The Ending of ‘Somewhere Quiet’ Explained: Was Meg Insane the Whole Time?

‘Somewhere Quiet’ is a 2023 American psychological thriller film, marking Olivia West Lloyd’s directorial debut. The story revolves around a woman who struggles to return to normal life after being kidnapped. Her mental state worsens when she visits her husband’s cabin. The cast includes Jennifer Kim, Kentucker Audley, Micheál Neeson, and Marin Ireland. The inspiration from the movie came to the director because she wanted to see what happens to the “Final Girl,” characters in the slasher movies, and I gotta admit it’s interesting. What’s more interesting is that we don’t know throughout the movie whether Meg is suffering from PTSD or her husband is truly a detestable human being, so let’s try to shed some light on it.

Is Scott overprotective or is he hiding something?

The movie technically begins in media res, we can see a woman on a rampage chasing down a man in the truck with a shotgun. But the scene quickly transfers to “before” and we meet the married couple Meg and Scott Whitman (although Meg kept her maiden name). Everything seems to be normal as far as the couple goes and the two decide to visit Scott’s cabin for a romantic holiday getaway, however even as the couple is loading their stuff into a truck we can see that Scott treats his wife as if she were made out of glass, and Meg quietly acquiesces.

The two stop at the gas station and we see Meg’s face plastered on the TV, apparently she recently got out of a horrific hostage situation but this is as much detail as we get at the start of the movie.

The two arrive at the cabin and Scott tells Meg how he hasn’t visited the place in a long time. He has plenty of childhood memories however and recaps how his grandmother was a strange woman who never really liked kids, but she tolerated them just enough to let them stay in the cabin on their own.

Scott apparently belongs to the Whitman family, they were pretty influential in the olden times but their family reputation, money, and power they held in these parts subsided in the last couple of years or decades. Meg drops a glass while she is doing dishes and Scott once again treats her like she is a hapless imbecile, volunteering to clean up after her.

The more the couple spends time together the more we see that this relationship dynamic is rather odd and strange and the power is definitely tipped on Scott’s side.

The gaslight begins

Meg has trouble sleeping and she wakes up in the middle of the night to get something to eat from the fridge. She decides to take a look around the house and finds some creepy old photos. At one moment, the dog starts barking and as Meg is startled she drops the plate on the floor. The plate is smashed into thousands of pieces but Meg is too nervous to do something about it. Meg decides to retreat back to bed but this is when she catches Scott sleepwalking, she tries to interact with him but he does not wake up.

Come the morning, Meg recaps the strange events that took place during the night, how she heard a dog barking and smashed the plate, but Scott denies there being dogs nearby and says that no plates have been smashed. Meg incredulously reaches the spot where the plate has dropped and is unable to find anything at all. This gets to her and she starts shaking with Scott consoling her that everything will be okay. He also reminds her that she should put this down in her journal. Something that her therapist advised her to use every time she has mental issues.

The rest of the day is relatively calm with Meg finding a broken bike in the garage. Things take an interesting turn when Meg once again hears barking in the distance, as an unknown woman approaches them. The woman turns out to be Scott’s cousin, Madelin Whitman, and she has a German shepherd named Minnow. This was Scott’s first lie.

Apparently, Madelin and Meg met at their wedding it’s just that Meg can’t remember. Meg instantly doesn’t like Madelin and notes how terribly fake-nice she is being but Madelin and Scott seem to get along perfectly, despite living so far apart. The next night, Meg has yet another nightmare, that somebody is trying to break out of the closet and get her.

Madelin and Scott have a strange dynamic

The next day Meg, Madelin, and Scott are playing Tennis. Madelin and Scott are clearly rehearsed players and Meg has a feeling that Madelin is trying to humiliate her. Meg returns home and takes a nap, but when she wakes up she finds Scott gone, there’s only a note left stating that he has left for town to get food but will be back soon.

While Scott is away Meg has a panic attack while folding clothes, he returns on time, however, and is there to console her. Meg recounts her experience while she was being held hostage, she said that she counted footsteps and this is how she knew where her kidnappers in the house were. Scott once again reminds her to write in her journal.

Meg manages to calm down just in time for dinner, and the two are even having fun when Madelin decides to visit, although Meg really doesn’t want her around for dinner she extends an invitation out of fear of being rude toward her husband’s cousin.

During the dinner, Madelin thinly disguises her rudeness and racism toward Meg, and Meg is starting to catch up on that. We find out that Meg is an engineer, and she is supposed to go back to work but it’s unknown when. Meg gives off vibes that she is unemployed and uneducated but she actually spent quite a lot of time in South Korea and speaks perfect Korean which shocks Meg, who knows nothing about the language at all. Meg explains that she was adopted when she was three years old and she never had the opportunity to learn the language.

Meg to defuse the situation tries feeding Madelin’s dog under the table, but Madelin rudely interrupts her and tells her not to teach her dog to beg. After Madelin leaves, Meg decides to find out more about the relationship between her and Scott. Scott confirms that his father and Madelin’s father were brothers, he also confirms that Madelin spent time in Korea as a missionary, and Meg has a problem with it, implying that Madelin and the rest of his family are racist.

Meg definitely started to catch on to the fact that there was something strange between Madelin and Scott.

Meg discovers that Scott is visiting more often than he admitted

The next day, Meg decides to take a walk on the beach and she meets a young man who warns her that the property she is walking in belongs to the Whitman family she corrects him that she is a Whitman as well, married to Scott. The man – Joe, apologizes and admits that although Scott sometimes visits, he has never seen her.

Meg then becomes suspicious and asks when was the last time that Scott visited, and Joe explains that it was last winter. Meg returns home and decides not to break into yet another fight with Scott. She decides to work on her bike and the two have sex in the evening, but it seems that being intimate triggers Meg’s panic further.

Madelin might not be who says she is

The next day Meg is walking around the woods and she can see an older woman walking around the property. While she was walking Meg didn’t even realize that she ventured too far from the house and she found herself in uncharted territory, near Madelin’s house.

Madelin invites her inside, and things only get weirder from her. Meg is looking at the family painting that Madelin’s mother painted. Meg notices that Madelin has blond hair in the painting, there’s also one more boy in the painting, but Madelin explains that he died when she was just a child. We also learn that Madelin is taking care of her mother who is suffering from dementia, and she is too frail and sick to leave the bed these days. Meg wonders whether the woman she saw in the forest was Madelin’s mother but Madelin explains that she hasn’t left the bed for months. Meg notices that Madelin is kind of brutal, she has lots of weapons in her house and seems tense overall, but she is not as nervous as Meg whose hands keep shaking and she even manages to pierce the skin of her palms with her nails.

Meg asks to go to the bathroom and Madelin gives her the instructions but keeps following her. Back at home, Meg is taking out the trash and finds the pieces of a broken plate that Scott swore she hadn’t broken in the trash.

Meg starts losing it

Meg, Madelin, and Scott are having dinner again, and Meg is kind of bored of the fact that all the two seem to talk about are their childhood memories. Meg also accidentally brings the topic of money and Madelin is kind of rude pointing out that it’s not polite to talk about money at the dinner table. We find out that the Whitman family is not as rich as they used to be and that Meg is loaded, her parents leaving her fortune when they passed away.

To drive a point further and push Meg off the edge, Madelin points out that Meg never seems to eat anything at the dinner table. Scott explains that this is because Meg was poisoned when she was kidnapped. Meg, insulted and hurt, starts eating the food right from the bowls stuffing her face with it.

After Madelin leaves, Meg confronts Scott about what went down but he isn’t having that conversation today. Meg starts talking about trauma again, mentioning how the kidnappers made videos of her, humiliating videos asking her to beg for her life. They were supposed to send those videos to Scott, but he denies ever seeing them.

In the middle of the conversation, Scott decides to leave the room while Meg furiously follows him, he slams the door right in her face.

Meg gets drunk and Scott shows his true face

The next day, Meg successfully repairs the bike and decides to go into town. She ventures into a bar and meets the stranger from the beach, Joe, while there. The two start talking and talking turns into flirting as she is trying to pull more information about Madelin and Scott’s relationship from him. Joe admits that Madelin can be a bit tense, but it’s clear that he doesn’t want to discuss his employers further. Meg is kind of drunk at this point and it’s time to go home. Joe tells her that she can’t drive a bike in this state but Meg claims she is perfectly fine. While Joe is trying to restrain her to help her Meg punches him in the face and escapes on her bike.

Meg returns home and Scott is pissed as hell that she was gone for most of the day. Meg asks him where was when she was leaving and he refuses to answer her question. Meg starts talking about the kidnapping and the alleged videos that Scott received. He denies having seen the videos and Meg fires back with yet another accusation. Apparently, Meg was kidnapped in her garage while she was getting Scott’s phone from the car – something he asked her to do, but the thing is he never ever parked his car in the garage it was always the driveway, which leads Meg to believe that it was all a setup.

Scott explains that the police already asked him all of these questions and if they cleared him, she is supposed to clear him as well. He pushes Meg against the wall and asks her, threateningly, why isn’t she satisfied with his answers? He becomes kind of aggressive but Meg manages to run away. She locks herself up in the upstairs room, but out of anger, Scott manages to break through the door with his fists.

Scott apologizes but the damage is done

The next day, Scott apologizes to Meg and even starts crying. He begs on his knees for Meg to forgive him as he can’t lose her again. He is traumatized as well by what happened to her. Meg at the same time, keeps seeing the older woman just walking around the forest. Scott also promises that they are leaving tomorrow as the place is clearly messing with Meg in a negative way, but before they leave they should have one last drink with Madelin.

While Scott and Madelin are hanging out it’s the same old same old once again. Meg is excluded from their activities, and Scott keeps ignoring her while Madelin is around. Meg keeps asking about Madelin’s mother but Madelin gives her non-answers.

They decide to play a charade, and once again, it’s clear that there is chemistry between the two of them. Scott describes the word strangle, while Madelin describes “Easy Rider” by replaying the scenario that took place in a bar while Meg was with Joe the other day. Meg realizes that Madelin has been following her.

It’s Meg’s turn to play the game and she pulls out the paper, the paper has something cryptic written on it ” Prepare to Meet thy god.” Meg is scared, and in panic, she gives herself a paper cut.

Both Madelin and Scott jump to help her, and she smudges her blood all over the paper so now only the word “Prepare” is visible. Madelin puts Meg’s finger in her mouth and starts sucking on it.

Meg asks Scott to leave but he ignores her and starts playing piano with Madelin, back to his cheerful self. Meg has a fantasy that she approaches the piano and smashes their heads across the keys. This is the first time we see Meg being aggressive, even if it is in her own mind.

The trio decides to go to the beach, Meg can see Madelin and Scott frolicking on the beach and at one point the two start kissing. Freaked out, Meg sits on her bike and just drives away, she just decides to run away, but as she is driving she keeps seeing the old woman in her peripheral vision, and distracted she runs over Minnow, Madelin’s dog.

Meg, tired and shocked spends the night in the forest.

Meg starts seriously threatening Madelin and Scott

Meg returns home and she finds Madelin comforting Scott, she chases her away from the house and this time, Scott doesn’t try to stop her. When Madelin leaves, Meg demands the car keys so she can return back to the city and Scott defeated refuses to give them.

Meg asks Scott whether Madelin is even his cousin and he still claims that she is, she asks why he brought her here in the first place and Scott breaks down, saying that he is out of the water with her issues as her state keeps getting worse and worse. Meg looks out of the window and sees the old lady once again, but when she blinks, the lady is sitting in the living room. Meg realizing that this all might be the product of her paranoia breaks down in Scott’s arms.

Meg falls asleep exhausted and wakes up in the middle of the night, Scott is naturally gone. She starts panicking once again and rummages through the drawers to find the keys. She comes across one drawer that seems to be stuck, she manages to open it and finds a flash drive On the flash drive, she finds a video of her being tortured and begging for her life.

Meg decides to escape from the house instantly and runs away into the forest but comes across Madelin she is searching for her dog, Minnow. In panic, Meg runs toward Madelin’s house and enters inside. On the table, she finds signed papers, filled on her behalf as Meghan M. Rhodes that give Scott the power of attorney to act on her behalf in the court of law.

She is interrupted by Madelin, holding the shotgun. Madelin explains that she is looking for her dog Minnow and orders Meg to help her find it. As Meg and Madelin are searching the woods, Meg breaks down and leads her toward where she hit the dog. Madelin cannot believe what she is seeing but just before she is about to react, Meg hits her with the rock in the head and drags her toward the house.

Meg kidnaps Madelin and kills Scott

Back at the house, Madelin is tied in the basement and Meg has her at gunpoint. Meg starts proding wondering whether it was her or Scott who organized the kidnapping that destroyed her life. Madeling tells her to fuck off and starts insulting her in the worst possible way, telling her that she will never be happy again she will always be just a shell of her former self. She cannot undo what happened to her, and she might as well don’t even try. Madelin claims that she won’t kill her as she will likely kill herself first due to depression.

Meg breaks down once again and at the moment Scott returns home, he enters the basement and he can see Madelin tied down and slouched, seemingly unconscious. Scott starts panicking and checks whether Madelin is dead or alive while Meg accuses him of staging her kidnapping. Meg claims that Scott wants her out of the picture to be with Madelin but he needs the money that her parents left her.

Scott lashes out that he didn’t do anything, he has no idea who took her and she will likely never believe him. Scott admits that he has seen the video but one month late as the video was delivered to the apartment but he was at the time here at the cabin. Scott further explains that he hid the video because he couldn’t tell the police about it, not one month later. At that point, he already felt like Meg was dead and there was no point in risking his own life behind bars for a ghost. He already grieved for her and made peace with the fact that she was likely dead.

Meg gets pissed at that, insulted that he grieved for her for a month. She is incredulous that he missed the ransom note by a whole month because he was here with Madelin. Scott is tired of the accusations and grabs the shotgun. He turns it toward Meg and says to her that he can’t live like this, facing accusations every single day.

Meg starts begging for her life but actually just uses the opportunity to punch him and escape the house. Scott however manages to catch up to her and starts choking her while apologizing, claiming that he can’t do this, he can’t live with her demons.

Meg grabs the scalpel from the ground and slashes him across the face, she escapes into the yard but Scott is chasing after her, apologizing.

The two found themselves face to face at one point with Meg holding Scott at the gunpoint. Meg claims that she wants to leave but Scott points out that she is the one holding the gun and urges her to just go. At that moment Scott attacks her and pushes her to the ground, Meg blacks out, she is having a vision of herself swimming, but it’s with Scott and she is seemingly drowning, when she breaks the surface she can see Madelin and Scott in the water, as Madeling takes her finger and starts sucking on it, just like she did during the charade.

In the next moment, Meg wakes up, it’s almost dawn, and Scott is lying on top of her, seemingly dead. She sees a car and starts chasing it in the middle of the road holding a shotgun and limping. The driver, thinking that she is in trouble offers her a ride but Meg puts him at gunpoint until he surrenders the truck to her. This is what brings us to the first scene in the movie. Meg screams and laughs as she is driving away. Her maniacal laughter turns into sobs, which turn into a silent realization of what kind of mess she brought herself into.

She stops the car and exits it, as she can hear police sirens wailing in the distance.

What happened to Madelin & Scott? Were they trying to kill Meg?

First, let’s start with the biggest elephant in the room, it was never directly shown on screen but Scott is likely dead. When Meg wakes up you can see her shirt is drenched in blood and it’s doubtful that anyone can survive that kind of blood loss without proper medical attention. This is most likely why Meg blacked out as her brain was trying to protect her from the severe trauma of shooting her husband.

Madelin is also most likely dead as she would have woken up at some point found Scott dead and called the police, or killed Meg herself. So Scott and Madelin are out of the picture.

Second, Meg was definitely losing it throughout most of the movie, but Madelin and Scott weren’t blameless either. There was likely something more between them, that started developing while Meg was kidnapped but they most likely didn’t have anything to do with the kidnapping.

Meg’s delicate mental condition spun all the things that she saw take place between Scott and Madelin into elaborate theory, and who could blame her, it was definitely creepy but the worst things weren’t true. The dead giveaway for all of it is the fact that Meg, once she realizes what happened, steps out of the car calmly.

Scott and Madelin were definitely trying to get her out of the picture, but the most severe scenes of abuse were most likely the products of Meg’s delusions, as this is one of the most pronounced symptoms of PTSD, delusions, and paranoia.

Meg did have hard physical evidence that Scott was doing something behind her back, but he definitely wasn’t planning on murdering her, it was just a string of unfortunate things that Meg took to another level.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments below!