Send Help Ending Explained: How Linda's Secret Sets Up The Film's Perfectly Dark Ending

The following contains spoilers for Send HelpThe biggest twists of Send Help highlight just how ruthless the seemingly meek Linda Liddle can be. The Sam Raimi film follows Linda and her aggressively mean boss, Bradley, when they become the only survivors of a plane crash at sea.

Surviving on the remote island only because of Linda's survivalist skills, the shifting power dynamic between them is at the core of the narrative. As the movie progresses, Linda proves herself a uniquely ruthless figure. This plays into the film's dark take on a potentially uplifting theme, which casts Linda as an extreme antihero willing to take drastic measures to survive.

Linda’s Big Secret In Send Help Changes The Film

One of the big twists of Send Help during the climax reveals that there’s actually a pristine, wealthy home on the other side of the island, which explains why she’s been able to remain so content compared to Bradley. For much of Send Help, Linda’s survivalist training gives her a crucial edge over the pampered Bradley.

However, some of her greatest advantages end up being related to her discovery of a wealthy homeowner’s modern house on the other side of the island. This is where she “found” a knife and explains why she was able to so easily present very pristine meals with seemingly little effort. Similar to Bradley's upper-class privlage, Linda lucks into power.

The fact that she had a kitchen changes everything about Linda’s culinary creations, especially in contrast to the desperation Bradley feels when scavenging for food. This plays into one of the subtle themes that underscores the darker side of Linda and how easily she fits into the privileged world that she had been trapped on the outside looking in.

Linda’s Dark Secret Sets Up Bradley’s Final Fate

For much of the film, Send Help presents Linda as an ambitious but innocent woman. She’s put-upon and awkward but sweet. One of the big turns in Send Help that suggests her darker side comes with the reveal that Linda is a widow. While getting drunk with Bradley on the island, she reveals the fate of her husband.

Linda explains that her husband had been a heavy drinker and a “bad guy,” suggesting that he was at least emotionally cruel if not outright physically abusive to her. According to Linda, after one particularly harsh fight, she skipped her usual trick of hiding his car keys and allowed him to drive off drunk.

He subsequently died in a crash, leaving Linda guilt-stricken. The movie uses this beat to highlight how Linda can be deceptively scheming. This foreshadows her ability to trick Bradley in the climax, letting him verbally berate her while unknowingly brandishing an unloaded shotgun. Because of that, Linda gets the edge over Bradley at a crucial moment and kills him.

Why Linda Makes That Lethal Decision

While Linda’s killing of Bradley could be seen as an act of self-defense, her earlier decision to kill his fiancée, Zuri, and the innocent boat captain paints her in a very different light. Late in the film’s second act and after weeks have passed in-universe, Linda is shocked to see Zuri arrive alongside a local boat captain.

Zuri has been looking for Bradley long after he’s been presumed dead. She even remembers Linda by name, a clear distinction from the dismissive attitude others like Bradley had towards her. It all paints Zuri as a genuinely good person, making Linda’s decision to kill her to keep her power over Bradley all the harsher.

Initially, it's suggested that Linda allowed the pair to fall off the side of a cliff, a dark fate set in motion by Linda leading them through a path she knows to be dangerous. However, a late turn reveals she had actually attacked the boat captain, murdering him while he was trying to save Zuri so as to kill them both.

While this does leave Linda guilt-ridden, it's the payoff of the darker side of the character that the film had been teasing up to this point. It's her first truly vicious act in the film, and it truly presents the otherwise sympathetic Linda as someone who is far more dangerous than she initially appeared.

Send Help’s Final Scene Is Mean, Dark, And Perfect

The final scenes of Send Help present Linda as the ultimate victor of the narrative. After killing Zuri, the boat captain, and Bradley, Linda is revealed to have eventually been found as the “only survivor” on the island. Successfully hiding her actions on the island, Linda reinvents herself as a survivor that the world becomes obsessed with.

This leads to her being promoted at the company, seemingly taking Bradley's job and writing several self-help books that argue that you have to “save yourself” instead of waiting for help. It's a harsh reveal, especially if one takes her actions on the island as Linda taking agency to “save herself.”

In the process, though, Linda is shown to have fully given in to the trappings of high society, even taking up golf. Whereas she had earlier judged Bradley for promoting his golf buddy over her and the film used golf as a comparison to privilege, she kills him with a golf club and develops a fondness for the game herself.

By beating Bradley, Linda has become the kind of person she used to complain about. The final shot of the film shows Linda victorious, driving off into the sunset in a luxury car with her pet bird. It gives the entire film a harsh edge that fits neatly into the underlying themes of the film.

The True Meaning Of Send Help

At the core of Send Help is a twisted version of a survival story, both in relation to the current social climate and in a natural environment. In both cases, Linda’s efforts to be kind and unassuming get her more isolated and targeted. I

t's only when Linda starts to be aggressive in her interactions with Bradley that she's able to assert herself and force his respect. While he may still dislike her and grow to despise her, Bradley is forced to recognize her as not only a person and peer, but a superior.

It's this form of Linda that's able to tell Bradley off and even cause him to save her life. However, that same sense of agency also results in her increasingly embracing harsh tactics. She lies to Bradley about the island, keeping them from being spotted, only a week into their time there. She loves the power over someone else.

Linda even compares him to her pet bird, stuck in a cage at her discretion. She becomes a killer to maintain this status quo. Notably, this is also how she wins in life. She's able to "take charge" by lying, fighting, and killing. As she tells the public, no one made her life easier; she needed to "help" herself.

It takes the motto of Linda's beloved Survivor and deploys it literally: you have to outplay and outlast others to survive. In another film, Linda's actions might have made her a villain. However, in the harsh world of modern business that permeates Send Help even when they're on the island, that makes Linda a winner.