Crystal Lake’s Ending, Explained: How Episode 8 References the Friday the 13th Sequel
Find out what happens in Episode 8 of the Friday the 13th prequel series, "The Final Chapter."
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**SPOILER WARNING! Major plot spoilers below for Crystal Lake **
Peacock and A24' Crystal Lake is streaming now, and the eight-episode Friday the 13th prequel series unfurls a new backstory for horror icons Pamela Voorhees (Linda Cardellini) and her son, Jason Voorhees (Callum Vinson).
Crystal Lake Episode 8, "The Final Chapter," closes with major revelations and bittersweet vindication for Pam. Did we mention the massive bloodshed? Yeah, that’s a big part of the events that unfold. It also makes two prominent references to Friday the 13th Part 2.
Keep reading to unpack everything that happened in the season finale.
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How does Crystal Lake end? Killer Jason is revealed
In the Crystal Lake season finale, Jason's narcissistic biological father Elias Wittering (Hamish Linklater) and his henchmen track Pam to the police station, where she's holed up with Chief Levon Brooks (William Catlett) and his sister, reporter Briana Brooks (Devin Kessler). Levon and Elias face off before a tense shootout, but Officer Dorf (Cameron Scoggins) kinda-sorta saves the day with a throwing star. Maybe there's hope for him and Rita (Joy Suprano) after all. But Elias makes off with Pam in the chaos.
Pam, Jason, and Elias have an impromptu woodsy reunion, with Jason wearing the one-eyehole mask he appears in during Friday the 13th Part 2. Furious about the abuse inflicted upon him by his father and the scientists at the Bellflower company, Jason gets face-to-face with the man who subjected him to radioactive testing in utero. Jason crushes Wittering’s head into a satisfying mush.
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Jason puts his burlap sack mask back on and turns to face his mother. She apologizes to her son, who has grown much bigger, for not protecting him from Wittering and everyone else who tortured him as a child.
Pam begs for his forgiveness, she hallucinates Callum Vinson's child version of Jason granting it to her. Weeping, she asks him to “Come to mommy,” but when she attempts to embrace him, the real Jason puts her in a brutal one-handed chokehold. He glares at her through the sack's eyehole as she sputters that she loves him. Her plea triggers good memories of his life with his mom, when it was just the two of them against the world.
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Does Jason die at the end of Crystal Lake?
No, only Jason's father Elias and a few of his henchmen die in the finale, adding to the show's total body count. As Episode 7 explained, the experiments Jason underwent as a child rendered him seemingly indestructible.
With Pam still in his grasp, Jason falls backwards after a bullet strikes him. Ralph (Nick Cordileone) emerges with a shotgun and Pam wrestles him to get control of the gun. When she looks for Jason, he’s gone. Ralph is stunned by this maniacally triumphant version of Pam.
Pam mutters to no one in particular, “You can't hurt him. None of you can. Not anymore. Jason is strong. My son is stronger than anybody ever gave him credit for. You better just stay away. Stay away from the lake. And the camp. These woods are ours now.”
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The Crystal Lake epilogue is a callback to Friday the 13th Part 2
At the very end of Episode 8, the camera pans over the camp, the town and the lake, where all is quiet. In the woods at night, Steve Christy (Dan Thompson), the son of the Camp Crystal Lake owners, holds court around a campfire with what looks like new camp counselors.
He tells them, "It all started when that kid drowned last summer. I'll never forget the sound of his mom screaming. Ever since then it's like someone put a curse on this town. You started to realize that folks would go into these woods and never come out. The cops would find them in pieces. Or cut open like pigs."
"There's something in these woods," Steve Christy continues. "People say it's the ghost of Jason Voorhees, angry at everyone who thought he was a freak, and let him drown. But whatever's really out there, it's not a kid. It's probably not even human. And all it knows how to do is kill."
His dire speech offends one of the girls because it's callous to those who died, and she stomps away with Steve chasing her and apologizing. Of the two people left at the fire, one asks, "There's no way any of it's true, though. Right?” A twig snaps, and: Cut to black.
The speech sequence is a riff on a scene from Friday the 13th Part 2, which is set in 1984. In that film, Paul Holt (John Furey) runs a new camp counselor training facility near Crystal Lake. In the same manner around a campfire, he tells the legend of Jason Voorhees to his new recruits.
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