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What Happened To Monday Ending Explained- Was Monday Pregnant, Those Plot Holes, And Who’s Left

What Happened To Monday is a fresh take on humans are ruining the world trope. We are always our own worst enemy.

What Happened To Monday is a riff on the world is ending trope. An abundance of good acting from Noomi Rapace, who performs seven roles, and a chilling megalomaniac Glenn Close make this Netflix sci-fi thriller prescient and riveting. Some nifty Matrix surveillance scenes are exciting and tense in a Terminator kind of way and a ton of social commentary on overconsumption, GMO’s, and overpopulation round out the story. There are plenty of good action sequences and enough twists to make it well worth the two-hour run time. Here is everything you need to know.

In the near distant future, human population and climate change have combined to create a near inhospitable world where there are too many people and not enough resources. To combat this, scientists genetically modify crops, increasing their yield. However, that change causes a massive increase in multiple births. To combat the rising birthrate, they enact the Child Allocation Act. All additional children are taken from their parents and placed in cryosleep indefinitely.

Our main protagonist Monday played by Noomi Rapace(Prometheus), is one of seven identical twins. Each girl is named after a day of the week. They have been raised in secrecy by their grandfather(William Dafoe) after their mother died in childbirth. All of the girls work as a team, all under the name Karen Settman. The girls’ life and career have been carefully curated to use all their talents and abilities. This way, they can hide in plain sight, and each compliment the other’s weaknesses. Each woman gets to go out once a week and act as Karen. In their home, they can be their real selves, but they must keep their secret in public. The sisters must act the same, look the same, and download each other on their day’s events to ensure no one ever finds out there is more than one of them.

As Karen, they all work for a bank. Unbeknownst to anyone, Monday is having a clandestine affair with a CAB agent, Adrian, played by Aladdin’s Marwan Kenzari. On her designated day out, she fails to return home, and the remaining sisters begin panicking as they contemplate the end of their collective existence. On Tuesday, the next sister prepares for work as Karen. She is apprehended by the CAB, who removes her eyeball to gain access to fool the retinal camera in her home. The agents kill Sunday, and the remaining sisters try to figure out what happened to Monday and save their respective lives. There is no shortage of backstabbers and dangers, including a coworker, Jerry, who is blackmailing Karen for a promotion and a multitude of cutthroat agents. The CAB then kills Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, leaving one-eyed Tuesday, Thursday, and Monday who is not dead.

All Those Plot Holes in What Happened To Monday.

There is literally no way seven people could carry on for decades as the same person with no one noticing. Every sister would have weight loss and gain, muscle tone differences, blemishes, and wrinkles that could not be covered up. Additionally, the girls ask questions of co-workers that should have raided flags given the political climate. The biggest plot hole concerns their birth, though. The sisters were born in a hospital. How did the septuplet’s grandfather smuggle the girls out and alter birth certificates to show there was only one child? One last nagging question. Monday transferred her children to an artificial womb. The girls track every step each other take. They surveil every movement and conversation. How did they miss Monday having her affair or going to the clinic? How did no one get harrassed by Jerry before Monday and then Tuesday is bothered?

What happened to Monday?

Monday did not return home because she became pregnant with twins. She does have morning sickness, which should have been an early clue. To keep both children and her affair, she made a deal with Dr. Cayman. She gave her a considerable donation in exchange for her twins’ lives. We also find out she had paid the huge sum to ensure all her sisters were killed so she could be the one and only Karen Settman. The remaining sisters begin piecing the deception together and realize Monday was betraying them. After a lifetime of sacrificing, she was through being one of a collective cog. The scene where her grandfather cuts the tip of her finger off because Thursday injured herself during an unauthorized trip out was the beginning to this end.

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When the evidence of the murdered children is released, chaos ensues, and Monday is shot and killed. Her unborn children are safe in an artificial womb. Essentially what happened on Monday and to Monday had been happening for months, if not years. She had been resentful probably her whole life and wanted more than just her tiny piece of the Karen pie. When she became pregnant, she knew it would be impossible to keep everything secret. Her deception was a desperate act to exist as an individual woman and mother.

What Happened To Monday
Courtesy of Netflix

What happened to all the other siblings?

Monday was alive until she got shot during the press conference. Tuesday had her eye removed but is otherwise alive in custody. Sunday was killed by an agent in the apartment when the agents gained entry using Tuesday’s eye. Wednesday put up a hell of a fight but eventually is shot jumping between buildings. Saturday dies in Adrian’s apartment after having sex with him. Friday sacrifices herself because she says she was never like the rest. She can’t live without the others.

Adrian finally clues into what is happening and agrees to help the sisters. He smuggles Thursday into the containment facility, claiming she is one of the other deceased sisters to prove the CAB’s murder and try to save Monday, who they think is being held, hostage. They find Tuesday instead, and everyone finally figures out the end game. Monday dies at the fundraising gala leaving only Thursday and Tuesday.

What really happened to the extra children?

All the other children were killed and incarcerated instead of being placed in cryosleep as in Demolition Man. Nicolette Cayman(Glenn Close), the Child Allocation Bureau leader or CAB, has been lying to everyone about what they intended to do to the children. Thursday, who was always the adventurous one, gets video proof of the dead children and broadcasts it live during a political rally for Dr. Cayman.

Is there a happy ending?

The ending of What Happened To Monday is bleak. There is no getting around it. It would seem the good guys won. Tuesday and Thursday posthumously forgive Monday, understanding she did it all for her unborn children. No extra children are being killed now, and the Child Allocation Act is repealed, which seem like good things. Monday’s twins are safely born. However, when the camera pulls back, it reveals an entire ward of newborn babies. Cayman’s tactics are flawed, but not her facts. At the beginning of the film, a voiceover tells us the world’s overpopulation has led to water and food shortages along with everything else. The world is dying, and we are the cause. Whereas Netflix’s IO and 3022 offered hope as an alternative to despair, What Happened To Monday offers only selfish desperation.

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