Hulu's latest psychological thriller Run concludes with several unanswered questions about its characters and their fates that could make way for a possible sequel. Aneesh Chaganty's movie highlights the very real possibility that a mother could be making their own child sick for selfish reasons. While it may seem as though the mother-daughter duo are dealing with an onslaught of ailments that plague the teenage girl, it is revealed that nothing is truly as she was lead to believe. Even with its shocking reveals and ending, there are still several questions that remain unanswered.
The movie stars Sarah Paulson of American Horror Story and Ratched fame as Diane Sherman. She is no stranger to portraying a villainous character, as her talents in this arena were showcased in her 2020 portrayal of Nurse Mildred Ratched of One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest. In Run, Paulson plays a doting mother who would do anything for her sick child, Chloe (Kiera Allen). Throughout her life, she has been impacted by five ailments that have left her wheelchair bound with an irregular heartbeat and asthmatic. After discovering that her mother has been giving her lidocaine, Chloe becomes privy to Diane's covert evil and codependence on her daughter. A Stephen King Easter egg from IT reveals that she and Eddie Kaspbrak have similar mothers who could be diagnosed with their own illness — Munchausen by proxy.
By the end of the movie, Chloe overpowers her mother's harmful ways and comes out on top. In a shocking twist, she visits Diane in the hospital seven years following the primary events of the movie. She is now happily married with her own child, but it appears as though she may have picked up some of the evil behaviors that were prevalent throughout her entire childhood. The movie concludes with Chloe forcing lidocaine into Diane's mouth, forcing her to suffer in the same ways that she did, but what does this mean for the mother-daughter duo as well as its possible sequel?
One of the biggest questions that remains by the end of the movie is whether or not some of Chloe's ailments are actually real, if they've disappeared entirely, or if they became real over time. She is still in a wheelchair when she comes to visit Diane, and various scenes in the movie reveal that she does need an inhaler. When Chloe discovers that she could once walk, it's clear that she was not born paralyzed as she was lead to believe. Due to prolonged disuse and consistent ingestion of unnecessary medication, it has caused her to be an ambulatory wheelchair user, which means that she has the capability to walk short distances, but it's unlikely that she would be able to walk for long periods of time.
The use of her inhaler during the movie could be asthma, but it is more likely that she developed a dependency on it similar to Eddie Kaspbrak in IT. Diane's presence causes a great deal of stress of Chloe, which could lead to panic attacks. It is entirely plausible that she uses the inhaler as a way to subdue panic attacks brought on by the anxiety she experiences at the hand of her mother. When an attack occurs, it is normally accompanied by shortness of breath and a tightened feeling in someone's chest. It can cause people to feel as though they cannot catch their breath or that they are having a heart attack. When someone with asthma cannot breathe, they use an inhaler. Therefore, it is entirely possible that the association between the two has caused her to continue to use it as a way to alleviate the situation. Chloe may or may not suffer with her other illness, but some of them have become real over time.
After Chloe visits Diane and forces her to ingest lidocaine, it begs the question, what will happen to her tormentor? This may only be answered through a sequel, but there are several possibilities for Diane's future. She is currently imprisoned and bed-ridden, which likely means she will remain there for the foreseeable future. If Chloe does intend on tormenting her mother in the same ways that she was, it is possible that Diane will begin to develop similar ailments, or even die.
The ending of Run posits a disturbing possibility for Chloe more than it does for Diane. She has taken a couple lessons out of her mother's playbook on making people sick, which could mean that Chloe could wind up in prison herself. While she is doing good in her community by making prosthetics, there may be some underlying evil within her that can only be fully revealed in Run 2, if a sequel happens. Diane's fate resembles the one she had planned for her daughter, only with the addition of imprisonment.
When Chloe goes to the pharmacy, the pharmacist reveals that the medication that is prescribed to Diane—which she feeds to her daughter—is actually for their dog, but where is this supposed family pet? In short, they don't actually have one. While it may be unlikely that she would be able to obtain lidocaine for a pet that they don't have and would need a vet's prescription to get it, there is one way in particular that Diane has used before. After a doctor mentions that Chloe has seen several doctors, it's the first inkling that Diane is manipulating them into false diagnoses. It showcases that she is a master manipulator, which could mean that she has become well-versed in coercing doctors to hand over medications.
If she needed lidocaine and an excuse for getting it, she could've called a local vet and lied about the family pet having an abnormal heart beat or some other reason for needing the medication. It is also possible that they may have had a pet previously that could've been prescribed the medication, but there's no proof that it is still alive, if there even was one at all. Ultimately, they do not have a dog and the use of the word "dog" equates Chloe to being treated like one.
In order to uncover how Diane got away with tormenting Chloe for so long, it is important to look at actual cases of Munchausen by proxy. Gypsy Rose Blanchard was a victim of her mother, who was diagnosed with the illness posthumously. Her story is retold through the Hulu original series The Act. The only way that her mother was able to continue to get away with her daughter's treatment was by taking her to numerous doctors over the course of her life, manipulating them to believe her daughter was sick, forcing Gypsy to fake symptoms, and threatening her if she did not go along with the plan. She was able to get away with it by having several different doctor's reports as well as the continual coercion and gaslighting of Gypsy, who often believed she was sick based on the notion that her mother was supposed to care for her.
Diane shares a lot of similarities with Clauddine Blanchard. She also took Chloe to several different doctors, forced her to believe that she was actually sick with consistent coercion and gaslighting, and made her take medications she did not need. Diane got away with it all because the only person to ever witness her wrongdoing was her victim. Without any other witnesses, someone with Munchausen by proxy could go entirely under the radar. If Run does get a sequel, it is likely that it will go in-depth on how she was able to get away with it for so long as well as what Chloe has done in the wake of her mother's torment.
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