The A24 horror movie Talk to Me uses symbolism – sometimes subtle and understated and sometimes overt and intentional – to weave a genuinely terrifying tale that culminates in an ending that provides many questions along with its resolution. Talk to Me follows 17-year-old Mia two years after her mother’s death from an apparent suicide. Alongside her friends, Mia becomes caught up in a local party game involving an embalmed human hand that allows them to speak with – and be possessed by – a litany of spirits with differing intentions.

Mia’s desire to communicate with her deceased mother also causes Riley to hold on to the hand well past the “safe” time limit, and he is possessed by evil spirits who force him to horrifically injure himself. Mia continues to communicate with the spirits in an attempt to save Riley from the torment that his spirit is enduring during his possession, with tragic results. The blurring between the real world and spirit world throughout Talk to Me leaves the ending somewhat ambiguous, although plenty of clues hint at what aspects of the ending are real.

What Happens to Mia in Talk to Me’s Ending?

Mia Ends Up On The Other Side Of The Hand

Given the frequent visions of her mother, it’s clear that Mia became possessed when she held onto the hand too long early in Talk to Me. Her mother’s spirit seems benevolent, encouraging her to continue using the hand to “close the door“ and free Riley from his possession. After being shown a vision of the torture that Riley’s spirit is suffering in limbo, Mia’s mother convinces her that she needs to put him out of his misery.

She is unwilling to stab him with the same scissors she accidentally stabbed her father with, instead opting to wheel Riley out of the hospital and into oncoming traffic. Before she can decide whether to go through with it, Jade pushes Mia onto the highway to save Riley, causing an accident. A bloodied Mia rises from the highway and is transported back to the hospital, where she finds that she has no reflection and both Riley and her father are leaving the hospital.

Mia soon finds herself drawn towards the candlelight and takes her place on the spirit side of Talk to Me‘s embalmed hand. Mia dies at the end of Talk to Me when she is pushed into traffic by Jade. However, she becomes one of the lost spirits attracted to the embalmed hand because she died while being possessed. With no living body for her spirit to return to, she becomes lost herself, doomed to wander in limbo like the others that communicate with the hand.

In the ending, Mia’s spirit is only shown being contacted once using the hand, so there is no further information on whether she remains a benevolent spirit, like the little girl who showed her a vision of Riley, or a malevolent one, like the elderly spirit that invades Riley’s body.

Was the Spirit Mia Saw Actually Her Mom?

The Spirit Was Likely An Evil Spirit … Not Her Mother

While the spirit that Mia communicates with in Talk to Me speaks and acts as her mother might, it’s much more likely that it was an evil enтιтy manipulating Mia from the start. Strong evidence of this comes during Mia’s first possession – the spirit that temporarily inhabits her makes it clear that it’s interested in Riley. A grief-stricken individual like Mia would be an easy target for manipulation through the memory of her mother.

The fact that Mia sees visions of her mother before Riley ever touches the hand also points to it being a manipulation instead of her mother genuinely reaching out to her. Another indicator that Mia’s mother’s spirit is a pretender is that it attempts to deceive her multiple times. Despite her father holding onto and reading her mother’s suicide note, the spirit tells Mia that it’s a lie. It convinces her that killing Riley will end his suffering, only for it to be confirmed that killing him would not save him – it would make him a lost soul.

A very similar incident occurs in the opening scene of Talk to Me when the possessed Duckett talks about how he has been communicating with his father, only to stab his brother Cole and brutally kill himself. While it’s possible that Mia’s mom initially spoke to her through Riley, the spirit that possessed her was almost certainly an evil impostor.

Did Mia’s Dad, Max, Die?

Max Seemingly Survived Along With Riley

Manipulation through impersonation of a loved one seems to be a common tactic for evil spirits, as her mother’s spirit also tricks Riley into stabbing her father, Max. Mia’s father is found bleeding but still alive by Jade, who Mia had sent to her house. Jade presumably got Max to the hospital for medical attention, and in Mia’s final hospital vision, she sees her father and Riley leaving the hospital, seemingly recovered from their injuries. ᴀssuming that the vision is not deceiving, Max survives, which is a parallel to Cole surviving his brother’s stabbing in the opening of Talk to Me.

The Hand’s Origin & Who It Belongs To

It Is A Mystery, Although It Likely Belonged To A Medium Or Satanist

The actual nature of the hand in Talk to Me is only hinted at through rumors mentioned by Joss (Chris Alosio) and Hayley (Zoe Terakes), who host the possession parties. It is supposedly the severed hand of either a medium or a Satanist that has been embalmed and encased in a ceramic coating to preserve it. The true nature of the hand is kept a mystery, although the fact that there is a well-established set of rules that govern its use likely means that it has existed for many years.

At the end of Talk to Me, the hand is still intact and being used by a new group of people, although no explanation is given for how it got to them from Mia’s house. Judging by the fact that they speak a different language, it seems the hand has also traveled a fair distance. As the audience only rediscovered the hand once Mia’s spirit was connected to it, there is no way to tell how much time pᴀssed between her pᴀssing and the hand’s next use.

How Talk to Me’s Ending Sets Up a Sequel

The end of Talk to Me sees the embalmed hand wind up with a new group of party-goers, so a sequel following a new group of victims is an obvious route. An interesting new angle could be showing more from the spirit side of the hand now that the audience has a touch point in Mia. Sophie Wilde was brilliantly creepy in her possession scenes, so seeing her transform into a malevolent spirit bent on possessing living people herself could provide a fun and unique perspective.

The other obvious angle for a sequel (or prequel) would be to explain the origins of the hand. Talk to Me provides almost no knowledge of whose hand it was – it doesn’t even confirm that there is, in fact, an embalmed hand inside the ceramic outer layer. A story about the hand’s original owner could allow for further exploration of the spirit world and why people can connect to it using the hand.

The good news is that Talk to Me 2 has been confirmed, and this happened right after the successful theatrical release. Danny and Michael Philippou have a “mythology Bible” about the hand, and they believe they have enough to make a trilogy of movies. There is no release date, but A24 has confirmed the sequel. At the moment, Sophie Wilde has not been told she will return, so it is unclear if the story will go with her on the other side or take a different look at the hand’s mythology.

The Real Meaning of Talk to Me’s Ending

The Movie Explores Traumatic Grief

Talk to Me is a heavily metaphorical exploration of grief and the difficulties of letting go. Holding on for too long, whether to a person’s memory or an embalmed hand, can have destructive consequences for them and their loved ones. The depression that ᴀssociates grief and loss is also symbolized in the film with the concept of possession parties. It’s often easier for those stricken by grief and depression to seek solace through destructive means as opposed to embracing the pain of working through it, whether it’s the numbing ability of drugs and alcohol or the distraction of parties and socialization.

There is even a clear line to be drawn between substance abuse and Mia’s overuse of the embalmed hand. Grief is such a prevalent theme in Talk to Me that the audience sees Mia subtly work through some of the seven stages of grief. Per BetterHelp, the seven stages are Shock and Denial, Guilt and Pain, Anger and Bargaining, Depression, Reflection and Loneliness, The Upward Turn, Reconstruction and Working Through, and finally, Acceptance and Hope.

The stages occur differently for everyone, but Mia checks off many of the boxes. Shock and denial are evident in Mia’s refusal to believe that her mother committed suicide and her refusal to see through the spirit’s lies, choosing to believe that it is her mother. She is consumed by guilt and pain, not only by her mother’s suicide but by Riley’s injuries, since it was her fault he held on to the hand for too long.

The anger she harbors with her father is pretty clear, and she mentions how lonely she was before settling in with Jade and Riley; she mentions it again when convincing Daniel to stay with her midway through Talk to Me. Tragically, she never completes the last three steps, with any reconstruction, acceptance, or hope being replaced by despair as the dangers of the embalmed hand consume her, and she becomes a lost soul herself.

The heartbreaking kangaroo scene heavily foreshadows this in Talk to Me, as Mia refuses to end the suffering of the gravely injured animal she finds in the road. She refuses to take any action towards letting go, choosing instead to let the animal suffer in an effort to spare herself more sadness. Mia’s refusal to move on is to blame for her actions throughout Talk to Me, which results in a tragic ending. She is consumed by her loneliness and grief, which will now last an eternity as her lost spirit wanders in limbo forever.

How The Talk To Me Ending Was Received

Fans Debated The Ending’s Meaning

The Talk to Me ending was mostly received with more questions and answers from fans discussing what happened. This was prevalent on Reddit, where countless threads popped up with people unsure of what happened, and many Redditors came up with different explanations of what the ending meant. In one thread, the OP asked Redditors to explain the ending. This led to several theories with varying levels of meaning, and not everyone came to the same conclusion. One excellent response mentioned drug addiction as an underlying meaning:

“Every beat of the story was a metaphor for drugs. All her actions were the actions of an addict. Riley’s injuries (and her own) were analogous to the destructivenss of drugs.”

They went on to break down the emotional damage left behind after Mia’s mother died by suicide and the idea of the party game being a stand-in for delving deep into drugs to eliminate the pain. This leads her to get her friends to do more with her, which leads to Riley’s downfall. While this was an interesting theory, there were many more, including people who argued about whether it was Mia’s mother or an evil spirit pretending to be her, and asking what happened between Mia and Riley at the end.

These open-ended questions and the movie’s refusal to give easy answers led to its high critical (94%) and audience scores (83%). To understand the ending, and its effectiveness, The Ringer critic Adam Nayman pointed out the fact Talk to Me took an old myth and updated it for current audiences: “The hand is a great prop, at once tactile and uncanny; it also reaches back to the timeless myth of the monkey’s paw, with its seductive promises of godlike power and punchlines of severe, cosmic irony. Be careful what you wish for, it says silently. You’re gonna get it.“