Sometimes you need a movie that keeps you on the edge of your seat and your phone out of your hands. The new Apple TV+ thriller Echo Valley does just that. The movie stars Julianne Moore as Kate, a horseback riding instructor, who lives alone on her farm following the passing of her wife, Patty (Kristina Valada-Viars). That sounds quaint, right? Wrong. Enter: Sydney Sweeney as her daughter, Claire, who comes in and out of her life when she needs money for drugs... or to take advantage of her mother's love in an even darker way.
As you can see, I'm not giving away anything just yet, because we're about to get deep into spoiler territory. So, if you're here, hopefully you've watched the movie already and are just looking for a little clarity on how Kate's plan to get out of a very tricky situation involving a vengeful drug dealer unfolded. Let's get into it.
What's the setup?
To quickly summarize what happens in the first two-thirds of the movie or so: Claire tells Kate that she accidentally killed her boyfriend, Ryan (Edmund Donovan), during an argument. Without Claire even asking her to, Kate disposes of the body in a lake because she just loves her daughter that much. You can tell by Claire's face that she's like, Ohhhh wow, didn't know that was going to be so easy.
Claire soon disappears, but Kate finds her by tracking her phone. Turns out, she's hanging out in some random house with Ryan, who is definitely not dead! Claire and Ryan flee the scene, leaving Kate to be like, "Whose body did I throw in a lake then?!" The next thing you know, drug dealer Jackie (Domhnall Gleeson)—who has already been established as a horrible person—shows up at Kate's house and is all, "I know what you did, so now I'm gonna extort you." He also tells her that the dead body was that of a guy who Ryan caused to overdose. Meanwhile, Claire—now feeling regret—texts Kate that the dead person was named Greg. Kate needs a way to get out of all of this, obviously.
How does Kate frame Jackie?
Jackie wants money from Kate and doesn't care how he gets it. Since Kate doesn't have a lot of funds to her name, she comes up with a plan to burn down her barn for the insurance money, which she can then give to Jackie. In the meantime, he demands to stay in the apartment over her barn and poses as an employee on her farm when one of her horseback riding clients, Emma (Rebecca Creskoff), shows up.
Kate and Jackie's plan is that she will burn down the barn with a flare in the middle of the night, which will look like an accident since she says flares are supposed to be undetectable fire-starters. Jackie makes sure Kate starts the fire, then drives off.
Little does he know, Kate has purposely left a stand for the flare behind, because she previously heard a story about a man who tried to burn his house down for the insurance money, but was caught because he left a part of the flare behind. But, she doesn't want to be caught, she wants it to look like Jackie purposely burned down the barn.
The next day, Kate is taken into the police station for questioning, and she brings up her "employee" Jackie and says she didn't know much about him and that the only person he ever brought around was some guy named Greg. The police chief reveals that a dead body was found in the apartment above the barn, and Kate is shocked at this information... or is she?
In a flashback, we see that Kate and her friend, Les (Fiona Shaw), retrieved Greg's body from the lake and put it in the apartment when Jackie left.
When the police eventually find Jackie and bring him in for questioning, he denies even knowing Kate at first, but then says he'll tell the true story—that Kate threw Greg's body in the lake to protect her daughter. Of course, the police don't believe him. There's also video footage of him buying the flares, a corroboration from Emma that he was a farmhand living in the apartment, and a bank statement showing that Kate transferred money to him. Kate and Jackie had set up this last part, because Kate needed to be able to slowly wire him the insurance money when it came through under the guise that she was paying him as an employee. Kate also purposely invited Emma to show up at the property while Jackie was there.
So, Kate walks free, and Jackie is, presumably, going to be put trial for murder and arson and various other charges.
Are the horses okay?!
Yes, the horses are fine! Jackie had suggested that Kate also "burn the horses" (his words) living on her ranch, because they are insured, too. And while it does appear that that happens at first, Kate and Les, thankfully, freed the horses once Jackie drove away. In a movie full of upsetting moments, it's really a relief when they show us those poor innocent horses making their escape.
What happens with Claire?
After Claire runs off with the very much alive Ryan, we don't see her again until the very end of Echo Valley. But, we do see text messages from her to Kate in which she expresses regret for the situation she put her mother in. It's hard to trust her, though, given that Kate also found texts between Claire and Ryan in which Ryan said that he couldn't believe Kate agreed to bury the body, and Claire responded, "I can make her do anything." Chilling.
At the end, when Kate is working on rebuilding her barn and her life, she gets another text from her daughter, which reads, "Would you ever forgive me?" She doesn't respond, but soon, Claire shows up at Kate's door, tears in her eyes. She and Kate look at each other and the movie ends.
Will Kate let Claire in yet again, potentially putting herself in another terrible situation and enabling her daughter's drug use? Or will she close the door this time, knowing all that she's already gone through? On the one hand, Claire's her daughter. On the other, Claire nearly got her imprisoned for disposing of a dead body, almost got her extorted or killed by a drug dealer, and once bit her and banged her head against a wall. Toss-up, really.
