Readers Guide for Someone Knows

So Elizabeth frantically tries to figure out who the mysterious Hannah could be:

• She looks up the obituary of the man she killed: Damon Sawyer. His wife Candice died recently.
• She searches for her other friend, Ivy, who is now a social worker. But she can’t find Jocelyn.
• Elizabeth is able to trace Hannah’s IP address to Louisiana, where she grew up.
• So Elizabeth buys a prepaid cell phone and calls Ivy, who confesses that the only person she told was a priest.
• But Elizabeth also told someone: her mom.
• She flies back to Louisiana and visits her old school and the cheap motel where the crime was committed.

Now things get really weird:

Elizabeth goes to a bar where she has bathroom sex with a younger guy named Noah. Then she finds out his last name is Sawyer. Yes, she just slept with the guy whose dad she killed. Okay…

She still proceeds to hook up with Noah quite a few times. Then he invites her back to his place …which is his parents’ place.

Hannah’s chapters detail the abuse suffered by Jocelyn. Let’s just say Mr. Sawyer is a weird guy in addition to being a sex abuser. He likes Jocelyn to kneel and read her creative writing as foreplay. Then he whips her.

Well, I was (sort of) expecting this:

Elizabeth gets her high school yearbook and we learn that she IS Jocelyn.

But Elizabeth’s name is not Jocelyn. That was the alias Mr. Sawyer made her use for their motel hook-ups. Jocelyn was his mother’s name.

Elizabeth talks to a doctor who seems to suggest that she has dissociative identity disorder caused by the abuse she suffered. Her mother, who has been unwell, passes away.

Noah tells Elizabeth that his sister died at age four and that his mom was deeply depressed after his dad died.

Another Bombshell

Ivy says she was abused by Mr Sawyer too.

Elizabeth sneaks into Noah’s house, forces him to kneel, and whips him. (Sorry, yes.)

She notices Noah is wearing a St Agnes medal, something Mr. Sawyer gave her. Could Noah be Hannah?

Elizabeth goes to the hospital to pick up her mother’s things, which include Noah’s business card. He’s a reporter.

She Googles Noah and learns that he recently got a publishing contract for a book called The Secret.

Yes, it gets worse. Elizabeth searches Noah’s house and finds a stack of Polaroids of women his father abused. One of them is her.

Noah shows up, and Elizabeth screams at him, accuses him of being Hannah. He claims he has absolutely no idea what she’s talking about. He shocked that she was one of his father‘s “affairs”. She said it wasn’t an affair: it was abuse.

Someone Knows: The Ending Explained

Elizabeth tells Noah she killed his father by hitting him with a lamp. Noah said his father died of asphyxiation. What?

A lawyer shows up with a copy of her mother‘s will, plus a letter, which Elizabeth throws in the trash.

Noah shows up again. He wants to talk to her. He says he has no idea that she was one of his father‘s victims. He said she can have the Polaroids.

Elizabeth finds her journal. Her mother had it all along! Elizabeth’s mother knew everything. She’s the one who killed Mr. Sawyer, not Elizabeth. (She must have done it after Elizabeth hit him with the lamp.)

Ten months later, Elizabeth is feeling better. She’s in therapy. She’s been going on a date with Noah.

And of course, unbeknownst to Elizabeth, Noah is actually Hannah. Hannah Greer Sawyer is his late sister’s name. And his upcoming book is about his secret affair with Elizabeth. What? Ick.

My take: this was too twisted for me.

• I did suspect that Elizabeth and Jocelyn were the same person, after Jocelyn couldn’t be located at all.
• I wouldn’t have trusted Noah at all.