Here by popular demand: Final Girls by Riley Sager. There’s a lot to talk about. Welcome to my Spoiler Discussion and Plot Summary for Final Girls by Riley Sager
Spoiler Discussion and Plot Summary for Final Girls by Riley Sager
First I’ll run down the plot and then I’ll give you my questions and observations. I hope you’ll join in the discussion!
Final Girls has a past/present narrative structure. Quincy, the sole survivor of a mass murder, has amnesia and can’t remember what happened that night, so the “past” flashbacks feature Quincy slowly piecing together her memories of that night.
Pine Cottage Flashback: Quincy is running through the woods, fleeing an unknown assailant. Everyone else is dead and she’s the only one left.
Present: Quincy is in her New York City kitchen, baking. Her boyfriend Jeff calls, saying his flight home from a business trip to Chicago is delayed. Coop calls and asks her to meet him at their usual spot, the American Museum of Natural History. Coop is the cop who rescued her from Pine Cottage. Quincy has amnesia and can’t remember the incident. Coop is here to tell her that Lisa, another Final Girl, is dead. On the way out of the museum cafe, Quincy steals a woman’s phone. She lives off money from a lawsuit paid out by the psychiatric hospital that treated the guy who tried to kill her.
Three Final Girls, Lisa, Samantha and Quincy, were supposed to appear together on Oprah, but the night before, Quincy blacked out and trashed her kitchen and her mom made her cancel. After that she got put on Xanax.
Quincy thinks it’s strange that Lisa used a knife to slash her wrists when that was the weapon that almost killed her. She looks at Lisa’s Facebook page and sees a photo of Lisa with a mysterious dark haired girl. There’s also a message on Lisa’s Facebook from a girl named Jade.
Pine Cottage Flashback: Quincy is at Pine Cottage with Janelle, Craig, Amy, Rodney and Betz.
Present: Late in the evening, Jeff comes back from his trip. His case isn’t going well and Quincy doesn’t want to talk about Lisa. They argue and Quincy gets out of bed to check her email. There’s a message from Lisa, sent an hour before she died, saying that she needs to talk to Quincy about something important. Quincy sends Coop a message that she needs to talk to him. Jonah, a reporter, accosts Quincy outside her building tries to get an interview. Samantha, the third Final Girl, also shows up outside Quincy’s building.
Sam, Lisa and Quincy never met in person, and Sam says she’s been hiding out. Sam and Quincy bake together and Quincy photographs Sam for her blog. Sam stays for dinner and grills Jeff about being a public defender who represents criminals. Quincy pulls him aside and they argue, during which time Sam slips out.
Late that night, Sam calls, saying she has been arrested. Jeff and Quincy go to the precinct, where Sam tells them she was trying to break up a domestic abuse situation in a bar. Jeff convinces the police to release her. They bring Sam back to their apartment and she tells Quincy that she ought to revisit Pine Cottage to try and remember that night.
Pine Cottage Flashback: The group explores the woods and Betz tells them a couple died there while camping and their murder is unsolved. A stranger named Joe shows up, saying his car broke down.
Present: The next morning Sam has picked the lock of Quincy’s secret drawer and found the stolen phone. Then Sam and Quincy take Xanax and go shopping. Sam encourages Quincy to shoplift.
A random guy asks them to sign a tabloid with a photo of the two of them. Quincy drags Sam to the newspaper office to confront Jonah, the reporter. He tells Quincy not to trust Sam and then drops his research folder with pictures of Pine Cottage. Quincy throws up and Jeff has to come and get her.
Coop calls and says he’s coming to New York meet Sam. That night, Quincy and Sam go to Central Park where they save a woman who is being attacked. The next day, they go the Natural History Museum to meet Coop.
After coffee, Coop walks them back to Quincy’s apartment, where a crowd is gathered. News is out about Lisa, whose was wine was drugged before she was killed.
Quincy tells Coop about Lisa’s email and he’s upset that she didn’t tell him sooner. Coop meets Jeff. Later that night Jeff tells Quincy that he has to return to Chicago for his case.
That night Sam and Quincy go back to Central Park, where Quincy walks dangling a decoy purse. A guy accosts her, asking for money, and Quincy beats him until Sam pulls her off him. Quinn wants to go to the police and report the incident but Sam convinces her not to.
They go home and Quincy rinses off blood which reminds her of Pine Cottage. Sam offers to dispose of the bloody clothes. Quincy realizes that she dropped the purse in the park and goes back for it, only to find police and crime scene tape. The next day, a police officer calls and asks Quincy to come in.
Pine Cottage Flashback: Quincy is in the hospital after the Pine Cottage murders. She insists she can’t remember anything. The police suggest that the murderer was an escaped patient from a psychiatric hospital and say that Coop shot him. The police seem puzzled about why Quincy survived.
Present: Quincy goes to the precinct, where an officer asks her about a purse they recovered near the assault scene. Quincy says that while walking with Sam, she was mugged of the purse but the man ran off. Then the detective casually mentions that Sam has a police record that includes a traffic stop in a Indiana a month ago. That is where and when Lisa died.
Pine Cottage Flashback: The group is having a fancy dinner and Janelle is flirting with Joe.
Present: Jeff notices an injury on Quincy’s hand from her beating the mugger. She calls Coop and tells him she’s in trouble. She messages Jonah and says she is ready to talk.
Jonah tells her they went to college together but she doesn’t remember him. He wants information on Sam and Quincy tells him that Sam’s alias is Tina Boyd. He tells her that Sam called the press when she arrived in New York. Quincy is angry and waves a knife at Sam.
The police tell Quincy that a witness saw them smoking and another witness saw Quincy washing blood off her hand. She encourages Quincy to tell the truth and Quincy says that she is. Quincy confronts Adam about being in Indiana and decides that. Sam might be the dark haired woman drinking wine with Lisa in then Facebook photo.
Quincy accompanies Jeff on his Chicago trip. While he’s working she drives to Indiana and speaks to the police officer in charge of Lisa’s case. In Lisa’s house, Quincy looks at photos in Lisa’s room, including one of her with someone’s hand on her. that person is wearing a red ring. She also finds Lisa’s research folders on her and Sam. In her folder are news articles are out other area murders and also a copy of the threatening note Quincy received. She steals the folder.
Pine Cottage Flashback: the police are questioning Quincy. She admits having sex the night of the murders. The police are definitely suspicious about her answers and her claims of amnesia.
Present: In the folder Quincy also finds letters from the officers who investigated her case, saying they thought she wasn’t being honest. Also a note from her mom to Lisa.
Quincy calls her mom and angrily interrogates her. Based on her mom’s description of her phone call with Lisa, Quincy thinks that Sam is the one who spoke to her mother.
Pine Cottage Flashback: Craig and Quincy start to have sex but Quincy tells him to stop.
Present: Quincy returns to New York and finds Sam in her apartment making out with Coop.
Pine Cottage Flashback: Quincy finds Craig having sex with Janelle.
Present: Sam says that the police came looking for Quincy so she called Coop for advice. Shen he came over she seduced him.
Pine Cottage Flashback: Quincy sleeps with Joe.
Present: Quincy meets with Coop and they sleep together.
Pine Cottage Flashback: Quincy is still furious about Craig and Janelle and grabs a knife. Joe finds her with it in the woods and tells her he understands her anger but that she should go home.
Present: Jonah texts Quincy asking her to meet. He tells her that Tina Stone and Sam are two different people. Tina killed her abusive stepfather. Tina was also a patient at Blackthorn, the same psychiatric hospital as Joe, the missing patient who ended up at Pine Cottage.
Pine Cottage Flashback: Craig comes running out of the woods yelling, telling Quincy to run.
Present: Quincy goes home and searches Sam’s room. She starts to feel strange and realizes she has been drugged. Someone put something in her grape soda.
TINA Flashback: Tina gets out of Blackthorn and decides to impersonate Sam. She goes to met with Lisa.
The Final Girls by Riley Sager Ending Explained
Present: Quincy starts to wake up and realizes Tina/Sam has driven her back to Pine Cottage in the hopes that Quincy will remember what happened.
Quincy tells Tina she doesn’t remember anything. She manages to text Coop for help. Quincy says that she knows that Tina killed her stepfather and was sent to Blackthorn. That she thinks Tina is just trying to protect women. Tina forces Quincy to say Joe’s name. She realizes that Tina was at Pine Cottage that night. Did Tina help Joe kill her friends?
Quincy finally remembers what happened. She remembers Amy asking Craig about her. She remembers Rodney telling her they have to go. Craig and Betz tried to drive away but Craig crashed the car. Someone pulled Craig out of the car.
Who Was the Killer in Final Girls by Riley Sager?
Quincy realizes that Joe was not the killer. It was Coop, who arrives just as Quincy figures this out and shoots Tina. Quincy realizes that it was Coop’s red class ring that she saw in the photo in Lisa’s room. Coop says he has always wondered how much Quincy remembers, but that he always loved her. He was the one who killed the campers near the cabin.
It seems that the Pine Cottage is near where Coop grew up. He says he was ashamed that he’d lost his virginity to the “school slut” and wanted to kill her afterwards. That his urge to kill is a sickness. He killed a hitchhiker, and the campers as well.
On the night of the cabin murders, Coop was supposed to be hunting for Joe. Coop saw Quincy carrying the knife and followed her, then saw Craig and Janelle having sex. He didn’t kill Quincy because she was “special.” He admired Final Girls. He wrote the threatening letter to Quincy because she was moving on with her life and he wanted to draw her back.
Lisa realized Joe wasn’t physically capable of killing the guys at the cabin and began to suspect Coop. So he killed her. He also knew that Tina wasn’t the real Samantha because he killed Samantha after finding her to be “chubby and weak.”
As Coop asks Quincy to run away with him, Tina regains consciousness and pushes her knife toward Quincy. When Coop starts to kiss her she stabs him.
Four months later: Tina has to go to jail for fraud and she also confesses to Rocky’s assault. Quincy and Jeff are broken up. Quincy stops taking Xanax and gets a survivor tattoo. When she reads about another Final Girl she goes to meet her.
Who Were the Suspects in Final Girls?
Let’s go over all the suspects! Here’s who I was side-eyeing in order of suspiciousness:
Quincy, to me, was the biggest red herring. Her amnesia, combined with her impulse and emotional regulation issues (trashing her kitchen before Oprah, violently beating the guy in the park) seemed designed to make the reader think that, after Craig and Janelle betrayed her, she snapped.
Jeff: this would have been even more surprising than the killer being Coop. His mysterious business trips
Coop: He wasn’t my #1 suspect, but I did get a weird vibe from him right off. Why was he constantly driving to New York to check on Quincy. It was a bit strange to me.
Sam/Tina: another good red herring, though it didn’t make sense until the end as to why Sam would have killed Quincy’s friend or Lisa. If Sam/Tina’s connection to Joe was revealed sooner, this might have worked better.
Jonah: I did consider him at one point, though there wasn’t much to back that theory up.
Jade: She was the one who left message on Lisa’s Facebook and then just sort of vanishes.
Who were you suspicious of? Be sure to let me know in comments!
Clues in Final Girls
Coop’s “red ring” photo in Lisa’s room. This was a huge clue that I missed.
Coop living in Pennsylvania – but since he was the police officer on scene at Pine Cottage, it wasn’t that weird. Plus, I wasn’t really sure where Pine Cottage actually was.
Spoiler Discussion for Final Girls
My Questions About Final Girls
Final Girls is a classic “woman in jeopardy” thriller and I thought overall it did a pretty good job. I thought Coop was weird but I didn’t think he was the killer.
The “Final Girls” theme was a very interesting one, but in the end, the police were right. It didn’t make sense that Quincy survived, and the only reason she did was because Coop suddenly fell in love with her after seeing her running through the woods with a knife. Quincy was only a Final Girl because Coop allowed her to be.
The Craig-Janelle-Quincy love triangle was confusing to me. Quincy didn’t seem that into Craig, but as soon as he dropped her for Janelle, she’s running around with a knife? I don’t think Quincy’s amnesia and extreme anger were explained that well. Were they both due to her shock at a police officer being the killer?
Why didn’t Coop take the evidence in Lisa’s room (the folders and the photo that included his hand)?
Quincy is living off money won in a lawsuit against Blackthorn, which assumes that Joe is the killer. Does Quincy have to give the money back?
PLEASE join the discussion. This is my first Riley Sager book, so I’d also like to know what other titles you recommend!
Want to see a list of my most popular spoiler posts? You can find them here, on Armchair Book Club!
I enjoyed Final Girls! I didn’t have a good guess going into it who had massacred Quincy’s friends, only that I didn’t think it was Quincy. Kept me entertained until the end! My review is coming soon on Instagram!
Same – I think it is one of his best!
I didn’t love this book. Quincy comes off as weak the way she lets Sam bully her into things. I found it a bit ridiculous and had to skip ahead. I never suspected Quincy. I was between Sam and Coop