Echo Valley is a new thriller available to stream now on Apple TV+, featuring Julianne Moore and Sydney Sweeney as a mother-daughter duo whose lives are turned upside-down when the latter returns home covered in blood and desperate for her mother’s help. It’s a very intense and gripping story that constantly subverts expectations, using its excellent performances to facilitate some very engaging character work.

Echo Valley features a shocking twist in its final act, as it’s revealed that Kate has been secretly working in tandem with her old friend Les to frame Jackie for the film’s central murder and avoid the consequences of her crimes. It’s a very powerful ending that speaks to the film’s themes of autonomy and sacrifice, and it’s established through many small details that viewers could easily miss upon first watch. The trailers for Echo Valley give away surprisingly little about the story, which makes the film’s dramatic ending even more shocking and unpredictable.

Kate’s Master Plan To Frame Jackie Explained

Kate Goes To Extreme Lengths To Protect Herself And Claire

Though Kate spends much of Echo Valley serving other people’s interests and allowing Claire’s friends to extort her for everything she’s worth, Moore’s protagonist regains agency over her life in the film’s third act when she enacts a genius plot to protect her family and frame Jackie for everything. After Jackie turns up at her house looking for more money, Kate seemingly goes along with his demands, but she’s actually been spending this time coming up with a way to get rid of all her problems in one fell swoop.

Echo Valley’s final moments reveal that Kate and Les retrieved Greg’s body from the bottom of the lake and allowed the police to discover it among the burned wreckage of the barn, hoping that Jackie’s carelessness would lead the authorities straight to him. They also left evidence of arson beside Greg’s body, intentionally dismissing Kate’s insurance claim and planting further suspicion on Jackie. In the end, it’s Jackie’s own plan that brings him down; he’s the one who suggested burning the farm, but he was so caught up in his own ego that he failed to notice Kate’s betrayal.

Despite Echo Valley’s mixed reviews, the movie’s ending is certainly a satisfying one that not only takes the audience by surprise but elevates the story’s existing themes. Ever since Claire roped her mother into the murder at the beginning of the movie, Kate has been gradually learning to think for herself and not allow herself to get walked over by those who don’t have her best intentions in mind. This genius plan is the culmination of Kate’s transformation throughout Echo Valley, using the same deception and secrecy that started this whole mess to finally end it.

Will Kate Forgive Claire?

The Women End The Movie On Uncertain Terms

The final sH๏τ of Echo Valley sees Claire return to her mother’s house after disappearing with Ryan earlier in the movie. Sweeney is almost totally absent from the movie’s final act, so her reappearance in the final scene is a very powerful moment that speaks strongly to the bond between these two women. However, Kate’s reaction to her daughter’s second homecoming is very different from her first. She’s much colder and less enthusiastic towards her daughter, implying that Claire has finally gone too far and irreparably fractured their relationship.

The idea of unconditional love runs throughout Echo Valley, with Kate initially suffering through Claire’s abuse without any complaint, simply because she loves her. But the events of Echo Valley push Moore’s protagonist to a breaking point, and the film’s bittersweet ending proves that her naive impression of Claire has been irrevocably soured, but that doesn’t mean she’s stopped loving her. It’s up to the audience to decide whether Kate will forgive Claire, but it’s clear from the mother’s reaction that she’s probably willing to try. Moore offers a brilliant performance in Echo Valley, and this final scene is definitive evidence of that.

Why Claire Implicated Her Mother In Greg’s Murder

Claire Wasn’t Consciously Trying To Ruin Her Family

The revelation that Claire was the one who came up with the idea to trick her mother into disposing of Greg’s body is one of Echo Valley’s most heartbreaking scenes, and it can be clearly pinned down as the moment that Kate loses all trust in her daughter.

It’s unclear exactly how far Claire was willing to go with this scheme, but it’s obvious that she wasn’t really thinking too far into the future when she suggested the idea to Jackie. Her self-destructive tendencies were at an all-time high thanks to her substance abuse and toxic relationship with Ryan, and she likely would have said anything to make the situation go away.

Why Les Agrees To Help Kate Frame Jackie

Les Is The Only Trustworthy Friend Kate Has Left

The friendship between Les and Kate is one of Echo Valley’s most touching aspects, so it’s really not surprising at all when Fiona Shaw’s character agrees to help implicate Jackie in the barn fire and protect her old friend. She’s one of the few people who’s seen firsthand just how much Kate has struggled over the past few years, with the loss of her wife and the toxic relationship with her daughter, so there was no doubt that she’d get involved with the plan.

Moore and Shaw do a fantastic job of building this dynamic throughout the film to make their collaboration in the final act more believable. Echo Valley may not be Moore’s best movie, but it certainly features one of her strongest and most sympathetic performances in a long time.

The Real Meaning Of Echo Valley’s Ending

The Story Is One Of Sacrifice, Trauma, And Forgiveness

Ultimately, Echo Valley is a story about familial sacrifice and taking agency of one’s life in the aftermath of grief and tragedy. The relationship between Kate and Claire is a very strained and volatile one, but their unconditional love for each other is (seemingly) enough to get them through even the darkest of moments.

Claire even indirectly teaches her mother the strength of standing one’s ground and using other people to get what you want, which she employs in Echo Valley’s final moments to bring Jackie down. Her character arc is a very unconventional one, but one that has a lot to say about how dramatically people can be deflated by grief, and what it takes to bring that spark back.