The Departed ending explained: All the rats die except for one

The Departed, Martin Scorsese's 2006 film, which again explores crime and gangsters, also puts the police at the center of the story this time. A lot is going on in the movie, and it all leads to a violent end where we see people dying in quick succession. All the rats die, except for the one at the very end.

Jack Nicholson, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Matt Damon are all in the lead and all of them play rats in their respective rights. However, DiCaprio's character isn't an antagonist despite being a rat. Damon's and Nicholson's characters are, especially the former's.

Every death during the violent end of the movie has a good reason. Before that, know that Jack Nicholson's character, Frank Costello, dies earlier, killed by Damon's character, Sullivan, in a shootout, because he finds out that Costello was an FBI informant.

So that is the death of the main player. Now we will see back-to-back kills in the final minutes of The Departed and the reasons behind every one of them.

What happens at The Departed's violent end?

Billy Costigan, DiCaprio's character, has a meeting with Sullivan to reveal his undercover status after going through a lot. His mental health has been affected during his time as an undercover cop, along with the death of Captain Queenan (Martin Sheen), who initially recruited him.

However, during this meeting, he notices an envelope that he recognizes from a theater, given by Costello to someone, and realizes that Sullivan himself is a mole. So he leaves the meeting.

Sullivan also realizes what has happened and deletes Costigan from digital police records, probably hoping that if something occurs, Costigan won't be able to prove anything officially. Although it was just a panicked reaction, Dignam (Mark Wahlberg) could have proven he was undercover.

After this, Costigan arranges another meeting with Sullivan, as the former also has evidence against the latter of being the main mole. This time, it takes place on a rooftop, where he confronts Sullivan at gunpoint. At this moment, Sullivan also threatens him by saying he has erased his file from the police department. This clearly upsets him.

Costigan has knocked Sullivan hard, leaving him with a bloody face. He takes him down the elevator after a fellow officer tries to intervene, but Costigan remains determined to expose Sullivan.

As soon as the elevator opens, The Departed's killing spree begins.

First, Costigan gets a headshot from another trooper named Barrigan (James Badge Dale). He reveals that Sullivan wasn't the only one working for Costello and knew that Costello was about to sell them both out.

Meanwhile, the fellow officer in The Departed who tried to stop Costigan on the rooftop arrives in another elevator and is shot down by Barrigan.

However, as soon as Barrigon unties Sullivan, Sullivan kills Barrigon because he doesn't want any loose ends. Now, he is clean, with no evidence against him, and maybe he had thought about living a normal life. But there's one character in The Departed who was clean from the start and disappears during the story: Dignam.

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We see him at the very end of the film as Sullivan enters his home, and he simply says "Okay" before getting the much-deserved bullet in his head. Dignam then walks out of the room, and an actual rat is seen on the railing of Sullivan's balcony, providing a fitting conclusion to the film, which is full of rats.

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