Girl Taken’s ending is about a final confrontation between Rick and Abby. How did things come to that? Well, twin sisters Abby and Lily studied at a high school in Hollowell, where Rick was the English teacher. Lily had a boyfriend named Wes, and Abby had a crush on Rick. One day, as Lily was out partying with Wes, she and Abby had a tiff over the former’s relationship with Wes, who was having a bad influence on her because of their dependence on drugs, while Lily hit back at Abby with a jibe about her infatuation with Rick. The sisters parted ways on a sour note, and before they could reconcile, Lily was kidnapped by Rick and imprisoned in the basement of his cottage in the woods for the next 5 years. By some stroke of luck, Lily managed to escape and reunite with her family. That was when the extent of the abuse that she had faced was revealed to her family and the police, which led to Rick’s arrest. The cruelest aspect of it all was the fact that Lily had gotten pregnant with Rick’s child, and he took that child home and essentially forced his wife, Zoe, to mother her, while he convinced Lily that the baby hadn’t survived the birthing process. When Abby learned about this, she confronted Zoe and persuaded her to speak the truth, because the approval or rejection of the bail plea depended on Zoe’s statement. At the court, Zoe decided to speak her truth and have Rick jailed for life, which prompted Rick to trick the guards transporting him to the prison and make a run for it. Abby, Lily, and Eve, their mother, were moved to a safe house where police detectives Tommy and Rachel stayed with them to protect them from Rick. Did they succeed, or did they fail? Let’s find out.
Spoiler Alert
Abby killed Rick
Abby had seen everything that Lily had gone through just because Rick wanted her. I mean, during their final confrontation in the basement of that cottage, Rick did say that if he had managed to kidnap her instead of Lily, then his sick “project” would have been “perfect.” But way before Abby heard Rick utter those words, the mere thought that Lily’s whole life might have been ruined because of Rick’s fascination with her was eating away at her soul. And while her mind must have conjured all kinds of nightmares when Lily was in Rick’s basement, seeing Lily in so much pain because of that monster was unbearable. Of course, Abby was glad that Lily was alive to take another swing at life. However, the fact that the bit of hope that she felt when Zoe beat Rick at his own game had been extinguished because he ran away from the courthouse, infuriating Abby to no end. The police had somehow failed to track him down. So, during the concluding moments of Girl Taken, Abby took it upon herself to face off with Rick at his cottage, where they had a tense fight, which concluded with Abby stabbing Rick through the neck.
In the meantime, Lily, Eve, Tommy, and the rest of the officers that were standing guard at the safehouse reached the cottage after realizing that Abby was missing. Lily got to the basement first, thereby allowing her to see the light in Rick’s eyes fading once and for all. When Tom saw what had transpired, it seemed like he was disappointed, because he probably felt that Rick didn’t deserve such a swift death. He had done unspeakable things to Lily, killed a girl named Isobelle after putting her through what he did to Lily, supposedly murdered a guy after escaping from the courthouse, and groomed Zoe since she was 14. So, yeah, a knife to the neck wasn’t enough at all. He deserved to suffer behind bars until he begged for death. At the same time, Tommy understood that with Rick dead, at least Lily and his family would get to breathe again. Lily and her family would never forget the trauma that Rick had inflicted upon them, and to have Abby imprisoned for killing a rapist would destroy any chance they had at healing. Hence, Tommy framed the violent altercation as an act of self-defense, which gave Abby a free pass to live her life. After that, the police found Isobelle, who had been reduced to bones. But, hey, I guess a win is a win. It’s a bittersweet success, though, because there are countless such Ricks roaming around in the world, enticing so many Zoes, Isobelles, and Lilys, and then putting them through hell to satiate their sick desires. Solving such crimes after they have happened won’t fix anything; uprooting the cause of these incidents is the need of the hour.
Abby Was About To Become A Mother
Abby getting pregnant with Wes’ babies—yes, she was having twins—was quite a controversial plot twist, because Wes was still Lily’s boyfriend when she was kidnapped, and Abby and Wes got together while searching for Lily. Abby had a lot of guilt on her shoulders. She blamed herself for cursing Lily that she’d get “knocked up” by some random guy, just like Eve, and then abandoning her on the day she was apprehended. She felt bad that she couldn’t do anything to find Lily. She and Wes loved each other, but the thought that Wes used to date Lily was always at the back of her mind. When Lily returned and she learned about Wes and Abby’s dynamic, I think Abby felt that, deep down, she had given up on her sister, and that’s why she was able to get together with Wes. Do you get what I am saying? If you can imagine the possibility of your sister coming, you won’t go ahead and date her boyfriend. The same goes for Wes. If he truly hoped for Lily to return to his life, even the thought of dating Abby would not have crossed his mind. However, it did, and that meant that they had seemingly accepted that Lily was truly gone, right? Wrong, because life isn’t as straightforward as we want it to be. We can get into these complex relationships while also having a foot in the past. That’s what makes us human, and when Lily saw all the notes that Abby had made in the last 5 years, she understood that searching for her might have brought Abby and Wes close to each other, but that didn’t mean that they had mentally abandoned her.
On top of that, what everyone needed to understand was that none of this would have happened if Rick hadn’t entered the picture. Rick was the villain of Hollowell. And he was dead. If the side effects of his actions weren’t buried with him and instead were shouldered by Abby, Wes, and Lily, that’d mean that he had won despite passing away. So, Lily forgiving Abby for having Wes’ babies during the closing moments of Girl Taken, especially after she had redeemed herself by killing Rick, was the only way forward. Abby and Lily had their fair share of problems before Rick showed up, and it was a whole different ballgame after he arrived. No matter how optimistically you looked at this situation, the fact that these twins’ lives had been altered irreversibly was undeniable. Lily knew that too, which was why she assured Abby that the next pair of twins in their family line would get the upbringing and future both of them deserved. No, I’m not throwing shade at Eve. She did the best she could under the circumstances. It’s just that we eventually start acting like our parents after a certain point, and if Abby doesn’t want to raise her twins like Eve brought up hers, it’ll be great if she makes a lot of notes, especially when it comes to reacting sensibly during crunch situations.
Lily Was Reunited With Alice
In Girl Taken’s ending, Lily finally met Alice at the foster home she was at. If it wasn’t clear already, Lily was pregnant with Alice after getting raped by Rick. Zoe had undergone a hysterectomy, and she hadn’t frozen her eggs prior to that surgery either. But Rick seemingly wanted the “ideal family.” Which was why he brought Alice home, claimed that she had been abandoned by a student of his with whom he did have an affair, and urged Zoe to be her mother. Zoe had been groomed to follow his orders, which was why she did what she was told to do for 5 whole years. When the truth was out, maybe as a part of Rick’s programming or out of her own volition, Zoe tried to kill Alice and then herself so that Lily couldn’t have her own child back under any circumstances, and she herself wouldn’t have to live with the burden of being Rick’s slave. Zoe didn’t follow through on her plan to kill Alice, but she would have died by suicide if it wasn’t for Rachel’s timely intervention. There’s not a lot of info about what happened to Zoe after that incident, but it’s safe to assume that she was put under intense psychiatric care in order to help her process the trauma that she had quietly and diligently endured. Of course, that meant that she would never be allowed to be around Alice. But Lily, Alice’s birth mother, got to meet her, and the kid actually gave Lily the green light to be her mom.
I appreciate the fact that that was shown to be the first step of the life that Lily was dreaming of living with Alice. It was wholesome and positive, but there was a bittersweet undercurrent to it, because we all know how much Lily has to heal before she can properly take care of Alice. I mean, both of them had been through a lot. Alice is a kid. Hence, there’s a good chance that she’ll forget about most of the details of her life. However, the same can’t be said about Lily. Every time she looks at Alice, she’ll be reminded of Rick. Is she up for that? Will she make sure that her hatred for Rick doesn’t somehow spill over into her relationship with Alice? It is quite the gamble, but it is a conflict that Lily has to overcome in order to complete the process of erasing Rick’s influence on her world. Even if she comes close to succeeding in this endeavor, it’ll be a big deal, because she has survived that monster and learned to live again after escaping from his clutches. I don’t think anybody will hold it against her, including Alice, if she doesn’t fulfill all the requirements of being a “good mother.” Her being alive and mustering the courage to meet Alice is more than enough for now. Maybe when the dust settles, Lily will ask Zoe to help her in Alice’s upbringing because she knows the little girl more than anyone else, which’ll allow Zoe to heal alongside Lily. Anyway, those are just my thoughts on the ending of Girl Taken. If you have any opinions on the same, feel free to share them in the comments section below.
