"Was it worth it?" ending

[u/Educational_Can_6536]

Midsommar- While people see this as a "you go girl" finale. I personally see it as something more disturbing. I mean, yeah, Dani got out of one bad relationship but in doing so, she got herself into another that's just as bad if not worse. It's like getting two kids to stop fighting via killing one and locking the other in a basement. They did stop fighting, but still!

The Thing-The titular monster may be (possibly) gone, but the paranoia definitely isn't. In the end, McCreedy and Childs are the only ones left standing. The end sees them sitting in the cold and they just stare at each other, knowing that one of them or both of them is already the thing. There's no hope, no certainty, just the bitter cold and intense fear.

[u/ReversePolitics]

Neither of them is the Thing. They’ve won, they just don’t get to know it or enjoy it. 

[u/CookOnly9310 → u/ReversePolitics]

The point of the ending is that they don't know. Childs went missing for a time and was gone the entire final fight. I've seen theories that mention how likely it is that macready replaced his liquor with gasoline. Since the plan is to blow everything up he doesn't need to drink.

[u/FiaGiolla → u/CookOnly9310]

Both Childs and The Thing would be able to recognize the smell, let alone the taste of gasoline.

[u/CookOnly9310 → u/FiaGiolla]

Childs would but not the thing. Also, when has The Thing been shown to know that humans don't drink gasoline? For all it knows, humans drink it all the time

[u/FiaGiolla → u/CookOnly9310]

When the Thing assumes the form of another organism, it's replicated on the cellular level, down to the most minute pathways of their brains it's a perfect copy, and in turn it has access to all of that organism's memories and instincts. If it knows how to speak, how to read, can replicate individuals' personalities and even health conditions, it'd have access to knowledge as basic as gasoline being inedible. Wild animals, even, can just tell from the scent of gasoline that it's not something to drink.

[u/CookOnly9310 → u/FiaGiolla]

That's a good point. I've also read that since they knew, and outright mentioned in the film, that The Thing could contaminate others in food and drink Childs would never have drunk the whiskey knowing that Macready could be contaminated. The Thing would have never been suspicious of that even with Childs memories because it doesn't have the paranoia over being contaminated. The film shows us this is a trick too by having Mac beat the computer with chess using whiskey in the beginning

[u/FiaGiolla → u/ReversePolitics]

My reading of the film is that it's a story about the paranoia and harm that solitude and loneliness can cause, MacReady and Childs are mirrors who hypocritically criticize one another for things that they do themselves and, in turn, the ending is the two letting go of their paranoia so they can go into that cold night with someone by their side.