‘The Mother’ Recap & Ending Explained: Jennifer Lopez’s Titular Character Protects Her Daughter from Her Past

Welcome to Ending Explained for The Mother, the newest action thriller starring Jennifer Lopez. Lopez plays an unnamed titular character, a dangerous and badass assassin who comes out of hiding to protect her daughter, who she left after birth. To keep her daughter away from her dangerous life, the Mother will need to face her past once again and ensure her daughter will have a safe life by doing what she does best — killing everyone in her way.

We’re not even halfway through 2023, and Jennifer Lopez has already starred in one action comedy and one action thriller. The former is Amazon’s Shotgun Wedding, where she starred alongside Josh Duhamel. The movie didn’t really give us anything to remember it for, and it turned out to be just another generic and forgettable action comedy.

Now, Netflix released The Mother, an action thriller you’d hope has something to make it worth your time, and Netflix may be hoping it can turn into another franchise. Unfortunately, it’s unlikely that either you or Netflix will get what you want. In fact, depending on the viewership, Netflix may get what it wants but do not expect an action thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

The following paragraphs contain spoilers for The Mother, so keep reading at your own risk.

What is the plot of The Mother?

The Mother begins at the FBI safehouse, where Jennifer Lopez’s character, whose name we do not find out during the entire movie, is interrogated by the FBI agents as she’s trying to cut a deal and get out of her life as a professional assassin. This opening sequence introduces us to two villains, Adrian Lovell and Hector Álvarez, who were both closely connected with Lopez’s character in the past. Unlike the FBI agents, the Mother (that’s her name on IMDb, so we’ll call her that in the rest of the article) knows she’s not safe, which proves to be true when the house is attacked, and most of the agents are killed.

We say “most of the agents” because the Mother managed to save the life of one of them, William Cruise. Lovell shows up at the house, looking for the Mother, but she improvizes and blows the house up to escape with William. During the explosion, the movie reveals the Mother’s pregnant belly for the first time, and the next scene takes us to a hospital where she gives birth to a little girl.

FBI informs the Mother that Lovell’s body was not found after the explosion, so she should leave her daughter and run away into hiding from her enemies to keep her daughter safe. The Mother leaves for Alaska and remains there for the next 12 years.

Twelve years later, agent William Cruise contacts the Mother to inform her that her daughter might be in danger. The Mother leaves Alaska and goes to Cincinnati, Ohio, and Cruise also informs her that her daughter’s name is Zoe. The Mother observes Zoe from the parking lot while she’s on the playground when Hector Álvarez’s men arrive to kidnap Zoe. Although the Mother manages to shoot most of them with a sniper rifle, Zoe is ultimately kidnapped and taken to Cuba.

The Mother and Cruise travel to Cuba to find the man who kidnapped Zoe. The Mother interrogates him to find out where Zoe is. Aware that Álvarez set a trap for her, the Mother still goes to his house, killing all his henchmen, saving Zoe, and confronting Álvarez. Álvarez asks her if Zoe is his child, but the Mother replies it doesn’t matter. Álvarez tries to rape her, but she kills him and fires the house.

The Mother and Cruise take Zoe back to the USA. While they drive to Zoe’s home to return her to her foster parents, the Mother leaves them, and Cruise and Zoe continue traveling without her. But Cruise and Zoe are ambushed during the travel by Lovell and his men. Cruise is killed, but the Mother arrives just in time to take Zoe out of there. The Mother takes Zoe to her hiding home in Alaska with no other options.

The Mother decides to train Zoe, to teach her how to drive, shoot, and survive. While Zoe immediately becomes aware of who her birth mother is, she doesn’t want to be there and wants to return to her foster parents. After a few months, Zoe is bitten by a werewolf, and when the Mother takes her to a local hospital, Zoe reveals her name, which puts her in the hospital database, which allows Lovell to locate them.

The Mother leaves Zoe with her friend and Alaska to keep her safe and returns to her house in the woods to prepare for the attack of Lovell’s men. Zoe finds the letter the Mother wrote, and she decides to go back to the house where the Mother kills all of Lovell’s men and engages Lovell in a fistfight. Zoe takes her mother’s gun and fires while Lovell and the Mother are wrestling in the woods.

The movie tries to trick us into thinking that the bullet hit Mother, and she was, but it wasn’t a real bullet. Believing that the Mother is dead, Lovell takes Zoe. The Mother wakes up, takes her sniper rifle, and shoots Lovell while he leaves with Zoe in his car. Ultimately, the Mother returns Zoe to her foster family, and they hug and say “I love you” to each other. Zoe goes back to her foster parents, but the Mother moves into a new apartment near the school playground where she can always keep an eye on her daughter.

What’s next for the Mother and her daughter?

In the end, the Mother and her daughter Zoe managed to strengthen their mother-daughter bond. Zoe is still living with her foster parents while her birth mom is keeping a close eye on her in case anything bad ever happens again. While this movie’s story seems concluded without any cliffhangers, we do not doubt that Netflix hopes Jennifer Lopez’s name will bring enough people to this movie so that maybe they could make a sequel.

Although it doesn’t seem needed, many Netflix original movies that didn’t need sequels still got them due to the high viewership. Considering that much of the movie’s runtime was spent on the Mother training Zoe how to survive, it wouldn’t be a surprise if Zoe needed to use those skills again in the potential sequel. The Mother is one of those Netflix movies you’ll watch when it’s raining outside, and you quickly forget it after a few days.

Netflix already proved they have no problem with making a sequel for movies like this, and let us remind you that Jennifer Lopez also has a deal with Netflix for more projects. One is Atlas, an upcoming movie that wrapped production last November.