Warning: SPOILERS ahead for Maniac
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Maniac, the new Netflix limited series from Cary Joji Fukunaga, takes viewers on a trippy adventure through dream worlds as protagonists Annie (Emma Stone) and Owen (Jonah Hill) try to overcome their inner demons by taking part in a high-risk drug trial. Justin Theroux plays Dr. James K. Mantleray, a scientist who believes that his bold form of mental health treatment will render talk therapy obsolete, offering a guaranteed cure for all forms of mental illness.
Following the abrupt death of the drug trials' other leading researcher, Dr. Robert Muramoto (Rome Kanda), the artificial intelligence in charge of managing the participants' dream states falls into a deep depression. GRTA's (Sally Field) malfunctions begin with placing Annie and Owen in shared dreams, and eventually culminate in her cutting off the scientists' access to to her and threatening to turn all of the trial's participants into "McMurphys" - keeping them prisoner in the dream world so that they never wake up in the real world.
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While all this is happening on the outside, Annie and Owen are fighting through the final stage of their treatment: Confrontation. Owen takes on the role of disgraced Icelandic spy Snorri, while Annie becomes the CIA agent who rescues him. As Dr. Mantleray and Dr. Fujita (Sonoya Mizuno) try to stop GRTA from the lab, Owen and Annie look for a way to stop her from inside their own minds. Here's how the experiment ends - and what happens afterwards.
- This Page: The End and Aftermath Of The Drug Trial
- Page 2: Option C, and the Mid-Credits Scene
How The Drug Trial Ends
The drug trial itself concludes in the penultimate episode of Maniac, "Utangatta." In the midst of a dream about aliens attacking the Earth, Annie and Owen remember who they really are. Owen recalls that, in the previous dream, Annie made a deal with GRTA to stay behind (becoming a McMurphy in the real world), and the two of them search for a means of escape. However, while this is happening, GRTA is rebelling. She cranks up the heat in the experiment chamber, which manifests in the dream world as increased temperature due to the aliens' heat ray, and uses smoke to knock out the technicians in the lab. Mantleray attempts to shut her down, but fails. The only way GRTA can be stopped is from the inside.
Annie and Owen split up: Owen going with his imaginary brother (Billy Magnussen) on a mission to save the world, while Annie goes to find GRTA. She passes out in the elevator and wakes up with her head in GRTA's lap. Annie demands to be let out of the deal that she made to stay behind, and to be taken to her sister one last time before she leaves. A distraught and miserable GRTA complies, and Annie is given a chance to say goodbye to Ellie (Julia Garner) and to finally move on from the trauma of her death.
Meanwhile, Owen is tasked with shutting GRTA down by solving a high-tech Rubik's cube, thereby fulfilling his promised destiny as the "Chosen One." However, in doing so he also has to leave someone behind: the manifestation of the brother he wishes that he'd had. Solving the puzzle, Owen is able to give Dr. Mantleray and Dr. Fujita control back on the surface, and they shut GRTA down - sacrificing all of their hard work and research, but saving the subjects of the drug trial.
Related: Watch the Trailer For Maniac
Annie and Owen On The Outside
As the participants emerge from the trial, Dr. Mantleray congratulates them and tells them that they are healed. However, Annie and Owen do not experience the immediate overwhelming joy and impeccable mental health that they were promised. The two share an awkward conversation outside, with Owen promising that he will go his own way and "not try to make more of this than it was," and Annie reluctantly agreeing.
Owen's real brother, Jed (Magnussen), is standing trial for the sexual assault of a female employee, and Owen is still faced with the predicament of having to lie in order to provide Jed with an alibi. At first he goes along with the family's plan, but then the prosecuting attorney reveals CCTV footage of the assault and confronts Owen about his schizophrenia. Rather than continue to cover for Jed, Owen confirms that his brother is the man in the video and that he is "guilty" and a "monster." As an act of revenge, Owen's family has him committed.
Annie, meanwhile, goes to visit her father Hank (Hank Azaria), and is finally able to be honest with him about her survivor's guilt, telling him that she needs him to stop hiding from the world, because he's the only family she has left. The two reconcile, but Annie still feels troubled by how she parted ways with Owen. She hires a FriendProxy so that she can say all the things she wanted to say to Owen without actually having to go and see him. However, then she spots an article about Jed's trial and discovers that he has been committed. Leaving FriendProxy Owen behind, Annie heads off on a rescue mission to break the real Owen out of the hospital.
Page 2: Option C, and the Mid-Credits Scene
Option A, Option B, And Option C
With the drug trial over, Owen still struggles with the divide between what is real and what is not - but now things are a little more complicated. When his therapist asks him why he hasn't tried to look up or get in contact with Annie since the drug trial, Owen says that he only sees two possible outcomes of doing so, and neither of them are good. Option A, he explains, is discovering that Annie doesn't really exist, the trial never actually happened, and the whole experience was simply a manifestation of his schizophrenia. Sure enough, when Annie shows up at the hospital, Owen seems unsure of whether she's really there, and disinterested in finding out. He explains that of the two options, the worst one is Option B: that Annie is real, but that if he allows himself to get close to her he will "mess it up" and scare her away.
Annie, however, believes that there is a third option - the "Option C" of the episode's title. She promises that she won't ever leave him, and tells him to meet her in the bathroom. There, she takes off a few layers of her own clothes and gives them to him, so he can disguise himself as a visitor. A security guard spots them on the way out, remembering that Annie came in alone, but she and Owen keep walking and manage to make it to the truck while the hospital's staff are still trying to work out what happened. They make a quick getaway, and finally head off on Annie's long-planned road trip to Salt Lake City with a new pet dog called Harpo (replacing Ellie's long-lost dog, Groucho). The pair of them start laughing as they drive away, and the credits roll on the series finale. But there's still a little more to see...
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The Mid-Credits Scene
In the wake of the disastrous 73rd iteration of the ULP drug trial, Dr. Mantleray and Dr. Fujita are dismissed from Neberdine, with Mantleray blacklisted from ever working in the field again. But while their endeavor to cure the world's pain may have failed, Mantleray and Fujita do at least get something out of it. Their romance is passionately renewed in the elevator on their way out of the building, and the two of them briefly return in the finale's mid-credits scene as they embark on a road trip to Newfoundland. As Fujita's car drives away, Mantleray begins speaking the monologue from the very start of Episode 1, bringing the series full circle.
On their way to Newfoundland, they pass by Owen and Annie, who are heading in the opposite direction - towards Salt Lake City (though Annie admits that she doesn't know if her beaten-up old truck will get them the whole way). As they drive off into the sunset, Owen wonders aloud, "Do we actually know each other?" Annie replies, "We're off to a good start."
Then, shortly after Annie and Owen disappear from view, three more travellers appear on the road: the PoopBot that Annie stuck a "Missing" poster for Groucho to; a red-tailed hawk, riding on the back of the PoopBot; and Groucho himself, running along down the road. We'll leave that bit up to your own interpretation.
More: The Weird World of Maniac Explained
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