Fresh ending explained: Does Noa escape?

From its first huge reveal onwards, the film takes a number of twists and turns in the lead-up to a very dramatic final act, and if you need a little help unpacking those closing scenes we have you covered.

Read on to have the Fresh ending explained.

Fresh ending explained

The first big twist in Fresh takes place relatively early on in the runtime. After agreeing to a weekend away with her seemingly charming new lover, Noa (Edgar-Jones) wakes up to find that she has been drugged and is being held captive in a secret room in his house.

It turns out, you see, that Steve wasn't quite the perfect suitor he had appeared – he's actually a harvester of human meat, which he both eats himself and sells on to an elite group of rich clients.

The idea is that he keeps his various captives alive – apparently, this will keep their meat fresh – but takes off large chunks of their flesh at a time for his deeply depraved enterprise.

During the course of her captivity, Noa begins to interact through the walls of her cell with a fellow victim, Penny (Andrea Bang) and eventually tries to engineer an escape – although this is unsuccessful and leads to her having part of her buttocks removed by Steve.

This failed attempt causes Noa to take stock and change her approach. Rather than risk another escape, she decides that her best bet is to fake an interest in cannibalism herself, aiming to get close to Steve.

All the while, Noa's friend Mollie has becomes disturbed by the disappearance and begins to investigate. It doesn't take her too long to find Steve (who it turns out is actually called Brendan) through his wife Ann – who appears to be a former victim herself. But unfortunately, this success only leads to her being taken captive as well, with Ann turning out to be very much in on the whole thing.

Anyway, while attempting to put her new plan into action, Noa is having a date night with Steve and notes something that looks familiar – Mollie's phone.

During the date, she successfully seduces her captor, but when he least expects it she bites into his privates, giving her enough time to take the keys to the cells, gather Penny and Molly and escape the premises.

Of course, Steve isn't about to give up, and he gives chase after the escapees. But he only gets so far before he is shot dead by Noa in the woods outside his house.

Ann then arrives on the scene and, shocked at seeing her husband's dead body, attempts to throttle Noa – before Mollie puts a stop to that attack by clobbering her over the head with a shovel. Safe at last, Noa comments "He's married?!" – a call back to earlier in the film when Mollie said that Steve seemed too good to be true and that he was "Probably married."

So yes, despite the deeply traumatic events that Noa and her friends go through, she is successful in escaping her rather grisly fate. It will probably make her think twice about weekends away with seemingly charming but mysterious new suitors in the future though...

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