Eddington ending explained: Paranoia explodes into public chaos

Set against the eerie stillness of pandemic-era New Mexico, Eddington is less about the virus and more about the fever it awakens in its people. Ari Aster’s first political satire dives into the messiness of human behavior when the rules break down: think small-town paranoia, fringe ideologies, and a creeping sense that something much darker is simmering beneath the surface.

The film slowly builds its tension with absurd humor and unsettling quiet until it snowballs into a finale that leaves your jaw on the floor and your brain spinning. Here's what happens in the end of the film, and what it satirises about the real world.

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What is Eddington about?

Ari Aster’s Eddington is a slow, simmering panic attack dressed like a small-town political drama. Set in May 2020, right when the world was locked down and emotions were running high, the film drops us into a fictional New Mexico town caught in the chaos of COVID mandates, racial protests, and internet-fueled paranoia. It’s eerie how familiar it all feels.

Joaquin Phoenix takes on the role of Joe Cross, a small-town sheriff whose asthma is only rivaled by his allergy to authority. The mere suggestion of wearing a mask sends him into a spiral, and he’s increasingly glued to the internet, rage-scrolling through conspiracy forums like they’re gospel.

At home, the vibes aren’t much better. His wife, Louise (Emma Stone), stays emotionally distant, nursing wounds of her past. Meanwhile, her mother, Dawn (Deirdre O’Connell), has practically fused with her armchair, whispering about conspiracy theories and embracing each one of them. Together, they’re a picture of post-pandemic disarray, paranoia, distance, and dysfunction brewing quietly behind closed doors.

The main tension? Joe’s beef with Mayor Ted Garcia (played by Pedro Pascal), who’s pushing mask mandates and trying to bring a new tech data center to town. Ted is progressive, clean-cut, and, awkwardly enough, Louise’s ex. The personal and political collide, and things get messy fast.

When the George Floyd protests reach the town, all hell breaks loose. Joe uses the unrest and his badge to launch a campaign for mayor, fueled by lies, resentment, and bizarre slogans. The movie doesn’t offer easy answers. It just forces you to sit in the discomfort, watching a man fall apart while the world does the same.

It’s unsettling, sharp, and honestly kind of genius. Eddington isn’t about who’s right or wrong, it’s about how easy it is to lose yourself when fear, pride, and the internet all start feeding each other.

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How does Eddington end?

Around the halfway mark in Eddington, Joe Cross snaps. Fuelled by rage and conspiracy, he kills Mayor Ted Garcia and his son Eric, an act that sets off a brutal chain of events leading to the film’s savage finale. It all follows Joe’s false public accusation that Ted s*xually abused Louise when they dated, an explosive claim that blows his life apart.

Louise abandons Joe and gravitates toward a cult led by Austin Butler's character Vernon. Joe then tries to frame the murders on protestors, using media-fueled outrage to justify himself. As his bitterness deepens, he betrays one of his only healthy relationships, Michael, the young deputy he mentored. Joe frames Michael for the killings, planting evidence to deflect blame.

Michael, confused and detained at the station, becomes the center of a storm when a Native cop from Pueblo suspects Joe as the true killer. Chaos descends as masked men arrive by jet, sparking riots in Eddington with flaming dumpsters and signs reading, "The white man is the virus."

Michael is freed, only to be found seemingly held hostage in the desert. A drone explodes nearby, killing Cross' other deputy, Guy and igniting "NO PEACE" in flames. Joe grabs a machine gun and fights back, accidentally killing the Pueblo officer before being stabbed. Just in time, Brian, a teen BLM protester, shoots Joe’s attacker.

In the end, Joe’s paranoia manifests fully: a violent, ideologically charged uprising that both he and audiences can interpret through different political lenses. SolidGoldMagiKarp, the tech company behind the proposed data center, might have even orchestrated the chaos by hiring mercenaries disguised as protestors to destabilize the town.

In the end, Joe survives physically but is broken mentally. His reputation stands, but his humanity is gone. The film delivers a twisted, Western‑style shoot-out, where the hero becomes the villain, and the chaos consumes everyone in its path.

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What Eddington's epilogue reveals about the film?

In the epilogue of Eddington, Joe is wheelchair-bound and non-verbal, but somehow still becomes mayor by default. Dawn speaks on his behalf, pushing forward a political agenda Joe never campaigned on. He’s even present at the opening of the town’s new data center, once a background issue, now a glowing monument to everything Joe supposedly stood against.

Around him, the town modernizes under corporate influence, and Joe can do nothing but watch. The final blow? A video of Vernon preaching reveals Louise in the background, smiling and pregnant with Vernon’s baby. Meanwhile, Michael is free and still working as a cop. Scarred from the explosion, he’s last seen silently practicing his aim.

In an interview with Letterboxd, the director talks about what the film is about and says:

"I wanted to make a film where everybody's alienated from each other and has lost track of a bigger world outside of themselves. They only see the dimensions of the small world they believe in, and distrust anything that contradicts this small bubble of certainty. These people, despite being a community of people, are not a community. Despite being in the same rooms as each other, they are living on totally different planes."

Eddington is less a political film and more about people with incoherent politics. Characters of Joe, Ted, Vernon and the teen Brian, they all fit into different ideologies of politics, making it a stark portrayal of the political state we live in today. Aster uses this ideological confusion to reflect a world where capital wins and community dissolves.

In the end, the film ends not with resolution, but resignation. The town moves on, shinier, colder, more controlled, while its people remain fractured and numb. The film leaves us staring into the flickering glow of that data center, wondering if progress is just another illusion, and if anyone, even Joe, ever truly knew what they were fighting for.

Eddington is now in theaters.