The Last Murder at the End of the World

They return to the village, and Thea says that they must kill Hephaestus to stop the fog. Emory says that the villagers have decided not to execute Hephaestus because they do not believe in murder. Instead, they will flee to the cauldron garden together. Thea says that 61 people must stay behind because the garden will not hold them all, and to her surprise, villagers start volunteering to sacrifice themselves. Thea tells them to tell her what happened to Niema and let her speak to Hephaestus about it.

Hephaestus wakes up in the school with Thea. Thea knows about his role in Niema’s experiments. Emory found out he killed Niema because the wound on Niema’s head came from high above her; Emory noticed the similarity when Hephaestus tried to stab her.

Thea hands Hephaestus Niema’s Bible and says “5:5.” Hephaestus remembers the chapter and verse reference from Matthew about the meek inheriting the earth and realizes that Niema wanted to leave everything to the villagers. After Niema failed at the experiment, she decided she must leave the villagers in charge rather than fix humanity. The night she died, Niema brought Hui on stage to perform her concerto, which showed that the simulacrums were evolving. Emory thinks that Hephaestus grabbed the knife to attack Hui. Niema left her memory gem to teach them everything they would need to know about technology, but Adil destroyed it. Hephaestus places the memory extractor on his head. The machine kills him as his memory gem falls to the floor.

Thea presses Hephaestus’s gem to her temple. She sees everything as Emory described it, with Niema announcing that she is giving the world to the villagers. The villagers try to sedate Thea, but Hephaestus mistakes the syringe for a knife. Hephaestus stabs Hui, but when he tries to stab her again, Niema jumps in front of the blade. The villagers knock Hephaestus unconscious. Thea tells Seth and Emory about Hephaestus’s sacrifice, but Seth says that the fog is still coming.

Emory explains that Thea must have saved Niema after Hephaestus stabbed her. Clara says they should evacuate to the cauldron garden, but Emory needs to know who killed Niema. Thea asks for volunteers to go to Blackheath to seal it from the fog, even though Emory says they will never make it in time. Emory gives Thea the key, and Thea thanks Emory and gathers a group of villagers to run to Blackheath.

Emory runs into Thea’s lab and examines Niema’s skull. She wonders if someone used a memory extractor on Niema, then hit her afterward to make it look like someone murdered her. If Thea wanted Niema dead, she would not have tried to save her after Hephaestus stabbed her. Instead, Thea and Niema escaped to the lighthouse because Niema feared that Hephaestus would try to kill her again. As they rush to the cable car, Emory explains that Adil planted Thea’s nail and the metal from Hephaestus’s contraption, so that the villagers would blame the elders. Emory hears Thea scream and realizes that the fog has reached them. The cable car takes off toward the cauldron garden but stops midway.

Magdalene waits at the cable car station. When she sees the car stop, she rushes to the junction box, as Abi explains how to look for a loose connection.

The fog rises underneath the cable car, so Seth, Clara, and Emory climb onto the roof. Seth puts the memory extractor on his head and tells them that they know he went to the lighthouse that night so he may have murdered Niema. He reaches for the button to see if his death will stop the fog.

Magdalene fixes the connection, but a fuse blows. Abi tells her how to flip the fuse back on.

The cable car starts moving again, and Clara grabs Seth’s hand. Emory says that only one person could have killed Niema. The fog reaches them, and Emory holds Clara close as the fog consumes them.

Seth opens his eyes to find himself surrounded by the fog, but the insects do not attack them. Emory stands up surrounded by the insects and says that Niema killed herself.

The insects do not attack them, and Emory explains that Niema made the villagers immune to the fog. She realized this when the resonance suit did not work for Thea, which means that Seth and Judith must have left the island without the suits. Niema wanted the barrier to go down since she knew the villagers could survive it. Niema had Hephaestus check the dome for breaches so that he and Thea could live in the cauldron garden after the barrier went down. However, when Hephaestus attacked Niema and Hui, things changed. Emory thinks that Niema wiped their memories because she knew that Hephaestus would keep trying to kill the villagers and she needed to protect them.

Niema hoped that the villagers would lock themselves inside Blackheath before Hephaestus figured anything out, but the villagers did not go to Blackheath because Adil framed the elders for Niema’s death. Niema gave Adil the key and told him how to bypass the lighthouse defenses to retrieve her memory gem, but Adil smashed the memory gem because he wanted the villagers to blame the elders for her death. Seth wonders what they will do without the elders’ guidance, but Emory tells him that they will figure it out together.

Ben draws equations in the dirt with a stick while the village watches him. Abi refuses to answer their questions because she wants them to figure things out without her. However, she tells Ben that Niema filled his head with knowledge from the world before so that he could help the villagers. Ben tells the villagers that they will be okay.

Emory sits in Blackheath where Jack works. She watches the insects and asks Abi how long they will be there. Abi says that the insects feed off the fog, but Niema knew they would die out eventually. Emory thinks about Thea, who died while the villagers with her tried to protect her from the insects with their own bodies. Emory tells Jack about Hui’s recovery, and she wonders why Jack and the other apprentices continue to dig. Emory tells Abi that she thinks that Abi has been manipulating events the entire time. It must have been Abi’s idea to allow Adil to live in exile since she does not think that Hephaestus or Niema would have come to that decision. Abi also allowed Emory to overhear the conversation about the experiment before Niema died. The workers stop, and Emory sees they have uncovered an electric root. She asks what it is, and Abi says that it is her root, which runs throughout the island. She explains that Abi is short for Artificial Biological Intelligence. Jack takes a drill to the root, and Emory tries to stop him, but Abi tells her that this was her plan all along. Niema knew that Abi had to die because when the other humans woke up, they would control the villagers all over again. After the simulacrums build their own society, they can wake up the humans and teach them how to live peacefully. Emory asks if the barrier was ever going to go back up, but Abi says that she made up that lie so that Hephaestus did not kill them all. Jack drills into the root, and Abi says goodbye to Emory. When Abi dies, Jack and the other apprentices wake up from their trance. Jack and Emory embrace, and Emory tells him that it is the beginning of a new world.