Playdate’s ending was centered around the revelation that a person from Jeff Eamon’s past was making clones of Jeff. Jeff and his “son,” CJ, had randomly befriended the father-step-son duo, Brian Jennings and Lucas. One day, they decided to hang out together at Jeff’s house, but all four of them had to go on the run as they were being pursued by some violent and shady-looking guys. Initially, Jeff was not willing to tell Brian why he and his son were being targeted, but when the attackers began targeting Brian and Lucas, because they thought they were in cahoots with Jeff, he had no option but to tell them his backstory. So, as per Jeff, after leaving the military, he got the job of a security guard at a top secret facility. One night, while doing his rounds, he discovered a room in that building, and in that room was CJ. Assuming that CJ was being held captive, Jeff took him and went on the run. Yes, Jeff tried to get the police’s help so that CJ could find a home, but the police thought that Jeff was the kidnapper and tried to nab him back then. Since going to the cops now was out of the question, Jeff and Brian realized that the only way out of this was through. So, they caught Galifianakish, an employee of the facility played by the awesome Paul Walter Hauser, and forced him to reveal why CJ was a high-priority asset. Galifianakish said that CJ was a clone of Jeff; not an exact copy but a better version of him. Who made CJ and why? Let’s find out.
Spoiler Alert
Brian Betrayed Jeff
Galifianakish revealed that Simon Maddox, a billionaire with an interest in medical science, was funding the Jeff-cloning operation. While Jeff was busy bonding with CJ, Brian got a call from Maddox’s henchmen, who threatened to hurt his wife, Emily, if he didn’t help them get back CJ. Brian didn’t want Emily to get hurt, so he agreed to betray Jeff and CJ. Maddox’s henchman gave Brian a set of coordinates, and Brian passed them onto Jeff whilst lying to him that, as per his own research, that was the spot where they’d find Maddox. Jeff trusted Brian a lot, and he unwittingly walked into the trap set by Maddox, who personally showed up to reacquire CJ. Jeff asked Maddox why he was cloned and why his clone was so emotionless. Maddox didn’t answer those questions, and just drove away with CJ, leaving behind one henchman to kill off Jeff. Brian, albeit unintentionally, distracted the henchman, and Jeff knocked him unconscious with one punch.
Brian Gave Jeff a Pep Talk
After apologizing for his betrayal, which was understandable because Emily’s life was on the line, Brian said that they should rescue CJ from Maddox’s clutches. But Jeff didn’t want to put any more effort into safeguarding CJ because, firstly, the kid seemingly had no feelings (it was not in his DNA), and secondly, Jeff felt that he was destined to be like his own dad, Gordan (played by the amazing Stephen Root), who had abandoned Jeff when he was a child. Brian convinced Jeff that he was not like his dad at all, because he had a big heart, and being a parent is always about loving your child unconditionally. It doesn’t matter if your child loves you back all the time, because the bond between a parent and a child (or in this case, a man and a child version of his clone) is not a transactional relationship; it’s one built on empathy and care. So, a child might hate a parent for the time being because they’re being too strict or a bit messy, but they’ll eventually learn to love as well. As soon as a paraphrased version of these sentiments came out of Brian’s mouth, the unconscious henchman’s phone began pinging.
Kurtz Was Working With Maddox
Jeff retrieved the phone and saw that it was displaying a GPS signal. Lucas had given his jacket to CJ before he was taken away, which had Lucas’ phone in it, and he surmised that CJ had activated its locator because he wanted to be saved. That finally motivated Jeff to drive over to the facility (which was seemingly Jeff’s old workplace) where CJ was being taken and save his “son.” Brian and Lucas went along with him because it was an “in for a penny, in for a pound” type of situation. While Lucas stayed back in the car, Jeff and Brian went into the building. There they discovered that Maddox hadn’t cloned Jeff just once; he had cloned him hundreds of times. And since all the CJ clones were feral as hell, Jeff and Brian had to fight them off while also running away from them. Eventually, they reached a corner of the building where an invisible force field kept them from being ripped to shreds by the CJ clones. Jeff and Brian thought they were safe, but they soon found themselves being escorted into a different room at gunpoint. Jeff managed to distract the gunman for a few seconds, and that allowed Brian to run away and get to Lucas. After the gunman got his bearings back, he resumed his task of escorting Jeff to the room where Maddox was. That wasn’t as shocking as the revelation that Maddox’s partner-in-crime was General Kurtz.
Jeff Was Duped By Kurtz
Why was Kurtz working with Maddox? Well, if you have seen Gemini Man, you pretty much know the answer, but here it is anyway. As a soldier, Jeff was perfect in every way. His only flaw was that he was an empath. During one of his missions, he had refused to kill a child in the war zone. Jeff knew that that child was innocent, but Kurtz clearly saw that as a disadvantage that he didn’t want in his platoon. So, Kurtz pulled some strings and stationed him as a security guard at the security facility where his clones would be made. The scientists conducted random drug tests on Jeff under the garb of checking if he was in perfect working condition to be a security guard. They obviously didn’t expect Jeff to find out about CJ. They probably would have fired him after they were done making enough clones of him. Or maybe they would have kept him as a security guard forever because you can’t make a clone from a clone; you always need to have the source handy. But yeah, Jeff discovering CJ ruined everything for them. However, why were Kurtz and Maddox so hellbent on getting back CJ when they had so many CJs in their army? Because CJ was their property.
CJ Was A Supersoldier
Millions of dollars must’ve been spent creating CJ, and they couldn’t have him running amok. Also, as CJ would grow up, the similarities between Jeff and CJ would become apparent, and that’d expose Kurtz and Maddox’s scheme. Hence, they wanted CJ in their possession. The underlying commentary here is quite apparent: humans don’t want to stop wars, they want to make them more efficient. In addition to the issues listed by Kurtz, one major problem that plagues a soldier is PTSD. And since that’s become such a major talking point in society, it’s dissuading people from enlisting. If that aspect of a soldier’s life is removed, and PTSD isn’t discussed enough, then joining the defence forces will become trendy again. I think Terminal List commented on that by showing a group of soldiers who were given an experimental drug to stop them from having PTSD, but that backfired and the soldiers ended up getting cancerous brain tumors. Movies like Gemini Man and Playdate have gone a step further and imagined a future where the US military industrial complex will do away with recruitment of humans and begin making clones who’ll be emotionless enough to not feel trauma or question their boss’ orders. I know that that sounds preposterous, but certain billionaires, some of whom look exactly like Maddox, are already testing stuff like that as you read this sentence. Anyway, going back to the plot, CJ’s final test, to see if he was truly emotionless, was killing Jeff with a crossbow.
Brian Blew Up Maddox’s Facility
Of course, CJ didn’t kill Jeff. He turned his crossbow towards Maddox and planted the arrow in his butt. That prompted Kurtz’s soldiers–the non-clone ones–to attack Jeff and CJ, who dispatched all of them with ease. However, they were blindsided by Kurtz, who pulled a gun on Jeff with the intention of killing. Just like before, Brian unintentionally created a distraction, which allowed Jeff to knock out Kurtz with one punch. In the ending of Playdate, Brian, Jeff, Lucas, and CJ walked out of the facility and then Jeff blew it up so that nobody could make more clones of him. That seemed quite conclusive, but after the blooper reel, we got a mid-credits scene where Jeff and CJ re-entered Brian’s life because more bad guys were after him. That made sense because blowing up a facility of a company that was making clones didn’t exactly mean that Jeff and Brian had destroyed Maddox’s whole enterprise. People like Maddox have facilities like that strewn all over the world, working simultaneously, so that if one establishment goes down, the machine doesn’t stop. Also, don’t we need to know what happened to Maddox, Kurtz, and all those clones? Did Jeff actually kill all of them? I very much doubt it. I think he set off that explosion to look cool in front of Brian, but maybe when Brian was stabilizing after crashing into the facility with his car, he slyly removed the bodies of Kurtz, Maddox, and their henchmen, and also freed the CJs.
Sequel Theories
Jeff is a very nice guy. While I can see him killing the adults, regardless of how heartless he thinks his clones are, I don’t think he has it in him to kill them all. He has first-hand experience of getting a clone of his to feel. So, why would he give up on the rest of them? However, it’s one thing to reform one clone, and a completely different thing to deal with an army of clones. Therefore, when Jeff told Brian that he and CJ needed to hunker down at his house because more bad guys were after them, maybe he was referring to those clones or the henchmen of the investors who were backing Maddox and Kurtz’s multi-million dollar venture. Who knows? Maybe even the government could be after Jeff because without the government’s support and supervision, Maddox and Kurtz couldn’t have done what they had done. Either way, if a sequel to Playdate actually happens, I think Emily will join Brian, Lucas, Jeff, and CJ in their efforts to bring down the US military industrial complex that was looking to use, or already using, Jeff’s clones. And through that tumultuous journey, both Brian and Jeff will probably learn how to be great dads to their respective sons. As somebody who had a great time watching this film, I am totally looking forward to several sequels. What about you? Let me know in the comments section below.
