The 2021 Netflix Trilogy
Through some timey-wimey shenanigans, Deena will attempt to alter history in Part Three - 1666, saving everyone from the Shadyside curse before it even begins.
Maybe a few characters would still die in the present if a possessed Sam breaks free, but for the most part, the main cast of characters will all return and be perfectly fine. Then at the very end, the camera focuses on some creepy flashbacks and Sarah Fier's resting place to show that the curse could return in some capacity.- Jossed. While we do see Deena as Sarah Fier, we also saw other glimpses of what her face actually look like. So Deena didn’t time travel into Sarah’s body. Only see Deena’s appearance as Sarah. Given the Generation Xerox and cast-wide Acting for Two of all the characters in 1666, she probably would had been her ancestor.
Sarah Fier is not responsible for the Curse.
Closer examination of the Curse and its effects give hints that the so-called Witch may not be responsible for the Curse, and that an unrevealed third party is responsible for casting and maintaining the Curse on Shadyside:- At the end of Part One – 1994, a cloaked figure is seen conducting a ritual resulting in Sam's name being inscribed in the stone and her possession taking place. A cloaked figure who has both their hands. This is unlike to be the spirit of Sarah Fier, whose losing one hand is an important part of the lore.
- Part Two – 1978 reveals that it was cast before the community of Union was split into Shadyside and Sunnyvale, so there is no reason why only Shadyside alone should've inherited the Curse.
- Sunnyvale has not only avoided the direct effects of the Curse, but any indirect ones as well, becoming one of the richest towns in the US despite living next door to a magically enforced blight. That is unlikely to happen unless someone's or something's thumb is firmly on the scale on their favor. Sarah Fier has no reason to do that.
- The immediate effects of someone's blood touching Sarah Fier’s bones are contradictory. Why would the witch both show the person glimpses of her life and send an army of undead unstoppable slashers to kill them? It is as if Sarah's spirit is trying to communicate something to these people, and someone else is determined to kill them before they share what they have learned.
If the above theory is true, it'll be revealed that it was either of the Millers
For Pastor Miller:- It's possible that it could be someone of a high standing, who then used their power to condemn Sarah Fier to death after she found out.
- Perhaps rather than being possessed, Miller was turned to black magic and made a sacrifice by killing children.
- He could have condemned the people in Shadyside to eternal suffering in return for Sunnydale’s good fortune
- It could also explain why he didn't show up at the end of Part 2 when all the killers, up until 1978, appeared to hunt the Berman sisters down. Perhaps, he evolved to become the beating mass of flesh that resides beneath where Camp Nightwing once stood and acts as a hive mind that possesses and controls the other killers.
- Additionally, after Alice touched Satan's stone in the cavern, she had visions of children in 17th century garb (and Cindy) with their eyes cut out. This could be a clue that the stone is connected to the Pastor rather than Sarah Fier.
- Based on the trailers and IMDb cast listing for 1666, it seems that Sarah Fier had a romantic relationship with someone named Hannah Miller, presumably the Pastor's daughter. Since it'd be in character for a preacher from the 1600's to be homophobic, particularly if the situation involved his own daughter, this might also be a reason for him to condemn Sarah as a scapegoat, or even a sacrifice.
For Hannah Miller:
- Perhaps Hannah Miller was the witch instead of Sarah, who was mistaken for the witch instead. Her cutting off her hand could’ve been her trying to commit suicide in order to not give Hannah a reason to curse the town.
- It’s possible that Hannah saw the execution of her lover, Sarah Fier, and grew so heartbroken that she decided to curse them specifically.
- Sarah screaming “It’s you!” at Sam when they first come into contact, and not Ziggy, seems to imply that Sarah has a specific connection to Sam. Almost as if she was the descendant of someone Sarah knew dearly.
- She could’ve cursed her father first as he was directly responsible for Sarah’s execution.
Jossed on both accounts, it was Solomon Goode.
The figure who stole the ritual grimoire at the end of Part 3 was Will Goode.
Or another member of the family. It’d make sense since:
- Being prominent figure/s in Sunnyvale, they would want to restart the curse and bring about more prosperity to the town.
- They would use it to hunt down Deena, since she killed Sheriff Goode and bleached the family’s reputation.
- The fact the Goode’s home is right under the Witch’s Mark would make it easy for them to slip in and out undetected.
The figure who stole the ritual grimoire at the end of Part 3 was Josh's internet friend, the "Queen of Air and Darkness"
- She has a minor role in Part 1, sharing Josh's interest in the supernatural history of Shadyside's slashers, but she takes no part in the investigation, and she's very quick to buy into the "it was just druggies" explanation for the latest deaths, which is a nice foil to Sheriff Goode's insistence that the earlier killers were just regular Shadyside tragedy but picking at the survivors' explanation for the latest ones. Then she shows back up at the end of Part 3 in prime Sequel Hook fashion.
- My guess? She's from a branch of the family that wasn't directly involved in the killings, but she was close enough to figure out at least part of it on her own. After Sheriff Goode's involvement was publicly revealed, she recognized the curse as part of her legacy, and/or she plans to get revenge against Sunnyvale/Will Goode since her family wound up in the "bad" city and got no benefit from the Deal with the Devil.
If Leigh Janiak's vision for an MCU-style universe of horror is explored further, the first project will be an anthology-style series exploring the events of different slashers during the curse
The Humpty Dumpty Killer was not a regular cursed slasher/was not cursed at all
All the slashers that were active during the 20th century (the Grifter, Ruby Lane, Skeleton Mask, etc...) got resurrected by the curse to stop our protagonists from finding out the truth. One killer that was mentioned but never appeared was the Humpty Dumpty killer from the 1930s. Considering that Shadyside just has a reputation of being one of the worst towns in America it isn't that hard to imagine Humpty Dumpty just being a regular serial killer that just so happened to operate in a cursed town. That would explain why he seemingly managed to extend his killing spree over days, if not weeks, and why he was never brought back. Alternatively, he might be another slasher - probably Billy Baker - that continued his killing spree out of his own free will, continuing the old slasher concept of an insane child murderer that got released when he got older and returned to his old ways.- Jossed. At least, the Billy Barker speculation bit, that is. The newspaper clipping of his murders reveals he died after the murders.
The curse is only given through the male heirs of the line
Playing into the sexism of the time and because the curse was originally enacted by a male, the only people in the Goode family that could enact the curse were the male descendants of Solomon Goode. This would explain why between the years of 1922/1935 and 1953 there were no killings despite them usually happening once a decade - the male heirs to the Goode line were either drafted into the war effort (if the Humpty Dumpty killer was indeed a cursed Slasher and not a regular psycho) or died through some other means (probably related to organized crime, considering the 1930's). So, for nearly 30 years there were no actual male heirs to the Goode name, up until the 1950s when a very elderly Goode responsible for the Baker killings finally revealed the secret to his grand/great-grandson.This is further supported by the fact that there were seemingly no killings between 1776 and 1831, with 1776 being the starting point for the American Revolutionary War - considering how well-off and respected the Goodes were it would stand to reason that their eldest son would join the war effort. Either Sheila or Sam's mother may have stolen the ritual grimoire at the end.
It's possible that either of those minor villains of the franchise may have stolen it for personal reasons. Sheila, to get her revenge on Ziggy for the well deserved prank she did on her in 1978 and Mrs. Fraser, to have Deena murdered so that she could be away from her daughter forever, even if it means she has to die. Sarah Fier's missing hand actually played no role in revealing the full truth to Deena
When Sam and Ziggy bleed on Sarah Fier's bones, they only see flashes of Sarah's memories, but they're also both interrupted (by Deena and Cindy, respectively). The factor that actually allowed Deena to see the whole truth wasn't reuniting Sarah Fier's hand with her body, but rather the fact that she was alone and uninterrupted when her blood got on the bones (she had blood on her hands when she placed the hand in the grave with the rest of Sarah's bones). If no one had interrupted their vision, both Sam and Ziggy could have seen the whole truth just like Deena did.- Further, Sarah's hand was only thought to play an important role because of the false belief that the curse was started when Sarah cut off her own hand to make a deal with the devil. After the flashback to 1666, we know that it was actually cut off while she was defending herself from the real witch, Solomon Goode.
Billy Barker was never supposed to be cursed.
When Billy Barker is seen being named for the curse, it is with real anger and hatred. Why would a grown man have that much hatred for a child? The answer is that they didn't. The intended victim was Billy's father who also went by Billy but was actually William, whereas Billy really was Billy. The Goode who named him didn't think this through, and the curse took the naming literally.- That or the Goode responsible was just a hateful ableist since Billy was described as having facial deformities before his killing spree. (That goes ditto for Harry Rooker/the Milkman who seemed to be a burn victim — people who look different make for easy scapegoats).
The Shadyside killers that turn up to eliminate anyone who get too close to Sarah Fier's truth are the most deadly of all those chosen to be possessed
.If you pause the film at any of the shots of the stone walls in which the killers' names are inscribed, you'll see the names of dozens and dozens of people who never show up in any capacity in the actual story (Jeffrey Ray, Rodney Fisher, Boyd Lee, Amy Dodd, Ed Carson). Why is there never a mass onslaught of these killers when it comes to protecting the true story of Sarah Fier? Perhaps most of these people only managed to kill one or two others when they were possessed, either through lack of physical prowess or through being able to overpower their possession (like Sam does) and destroy themselves before hurting anyone. As such, the ones that do appear after a hit is put out on anyone who gets too close to the truth are those with the highest body count: the Grifter, the Milkman, Billy Boyd, Skull Mask, Ruby Lane, Nightwing... the most dangerous cream of the crop. Sheila is in the opening of 1994
.The rude customer Heather is serving, who calls the book "trash" that she's only buying for her stepdaughter. She looks to be the right age, and has similar long dark hair. As to why she's shopping in a Shadyside mall, maybe the Sunnyvale shops only have the pretentious highbrow stuff, and the stepdaughter was nagging her for a specific book she couldn't get anywhere else. Or maybe Sheila lives in Shadyside now - and perhaps Nick rigged things so that she'd suffer for how she bullied Ziggy. Sam's parents got divorced because her father was gay
.Her mother's homophobia is quite extreme, even for 1994, so perhaps it was also stemming from her husband being gay too. The father isn't mentioned, implying he doesn't live in Shadyside at all, so perhaps he had to leave town because of his wife trying to destroy his reputation by outing him. A divorce court would almost certainly rule in favour of a mother over a gay father. Perhaps the father was the good influence on Sam, who encouraged her relationship with Deena, and now he's gone her mother forced her back into the closet.- As someone who came out in 1995, I can attest to the fact that Sam's mother's homophobia was MILD for 1994.
