Headscratchers / Happy Death Day 2U

Per wiki policy, Spoilers Off applies here and all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.

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Alt!Ryan's motivation

• So what was the deal with the Alt!Ryan in the beginning that was trying to kill our Ryan? All he said to explain himself was that they needed to kill Ryan to fix the time loop, but it never comes up again throughout the entire movie. Not even after Tree gets back to her own reality, in which Alt!Ryan is conspicuously absent.
  • It may be that Alt!Ryan was sent back to his own reality in the same event that displaced Tree, but I agree that his presence was confusing.
  • I think it's sorta hero of another story. In some other loop or alternate timeline, Ryan caused this doppelganger problem. It's ultimately irrelevant beyond getting Tree to focus on the machine.
  • It's been stated that there's a potential third film in the works.
• Also, what happens to Alt!Ryan at the end of the film?
  • He's not present when everyone wakes up so he was probably sent back to his own universe like Tree was.

Carter's mouth-guard

• Carter reveals that he's looking for his mouth guard each morning when Tree wakes up. He says he wears it because he grinds his teeth in his sleep, so why is he looking for it in the morning, after he's already gotten up?
  • He might have been drinking a bit at that party too and didn't put them in.
  • It could have fallen out during the night or he misplaced it while he was getting changed after waking up.
  • It could also be that he's not looking for it so much as he just accidentally knocked it off the desk, and Tree woke up just in time to see him crouching down to pick it up.

Tombs' original fate

• At the beginning of the movie, Tree says that Tombs is dead. But in the first film's last loop, only Lori was killed. Of course, Tree has been through so many loops that she might have difficulty keeping track of what happened and what didn't so maybe she just misspoke.
  • Maybe he was Killed Offscreen?
  • By who?
  • It's quite possible that Tombs would get the death penalty and was killed offscreen through that. Most likely the case, as he was chained to a hospital bed. That, or perhaps he died of unrelated injuries (I mean, he was in the hospital anyways.)
    • Tombs would not have been executed the day after being caught and treated at the hospital. Even if he was about the be executed the following day, any injuries or escape attempts would've stopped the clock and triggered an investigation. The appeals process itself would've lasted years and he would've been facing other charges that required a trial first.
    • When Tree comes to find Tombs in the first loop of the new universe, his bed is empty not because he's escaped, but because he's been taken down to the OR (the operating room). Which confirms that he had some kind of injury.
    • The first movie says that he was being treated for a gunshot wound, so that's probably why he was in the OR.
    • He could've died of his injuries that put him in the hospital in the first place. A blot clot or an embolism is possible. Or he died on the operating table due to complications. Or he tried to escape on his own and got killed by the authorities or hospital security.

Tree's injuries

• It's established that Tree retains a degree of her injuries during every loop, and both films highlight the threat that she could die permanently. However, some loops have her just as strong as the first loops, and she outright ignores her injuries near the end of the film anyways, so how does she end up doing the feats at the end of the film if she could barely get out of bed in the second to last loop?
  • Explosions seem to reset that, as her body is incinerated.

Tree's Anger

• When Tree finds out about Sissy and the related experiment, she's very angry. Why? If not for the time loop, she'd have been killed... shouldn't she be grateful?
  • In theory, yes. But because of the time loop, she had to endure multiple deaths so it's difficult to feel grateful after experiencing that.
  • She's also probably annoyed at the fact that, the morning after she thinks she's finally done with the time-looping craziness, she's immediately dragged back into it.
  • There's also the fact that this revealed she wasn't being looped due to some cosmic significance, rather just due to, as she directly put it, "a scientific fluke."
  • On top of anger, she was quite disappointed because she thought that it was the universe helping her reconcile with the loss of her mother.

Original Killer

• So, does the multiple Ryan incident factor back into the original time loop? Is it meant to suggest that Tree could never escape the Babyface Killer not because it was simply a very-determined Lori, but because it was a time-traveler (possibly herself) trying to eliminate a paradox?
  • Probably not. There's no suggestion in the first movie that there's a second Tree trying to kill her.

New Killer

• Or killers, more to the point. What's going on there? Why does this Gregory want Lori dead anyway? While sleeping with a student nurse might be scuzzy, it's not illegal. Is it because she was breaking up with him? But if she was, why would Gregory's wife help him so happily? Surely that would be what she wanted. And what actually motivates Gregory?
  • While it's not illegal, it may still cause a scandal if it goes public and threaten his career, so my guess is that Greagoy wanted to make sure that Lori couldn't spread the news. Stephanie at least hints that she is motivated by the fact that she wants to avoid a scandal.
    • And considering the personality changes between timelines, it's also possible this version of Gregory is just a sociopath who figures he may as well kill people to get what he wants, rather than just a cheating husband. Would explain why he kills Stephanie despite no apparent reason beyond being bored of her.

SISSY

• In the last timeline, why did the Dean suddenly choose to confiscate SISSY on Tree's birthday instead of the next day, like it had been all the previous loops?
  • What triggered it in the alternate timeline was that the Dean had realized that Ryan activated the reactor again—the signs of which are unmistakable—so the Dean came in with security to confiscate it before it could cause more damage.
  • On the 19th, in the original timeline is that he confronted Ryan about the damage and planned to shut his experiments down. When he activated it to get rid of Alt!Ryan, he and security came in to stop him at the time they were planning to confiscate it.

Timeline

• So the first film is set on the 18th September 2017 and is when Tree entered and breaks out of her loop. The second film opens on the 19th, but is that of 2017 or a year later? Even Wikipedia and the Fandom Wiki don't give a specific year, just "September 19". If it's 2017, does that mean that only 1 day has passed in-universe since Happy Death Day 1? If so, that's alot of stuff to happen to Tree and friends in just 2 days with little downtime for the characters between movies.
  • Chronologically, it's all within the same year and within one 24-hour period.
  • The first film started on Monday, September 18, 2017. Not counting all the loops that Tree went through, the film took place over a period of just over 24 hours. The film ended the following morning on Tuesday, September 19, 2017.
  • The second film started on Tuesday, September 19, 2017 from Ryan's point-of-view. The first act ended on the 19th with Tree being sent to Monday, September the 18th in a different universe. Loops aside, the final act ended back on the 19th seconds after SISI activated with Tree back in the lab. The stinger could've taken place days or even weeks later.
    • Ryan and the others didn't get involved until the second film and Carter was hardly involved in the final loop of the first film. With the exception of Tree, none of the other characters would've needed downtime because the loops reset everything except for Tree's memory. But, the advantage to the loops is that Tree could easily take as much time off as she wanted; at least one scene shows that she does by spending time with her mother. It's also mentioned that she spent weeks working along side the others eliminating algorithms and getting to know them. After Tree returns, as seen in the stinger, all the characters now have the time to process and relax together.

Which Universe Was Visited By The DARPA Agents?

• So when Tree and co. are picking up trash as a punishment for the whole SISSY experiment thing and are visited by the DARPA agents, was that the 1st or 2nd universe gang we're seeing? We never get to see the main 1st universe because Tree gets trapped in the 2nd universe in another loop, so would the Dean shutting down SISSY plot even happen? If not, that means they wouldn't be picking up trash as punishment and wouldn't be there to get picked up by the DARPA agents, right? And Tree from the 2nd universe wouldn't have the experiences Tree 1 does in the main timeline with the first time loop or her mother being dead or Lori.
  • We're seeing the original universe in the stinger. Tree specifically says that she knows the algorithm to make the machine work. Whereas, in the second universe, she told Ryan which algorithm works on the final loop. With the loop closed in the second universe, that Ryan would've retained that information along with the code he inputted on the lab's computer while that universe's Tree may or may not have that information.
  • Bear in mind, both universes had the same incident with SISI take place (albeit on different days) against the Dean's orders. Therefore, both groups would've performed community service as punishment; including Tree and Carter as both were directly involved. In either case, Lori wouldn't have been present when DARPA came to get them due to the fact that she was dead in the original universe and a crime victim in the second who had nothing to do with SISI at all. It's also likely that the second Lori would still be in the hospital recovering from the gunshot wound and interviewed by the authorities concerning her affair and the murder plot against her. It's possible—in fact highly likely—that Lori would eventually talk to her Tree, Carter, Ryan and the others, and find out the truth about the time loop and SISI.
    • One more detail: even though the Tree of the other universe would not have known what happened while she was gone, she would still have been held responsible for her counterpart's actions (with Carter and the others filling her in on what happened). Helping re-activate SISI, stealing the officer's side arm, and her actions at the hospital. In lieu of being charged with assaulting an officer and stealing his sidearm, she probably got community service along with the others.

Why was Tree exiting the College of Nursing and Health building?

The location where Danielle and Carter were making out was adjacent to a building where Tree shouldn't have had any business being in: the College of Nursing and Health. What was she doing there? Just getting a slushy or doing research on Lori? Checking on her own health?