The Aviary Movie Explained- What Was Synthesis And What Is Real?

The tiny budget psychological thriller The Aviary succeeds because of a trio of superb performances and a familiar but mind-bending premise.

Unreliable witnesses can rarely be believed. Whether it is something as simple as mind-altering drugs, mental illness, the complexities of gaslighting, or something weirder as in Apple TV+’s engrossing Shining Girls, it’s hard for the audience to believe what they are shown and told. As is the case with writer and director team Jennifer Raite and Chris Cullari’s The Aviary streaming today. We catch the action mid-escape as two women flee through the desert from a cult called Skylight.

The cult is led by the banally menacing Seth, a perfectly placid Chris Messina(The Sinner). His seduction and malice ooze just below the surface of his calm demeanor. The cult which we only see in one tiny clip, is mainly described through expository dumps early in the film by the two women. It sounds like a mix between Scientology and NXIVM with one central man and a pyramid of women below who recruit/coerce others into joining.

The women are lured to Skylight by the promise of purpose and contentment but held there by intimidation and manipulation as in most groups of the same type. They are “punished” for breaking the rules or failing to live up to expectations and broken in “barrier sessions” designed to make them reveal dark secrets that can be used against them later. It’s all pretty standard stuff that is no less chilling told by Malin Akerman’s Jillian, a wounded bird of a soul hiding behind a mask of resolve, and Lorenza Izzo’s Blair, who is exactly as vulnerable as she presents.

Over several days, they attempt to navigate the desert using a map and the sun. Their goal is a small town called Gallup. However, despite heading what should be continuously west, they keep circling back to an abandoned town in the opposite direction named Calvary Hill. As the women unravel due to the elements, stress, and the increasingly alarming nightly visits from Seth that might or might not be real, we begin to question everything we know. Here’s what you need to know about The Aviary ending, Seth, Synthesis, and who killed who.

The ending of The Aviary

After the women left the cult with bottled water, protein bars, and a map, they thought they were escaping. They thought they could get away from Seth and Skylight. But unfortunately, the truth is evident almost from the beginning. Seth has his hooks deep in their brains and set traps designed to prevent them from ever leaving. It’s a pretty genius if a diabolical bit of control that was, as we come to find out, wildly successful.

That program Seth called Synthesis consisted of repeated word associations and strange blank masks. It was created to strip the women’s identity away and allow him to rebuild everything from their memories of past events to their perception of current ones. As a result, most of what we saw in the desert may not have happened at all. Certainly, Jillian kicking herself off the cliff, Delilah’s appearance, and the women’s constant circular trek were not real.

The longer the women are gone from the cult and the more desperate they become, their hallucinations become stronger. The small amount of food and water goes missing, and Blair is tricked into eating poisonous berries while Jillian clings to a stolen laptop she lied about ditching in Calvary. Both women seem to be working against one another and themselves. Cell phones appear and disappear with no explanation, and mysterious notes are left with no recollection of writing them.

Finally, nearing the end of their rope, the women find an RV with food and water and decide to rest for a while. While Blair is grilling hotdogs, Jillian charges the laptop and watches the “barrier sessions” for both Delilah and Blair. What she sees convinces her that Blair killed Delilah at Seth’s suggestion. Jillian wants to forgive her because she insists that Seth made her do it. The suggestions are too strong, though, and Jillian stabs Blair, thinking she was killing Seth. As she realizes what she did, we are shown a different “barrier session,” in which it looks like it was Jillian who killed Delilah and not Blair. However, everything Seth says is a lie, so it is possible he killed Delilah and made Jillian believe she did it.

As he drives away with Jillian in his truck, she asks how he found her, and he responds she never left. This might be one of the few statements he makes that is true. Everything that happened between Blair and her in the desert may have been in her mind. We see Seth dig something and set the RV on fire as they drive away, but the flames have the same psychedelic coloring as every hallucination. It is possible none of it was real, but more likely, based on the trance-like behavior at the end, she was drugged by Seth again and will be conditioned into a more palatable truth that does not include her having killed anyone. Jillian will probably be convinced that Blair left Skylight on her own.

What is Synthesis?

Although we only catch glimpses of what Synthesis in The Aviary might be, some deductions can be made based on the nightly hypnotic visits from Seth and Jillian’s explanations. It is a brainwashing technique that gets so deep inside the subject’s mind they lose themselves to the delusion. Likely it is a combination of drugs and hypnotherapy designed to implant suggestions and triggers that prevent the victims from ever breaking protocol or leaving the cult. The Seth hallucinations were probably reinforcing events triggered by words and the environment. This is why the women saw Seth giving them word association sessions and haunting them. Those were real things that happened at Skylight and were remembered at key times by the women.

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Seth had already started looking into the technique when his partner and cofounder Delilah threatened to leave him. That unacceptable outcome forced him to take steps to begin Synthesis on his most devoted disciple Jillian. He used it to ensure she and every other member of the cult he called Songbirds could never leave or expose his secrets. He did not need to track the women because he was already so deep in their minds he knew what the outcome would be. They had no more free will than pet birds who are locked inside a gilded cage.

In the end, what was in the way of the women’s joy was Seth and how he turned their minds against them. In their desperate quest to find a group to belong to, they lost themselves. The women of Skylight lived in the Aviary, which was a prison for the members who didn’t need to be jailed, considering their wings had already been clipped.

The Aviary is streaming everywhere you stream movies, including VUDU and Amazon Prime right now.