M. Night Shyamalan is back with another twisted thriller. This one uses the intriguing setup of a serial killer trapped in a music concert to offer a look at what and why we love stories about people with a morally gray compass. Following Cooper Adams (played by Josh Harnett) and his daughter, the ending of “Trap (2024)” feels a tad bit implausible while you are watching the movie, but upon careful reconsideration, we get to a point where every single turn in the narrative actually feels like it could happen in the exact fashion that the American director leads us through.
In the following article, we will carefully maneuver through the film’s psychological undertone while also explaining what and why certain decisions are made by the film’s terrifying protagonist (?). Please be aware that this is going to be full of spoilers, so if you haven’t seen Trap (2024) yet, I would recommend proceeding with caution.
Trap (2024) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:
The film opens with our first introduction to the father-daughter duo of Cooper and Riley (Ariel Donoghue). Cooper is seen driving Riley to a music concert that he had promised to take Riley to in case she gets good grades at school. Lady Raven (Saleka Shyamalan), the teenage pop star that Riley is crazy about, is playing, and the two of them enter the stadium ready to have the experience of their lifetime.
Cooper has gotten Riley the best seats in the stadium, but we can see that his mind is also getting diverted because the police are seen securing every possible corner of the concert for some reason. At this point, we are not aware of what is going on, but when Cooper heads to the bathroom, punches a code on his phone, and monitors a captive man named Spencer (Mark Bacolcol) in some kind of basement, we doubt that he is up to something sinister.
As the concert security tightens, Cooper becomes more restless as Riley enjoys Lady Raven’s performance. We also learn that Riley recently had a tiff with one of her classmates, Jody, and her mother (Marnie McPhail) is also at the concert, trying to make amends with Cooper and Riley. Dodging her intrusive behavior, Cooper tries to charm his way to more inside info about what’s going on during one of the breaks during the concert. He takes Riley to get one of the t-shirts at the merchandise stands, but when the attendant Jamie (Jonathan Langdon) is not able to give her the one in her size, he asks Cooper to come back around after a while.
Who is ‘The Butcher’?
Cooper uses this casual interaction in his favor and introduces himself. He enquires about the police trucks and cameras being fitted at every nuke and corner of the establishment. This is where Jamie reveals that the police have tightened the security at the concert because they are trying to trap “The Butcher,” a serial killer who has been on a violent killing spree and that the police have gotten word that he will be at the concert.
Jamie also tells him that the entire concert is actually a trap for him, with all the employees, organizers, and Lady Raven herself being aware of his presence there. Since Jamie is one of those characters who just can’t keep things in his stomach, he accidentally also reveals that the police have covered up all the exits and the only way out is through the backstage. He also tells him that secret code that has been given to employees, which is ‘hamilton.’
If by this point it’s not clear to you, Cooper is ‘The Butcher.’ He is extremely anxious and on his toes because now he is aware that they (the police) are closing in on him, and he needs to find a safe way to get out soon while also letting his identity as the serial killer everyone is looking for a secret from his daughter who seems to be completely oblivious.
After learning the truth about what’s going on, Cooper starts sizing the place up for a possible way to get out. He tries to create distractions to see through possible getaway places but to no avail. So, when he goes down to Jamie to get the T-shirt, Jamie takes him to the storage closet to get it in Riley’s size. This is where Cooper steals Jamie’s employee key card, which he first uses to get into the briefing room, where all the soldiers are told about ‘The Butcher.’ He steals one of their walkie-talkies in order to get to the frequency of what communications and decisions are being made to corner him.
Who is the lady overseeing the entire operation of trapping ‘The Butcher’?
As soon as Cooper gets on the radio, he hears the old lady we have been seeing strutting along with the police patrol. She mentions her name is Dr. Josephine Grant (Hayley Mills), and it is clear that she is an expert in her field. We later learn that she is a profiler – an expert in serial killer cases with a track record of taking down 10 other killers like Cooper.
He learns this when he creates a distraction at the food stand by burning an employee with boiling oil in the kitchen. When he tries to see exits on the roof, he is cut short by gunned personnel. However, he gets away by showing them the card that was given to the employee at the presentation (he has that because he stole an apron before he got to the roof with an employee’s wallet in it) and telling them the code that Jamie had told him earlier.
Later, as he moves along the corridors, Riley catches on to him and enquires why he has been acting weird throughout the evening. He lies to her about being busy with Jody’s mom and promises to be with her for the rest of the evening. This is when Riley tells him that Lady Raven picks a random girl from the audience to perform alongside her for her song ‘Dreamer Girl,’ and Riley would be forever in awe if she chose her.
How does Cooper manage to get backstage?
Taking this idea as an opportunity, Cooper talks his way through The Spotter (a cool cameo by Shyamalan himself) by manipulating him into believing Riley has just recovered from Leukemia. The spotter, who is already enamored by Cooper’s nice-person persona, much like Jamie, asks the father-daughter duo to go backstage as Riley has been chosen for the ‘Dreamer Girl’ song by Lady Raven herself.
So, without much of a check from the authorities, Cooper manages to get backstage and watches his daughter have the best time of her life as he seizes things up. He is also able to set up a good face for himself by helping a girl who had fainted back in the green room. So, with all that in mind, the organizers allow the two of them to head backstage to have more fan interaction with the talent or simply allow them to take the back exit, which, according to Jamie, wouldn’t be checked.
However, that plan does not seem to work because the organizer tells Cooper and Riley that they would have to undergo a police inspection before exiting the door. So, Cooper changes his strategy quickly and asks Lady Raven to talk to him in private. There, he intimidates her by telling her that the trap that she and the authority had set for him is not going to stop him from leaving. He threatens her by saying that he is ‘The Butcher’ and that if she doesn’t cooperate and help him out of the stadium safely, he will be killing the captive that he has an eye on. He shows her the live camera footage and says that if she is not cooperative, he will release carbon monoxide into the room, instantly killing him.
How does Cooper escape the concert without getting caught by the police?
He asks her to make the police believe that Cooper and Riley are with her and that they will be going with her in her limousine, essentially bypassing the security check. His plan works, but Lady Raven, who has been on the case for a while, changes his plan. She asks Riley if she could come to her house. While Cooper had initially planned to get the limousine to drop them somewhere that’s safe for him, Lady Raven’s request is something he can’t dismiss because his daughter is so fond of her.
Now, as difficult as it might be for anyone to understand, Cooper ‘The Butcher’ has a family. Apart from Riley, he has a wife, Rachel (Alison Pill) & Logan (Lochlan Miller), and from the looks of it, none of them are aware that Cooper is the serial killer who has been killing people. They look like a perfectly perfect American family living in the suburbs, so they invite Lady Raven in for a bite.
We can see that Lady Raven plans to do something, but like Cooper, she is now making it up as she goes along. Since she is aware of Spencer (the guy who is kept captive in a basement somewhere), she wants to save him.
How did the FBI get to know that ‘The Butcher’ will be at the concert?
Now, a wee bit of Shyamalan exposition, Lady Raven sits down with the family and carefully narrates how ‘The Butcher’ was supposed to be at the concert because they found a part of a ticket to her concert at one of the safe houses the killer used. She also mentions that the killer has OCD, which helped the FBI decide that he drives a dark-colored car. They also know that he has a scarring relationship with his mother, who was the first to know he was different. Now, as she is revealing all this, Cooper gets agitates and tells Lady Raven that she must be tired from the concert and that she should leave. However, she asks the family if she can play a song on their home piano.
How does Lady Raven save Spencer?
Riley sits beside her, and Lady Raven sneaks her phone in her pocket. While all of this is happening, Cooper keeps pointing Lady Raven towards his phone. So, after the song is over, she snatches Cooper’s phone away from his hands and says that she wants to take a selfie with Riley. However, she gets up and goes into the family bathroom with Cooper’s phone, who is now super angry and keeps knocking on the bathroom door. Inside the bathroom, she unlocks Cooper’s phone to talk to Spencer, who gives her a few hints about where he could possibly be. Then, in typical Gen-Z fashion, and trust me when I say that it works within the film, she goes live and asks her fans if they live near the status of a broken lion (a hint that Spencer gave her). Surprisingly, one of her fans recognizes the hints and confirms that they can help.
By this time, Cooper, who has been knocking on the door, enters and takes his phone back. Only to realize that Lady Raven has somehow helped him escape. He then tells her to get into the car, where she tries to use psychological manipulation (possibly taught by the profiler, Dr. Josephine Grant) to make him stop what he is doing. For the first time, we see him vulnerable. He is able to see through the bullshit, but just when he is about to drive away in her wife’s car, he sees his family waiting for him outside the garage. He realizes that he has finally let his two lives slip into each other. Lady Raven is then able to take Cooper’s family away from him as he closes his garage and rushes inside while the S.W.A.T team arrives.
They surround the house, but he is able to escape through a secret passage that opens up to his neighbors’. But wait, that’s not all; as obvious as it can sound, Cooper somehow manages to get the driver out of Lady Raven’s Limousine and replace him. He then handcuffs her and starts driving to one of the many safe houses (vacant houses) he has managed to get because of his work in the fire department.
However, in an area that’s at a standstill because of the traffic, she is somehow able to slip away from the handcuff, open the window, and ask people who recognize her to call for the police. But, again, as the police arrive, there’s no sign of Cooper. We see him walking away from the crowd in a hoody that he found in the front seat of the vehicle. Lady Raven later goes to visit Jasper, who is now found and well.
Trap (2024) Movie Ending Explained:
Who was responsible for leading the police to Cooper at the concert
The final act of the film takes place back in Cooper’s house. After Dr. Grant bids goodbye to Rachel, who asked to stay alone when her children are dropped at her sister’s place, Cooper is back in the family’s kitchen. His reason is, of course, bigger than anything. Why else would he take the risk of getting caught?
He sits down on the kitchen table with a knife just beside him. He asks Rachel the question that must have been bothering him for long. How did the police know about him being at the concert? So he inquires about it with Rachel, who tells him that the first time she doubted something was off was when he would go out late at night and get her jewelry. She thought that he was having an affair, but it did not feel right, and her doubt diverted in another direction when she smelled cleaning fluid on his clothes – the cleaning fluid that was different than the one she used. She also got doubtful when he used to lie so convincingly as if making things up as they went along.
One day, she decided to follow him to one of his safe houses where he would go to think, and since she was somehow convinced of his dual identity, she dropped the receipt to the concert there and called the police. Cooper, who has now gotten the truth out of her, takes the knife he had brought to possibly kill her, but she insists that they finish the pie she had made for Riley for getting good grades.
So, he sits down to eat the pie and talks about why he is so angry at Rachel. However, as soon as he finishes the pie, he realizes that Rachel has gotten to the bag that he had left in the car and drugged his piece of pie.
Who is the old woman that Cooper keeps seeing throughout the movie?
In that state, he stands up, only to see his mother’s ghost (the one he saw a couple of times at the concert, too) on the door. Now, as we discussed earlier, Lady Raven used genuine authority to stop Cooper. This is because he had deeply seated mommy issues, and he sees her every now and then because it’s possible that she was abusive towards him when he was little, and whenever he has the urge to kill, he has faint rollbacks to his past.
Now, coming back, the ghost of his mother appears on his own doorstep now that he is about to kill Rachel and asks him to come closer to her, essentially diverging his attention from killing his wife. However, when he goes into the living room, he is tased by the police, with Dr. Grant appearing from the silhouette, pretending to be his mother.
Is the police able to catch Copper?
The ending of ‘Trap (2024)’ sees the police chaining Cooper and taking him away. Before he gets into the heavily guarded vehicle, he sees Riley’s fallen bike on the pathway and briefly bends down to put it up straight. This is when his children arrive. Riley briefly hugs him before rushing to her mother. Then, without resistance, he gets into the vehicle that leaves his house. This is where the Shyamalan twist arrives.
A zoom-in shot shows us the cycle, that he had just parked back, and that one of its spokes is missing. The spoke is, of course, hidden in Cooper’s sleeves, which he takes out to open his handcuffs. Later, he laughs at what he has just done.
Will Cooper escape? Knowing what he is capable of, I am sure he will. Now, the question arises of whether Shyamalan would take the story further by showing us another scenario of Cooper escaping things. I doubt it. Leaving the climax open-ended and not giving closure to the case is just his way of having fun with the premise at hand.
Does Trap (2024) have an end-credit scene?
In a goofy mid-credit scene, we see Jamie, the concert vendor, who unknowingly helps Cooper is watching television sitting on his couch at home. The news says that the violent serial killer known as ‘The Butcher’ has been identified. He freaks out when the headlines show Cooper’s face, making him exclaim, “I helped him! I helped him!” And “I ain’t talking to no one at work no more!”
While this scene does not reveal Cooper’s fate or whether this story will continue, it’s a funny way to end things.
