Readers Guide for The Girls Before

Part 1: Above/Below

Below:

A kidnapped girl is shackled to a wall in a windowless room covered with writings done by other girls who came before her.

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Above:

Audrey Dixon is looking for a missing four-year-old. She and her team are confronted by Bill Butler, who brandishes a gun and says are on his land. Audrey sees an old oak tree with dozens of strings of white beads hanging from it. 

Audrey takes a matching string of beads out of her backpack. She found the beads on the windowsill the day her friend Janie disappeared.

The toddler is located in an old root cellar. One of Audrey’s team says that she’s lucky and whenever she’s on a search, the missing person is found.

Audrey thinks about Meghan, a student at the school where she works who’s been missing since January. As she’d been fighting with her parents, its assumed she ran away. 

Audrey talks to a new teacher, Dev, and ask him if he ever saw Megan with witch beads. He tells her there’s a true crime podcast called The Darker Half that had an episode on Jenny Red Hands and her beads.

Audrey listens to the podcast which explains the lore of Jenny, a girl from the 1800s who was accused of witchcraft. She was about to executed but managed to escape. Her followers leave white beads to represent the teeth she supposedly took from her victims and carve the names of the men who wronged them into a witch tree.

Audrey runs into Emily Hill and recalls going to a school dance with Emily, her brother Andrew and Janie.

Audrey asked Emily if she thinks that Bill Butler could’ve killed Megan. Emily says that Bill is overly suspicious and just watching his brother Terry’s place while he is in the hospital. Emily offers to take Audrey onto the Butler land.

Audrey turns the podcast back on and Meghan is being interviewed for it. She claims to have seen Jenny.

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Below

The girl evaluates her cell, trying to figure out something she could use to escape. She starts trying to remove the bolts from the base of the toilet. 

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Above

Audrey meets Emily and they look at the Witch Tree. All the beads there are old. They see the root cellar where the missing toddler was found. Nearby is a tree with a handprint outlined in red paint, and a design gouged in the bark.

Audrey and Emily go back to Emily‘s for coffee. Emily, now an artist, asks about Janie. Audrey says they were friends for three years. They had a falling out when they were fifteen. Janie started hanging out with boys and drinking and said Audrey was boring. Then she was gone.

Emily’s sister Melinda arrives. She and Audrey discuss that Melinda brought an unconscious Janie to Audrey’s house a year before she ran away.

Audrey goes to visit Terry Butler in the hospital. He says he had to sell his land to the Hill family, and that he might have seen Meghan

Audrey speaks to Ethan, the host of the podcast. Meghan claims to have been in the woods, where she saw Jenny Red-Hands, who disappeared into the mist.  He says the Jenny Red-Hands story seems to be a myth which popped up after a local put up a casting notice in town for a movie called The Witch With Red Hands. 

Audrey heads to Meghan’s house. Her dad seems indifferent to her disappearance. Audrey asks if she can see Meghan’s room and finds Meghan’s diary.

Then Audrey goes to see Emily and accuses her of being the witch that Meghan described in her diary.  Something happened to Emily years ago after a homecoming dance: Audrey left Emily there alone. Emily tells her to stop looking for Meghan.

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Below

The captive woman continues to use the toilet bolt to try to break the chain. She misses and knocks her tooth out, then loses her bolt.

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Above

Audrey and Dev go to a celebration of the SAR team’s success. Audrey has a run-in with Andrew Miller, and she recalls that she slept with Andrew after Janie dumped her as a friend. Dev asks Audrey if she’s okay and she says she’s been looking into Meghan’s disappearance. She talks to Bill, who says that Andrew has been looking after Terry’s land, not him. 

Dev and Audrey take Barry out to the witch tree. Barry bolts and signals to them. Then he bolts again. He has found a door. 

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Below

The captive woman is able to break the chain. But the door is locked. 

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Above

Audrey cuts the padlock and opens the door. She hears a voice. 

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Below

The door opens and it’s a woman. Melinda. 

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Above

Dev and Audrey go into the bunker. There are red handprints and writing on the walls. Barry signals that there are also remains. 

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Part II: Before/After

Before

Andrew, Liam, and Melinda are in the bunker. They realize that their father kept people in there. Melinda says if they call the police they will all be ruined. Emily joins them. 

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After

Audrey wonders if Emily had something to do with the bunker. They go talk to Len, who says that they should talk to Chief Wagner in the morning.

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Before

The woman can hear the siblings arguing. Emily brings her food and water and she tells Emily that her name is Stranger. The siblings’ father died, which is why he stopped coming to the basement. They leave her down there while they figure out what to do.

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After

The next morning, Audrey is looking up missing women. Amanda Dennis, Madison Sebold, Isabel Whipple all have pale skin and red hair. Audrey wonders if Mason Hill was the one who kept women there. The police chief brushes them off, saying it’s just graffiti. 

She goes home and Andrew shows up. He claims that Terry’s father built the bunker and kids used to play down there. 

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Before

The siblings bring Stranger food. She asks if they are going to let her go and they say of course. Mason told Stranger all about his kids. Stranger tells them that their father offered her a ride and then strangled her until she blacked out.

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After

Audrey prepares to dig for a body in the spot Barry signaled. Dev arrives and offers to help her. Just as they see a flashlight approaching, they find bones. Emily arrives, saying they should go, because Andrew called the police. 

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Before

Melinda arrives in the bunker with a camping lantern and medical supplies. Stranger tells Melinda that no one is looking for her. That she was staying at a shelter called Hope’s Hands. Melinda is horrified: that was her mother’s charity. Stranger realizes that she’s made a mistake and she knows which of the siblings she has to convince to let her escape.

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After

Dev and Audrey get arrested. In their cell, they discuss the body. It can’t be Meghan but could be Janie. Audrey thinks Meghan found the bunker. 

Melinda shows up and acts all upset that the land the family just bought has a body on it. She tells them she won’t press charges but they need to leave her family alone.

Dev tells her it’s over. Len drives her home. He gets a call that another body was discovered. 

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Before

Liam comes to see Stranger. He tells her his father changed after Liam’s mom died. She cries and he leaves. 

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After

Kenny brings Barry home. He tells Audrey she can keep digging but she has to find a different approach. Audrey realizes that she used to call Janie “stranger.” She’s sure that Meghan saw Emily in the woods. Also, Janie dated Andrew.

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Before

Emily and Liam show up and cut Stranger’s shackle. They take her outside and to their house. She takes a shower and Emily gives her clothes. Then Liam locks both of them inside the house.

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After

Audrey researches the Hills and their charity for wayward young women. She can’t understand why the Hills hid Emily away. She heads to the Hill’s house and eavesdrop on them talking about a promise they made. Chief Wagner calls.

Audrey starts to leave but Liam is sitting on the hood of her car. He says that it must be Terry who killed the women, though admits that Terry and his dad were friends. Audrey asks Liam about Meghan and begs him to talk to Emily about her.

The FBI interviews Audrey and tells her they have identified one body: Amanda Dennis.

Audrey runs into Emily, who says her family will claim that they are shocked about the bodies. Also, the police found trophies from the victims in Terry’s attic. Emily begs Audrey to stop looking for Meghan Vale. 

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Before

Emily comes up with breakfast. She tells Stranger they both look like her mother. 

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After

Audrey decides to investigate Emily and messages some of her classmates at the Savannah College of Art and Design. One of them, Marie Hiscock, was Emily’s roommate. Marie says Emily was socially awkward and freaked out by sex. After Emily’s father died, she never returned to school. Her sister came to pack up her things and said she was in a car accident. 

Audrey looks up the accident: Liam was driving. Marie sends some photos of Emily.  Audrey reads a news report on the press conference and someone leaves a message saying “They’re lying. Butler didn’t do it.” The message disappears.

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Before

Liam comes to see Stranger. He’s drunk. He tells her he has to leave but that Melinda has a plan to give her a new identity.They sleep together and Emily catches them.

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After

Liam calls Audrey. He’s drunk and rambling that it was too late and they couldn’t stop and have it all be for nothing. She calls Melinda and then goes to Emily’s studio. Emily painted all the girls: Madison, Amanda, Isabel.  Emily has a diary that ends with “we can’t let her go.” She tells Audrey “they did what they had to do.”

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Spoilers and The Ending Explained of The Girls Before

Before

Emily brings Stranger food and tells her the story of Jenny Red Hands. She leaves the door unlocked and Stranger is able to escape. But then outside, Emily, clearly unhappy that Stranger slept with Liam, hits Stranger on the head with a hammer.

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After

Melinda shows up. Audrey is reading the diary. Emily knew about the girls. On homecoming night she had to walk home alone and saw her father in the woods. She kept his secret, even helped him. But Melinda found out. And then Meghan found out.

Emily says she killed Emily Hill. Uh….. WHAT?

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Before

But Stranger is not dead; Emily is chasing her. Stranger trips Emily and hits her over and over. She tells Melinda that Emily knew they were down there.

Melinda also knew: she found out about her father kidnapping girls when she saw him burying one.

Emily tried to convince her to stay quiet. But Melinda decided to poison her father with an overdose of his heart medicine.

Melinda doesn’t want anyone to know. They both know that this girl, the one who looks like Emily, needs to stay alive.

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Part III: Here/Now

Audrey asks “Emily” who she is, and she says Stranger.

Melinda convinced her brothers that she’d accidentally killed Emily and that the best way to cover it up was to let Stranger be Emily.

They staged a car accident to explain the fact that “Emily: looked slightly different.

When Meghan found the bunker, they gave her a new identity. But now Meghan feels betrayed. She might have gone after Andrew.

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Melinda, Emily/Stranger, and Audrey find Andrew pointing a gun at Meghan.

Emily/Stranger tells Meghan that she promised to stay quiet. But Meghan doesn’t want the family to get away with everything.

Melinda tells Andrew that Liam OD’d and is dead.

Andrew suggests they kill Audrey and blame it all on Emily/Stranger. They can say that she took over after their dad. Except that “Emily” isn’t Emily.

Andrew points the gun at Stranger, but Melinda steps in and gets shot dead.

Audrey tells Meghan to run. Andrew turns the gun on Audrey, but she tackles him. Stranger bites his arm. He tries to strangle Audrey.

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Barry breaks out of the car and clamps his jaws on Andrew’s leg. Andrew hits Barry with a rock, but Barry grabs his throat. Audrey orders him to release. Stranger shoots Andrew in the head. 

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Audrey is helped by Stranger. She tries to tell Stranger that she recognizes her as Janie, but Stranger says no, Janie was already dead when she was put in the bunker.

Stranger kisses Audrey and says “You’ll be fine, Audrey.” Or did she say Oddity, the nickname Janie used to call her?

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Neither Meghan nor Stranger has been located. Audrey is still trying to decide if Stranger was Janie. She and Dev discuss it and she says that it’s been years and Stranger had surgery. Maybe it was Janie. But either way, she found her.

Epilogue

Stranger and Meghan are together. The night that Stranger slept with Andrew, Andrew realized that she was Janie. He didn’t want it to be true. Liam didn’t know. Melinda might have.

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Well, that was a lot. Here’s what I THINK happened.

The TL; DR for The Girls Before

The condensed version sounds a bit bonkers, but here goes. If you think I got something wrong, please leave me a comment.

• The captive girl was Janie, who then pretended to be Emily.
• Her captor was Mason Hill, the siblings’s father.
• After his wife died, Mason lost it and started kidnapping girls that looked like his wife (and daughters.)
• Mason might have also used his wife’s charity to find his victims.
• On homecoming night, when Emily got ditched by Andrew, Janie and Audrey, she walked home alone and saw her father at the bunker.
• Then Melinda found out and poisoned their father
• After that I guess they went to the bunker and found Stranger
• Melinda wanted to give Stranger a bus ticket and new identity (through her mom’s charity) but then Liam slept with Stranger and Emily found out.
• Emily lost it and tried to kill Stranger, but Stranger killed Emily
• Then Melinda convinced her brothers to let Stranger pretend to be Emily (I guess they were both artists?)
• Stranger/Emily became a weird recluse who painted the girls from the bunker
• Meghan stumbled on the bunker and Stranger/Emily wanted to help her. Stranger/Emily told her the story of the girls.
• Meghan shows up and Andrew pulls a gun on her. It’s a mess: Andrew, who wants to frame Audrey, is waving the around and Melinda gets shot and killed. Barry the dog attacks Andrew. Stranger shoots him.
• Stranger says goodbye to Audrey, who is convinced that Stranger is Janie.
• Meghan and Stranger/Emily/Janie vanish.

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