. With Maze Runner: The Death Cure's ending explaining the core mysteries already, whether audience clamor and rumors regarding the possibility of Maze Runner 4 will actually bear fruit remains to be seen.
How The Death Cure Ending Was Received
Reactions To The Ending Were Mixed
Reactions to the ending of The Death Cure were mixed, but that’s largely because reactions to the franchise as a whole were mixed. Those who loved the books did not always love the changes made to the movies, and The Death Cure features a lot of changes from the book. Those who did not read the books felt like they were missing information, even though many of the plot points left open-ended were not necessarily knowledge gaps for the movie.
As a result of the conflicting opinions, some members of the audience loved The Death Cure’s ending, while others hated it. Even critics were largely divided on the movie because, while they felt the visuals were improved in the final installment, they also thought the story should have been streamlined for the screen even more than it already was. The Rotten Tomatoes’ critical consensus reflects that as it states, “Maze Runner: The Death Cure may offer closure to fans of the franchise, but for anyone who hasn't already been hooked, this bloated final installment is best left unseen.”
The biggest sticking point for a lot of critics was that the ending of the movie was simply too long. The reviewer for The Australian said, “The final 40 minutes constitute the most drawn-out ending I have seen, almost unwatchable.” RogerEbert.Com essentially agreed with that idea, explaining, “For better and for worse, it's an overwhelming experience. And just when you think it's over, there's another coda, and then another.”
Of course, for every critical complaint about that ending, there is also the note that each installment of the franchise improved on what came before it. NPR found The Death Cure to be the best of the bunch, saying:
The Maze Runner is the rare series that has improved with each installment, expanding beyond the organic pen of the first film into a bigger and more thrillingly realized science fiction sandbox.
Which Maze Runner Movie Had The Best Ending?
The Final Movie Serves Up The Best Finale
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The Maze Runner
Conceived as a book series by author James Dashner, The Maze Runner is a sci-fi multimedia franchise that gained mainstream popularity after the release of its first of three films. The series focuses on a group of young men trapped in a maze with no knowledge of life outside their strange prison. The survivors, led by protagonist Thomas, attempt to piece together their shattered memories and find a way out of the towering maze.
Created by James Dashner
The Death Cure has the best ending of the Maze Runner trilogy by a long shot. That is largely because its ending is relatively finite. The first two movies in the franchise were busy trying to prepare fans to expect another chapter of the story, which meant their endings left a lot to be desired for those who were not as familiar with the story as those who read the novels that inspired the movies. That’s not to say those endings were horrible, but they were very clearly intending to keep people coming back to the theater.
...there’s also a feeling of finality in the movie, despite life continuing.
The Death Cure, on the other hand, brings a lot of emotional weight to the franchise and allows the storyline to be closed out. By having Teresa sacrifice herself to save Thomas, Newt pleading for his best friend to kill him, and Thomas fighting to get a cure he does not need for himself, the movie is much heavier on emotion than adrenaline, unlike the previous two installments. With both Teresa and Newt dying while Thomas and other Immunes live on, there’s also a feeling of finality in the movie, despite life continuing.
The optimistic ending of the movie, instead of Thomas and his friends facing yet another maze or obstacle in their path, also helps the movie give the audience hope despite the often bleak subject matter. That all adds up to make The Death Cure the best ending the franchise could have asked for in addition to having the best ending of the three movies.
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Mazerunner: The Death Cure is the final film in the popular series based on James Dashner's young-adult novels. In the sequel, Thomas must save his friends by breaking into Last City, which is a labyrinth controlled by WCKD. The Death Cure features the Gladers' most dangerous mission yet, but those that escape will finally get answers to the maze.
Release Date January 26, 2018
Director Wes Ball
Writers T.S. Nowlin
Runtime 142 Minutes
English (US) ·