Thanksgiving ending explained: Who was the killer?

The 2023 horror/slasher film Thanksgiving released on Netflix on 17 February 2024, starts with a Black Friday sale that turns into a pandemonium as the crowd breaks into the store in rage. Multiple innocents get stamped and killed while people try to grab the items on discount. Jessica, the daughter of the store owner, and her friends enter the store first, seeking their VIP privilege, which triggers the crowd and they break in.

Even after a year, the entire community still remembers this catastrophe. Meanwhile, a masked assassin goes on the search and kills everyone involved in the previous year's Black Friday massacre, which claimed the lives of innocent people on Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving viewers were shocked after the final revelation which showed that the man in the uniform ~ Eric Newlon was the killer, the mastermind behind all the massacres.

The official synopsis of Thanksgiving as per Rotten Tomatoes reads as -

"After a Black Friday riot ends in tragedy, a mysterious Thanksgiving-inspired killer terrorizes Plymouth, Massachusetts -- the birthplace of the holiday. Picking off residents one by one, what begins as random revenge killings are soon revealed to be part of a larger, sinister holiday plan. Will the town uncover the killer and survive the holidays... or become guests at his twisted holiday dinner table?"

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Thanksgiving 2023 ending explained

Why did Newlon kill everyone?

At the end of the film, Jessica tries to flee from the not-so-festive Thanksgiving dinner to save her life after she and her friends untie themselves. When Bobby, her ex, removes the John Carver mask at the wrong moment, she initially believes that he is the murderer. She then reveals to Newlon that it is Bobby, who is the masked killer and has orchestrated all the butchering to date. All the officers then go on a Bobby hunt.

However, when Jessica looks at Officer Newlon’s boots later, she notices the same type of rubus on his boots. Jessica then gets a flashback of her escape and realizes that the killer had also struck down some plants while Jessica was trying to climb the fence. Connecting all the dots, she understands that it was Newlon, who was the killer all along. He stayed close to his victims and guided them to their deaths, and with the help of a mask, he killed one after another.

When she confronts Newlon about the same, he reveals that he wanted to punish her and her family because of last year's massacre as they were to blame for the deaths of many in the sale.

Newlon also reveals that he loved Amanda, who was going to leave Mitch, and come to him. She was also pregnant and carrying Newlon's child as we saw in one of the scans in the film. However, due to the negligence of Jessica, her family, and her friends, Amanda died at the store, as she got de-scalped with her skull nearly crushed.

After the confession, when Newlon is on the verge of killing Jessica to finish his revenge saga, she turns her phone towards him and shows him how she has broadcasted his confession live on the internet. Now the whole world knows who the man behind the John Carver mask is.

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Does Jessica live at the end of the movie?

Yes, Jessica lives at the end of the film. With the help of Bobby, who comes to play hero for her, she flees the scene. Before she leaves the scene unharmed, she shoots the inflated chicken, which lights up the whole place and Newlon goes down with the explosion. Jessica then escapes the scene with Bobby, in his truck, while the flames consume Newlon. However, we still do not know if Newlon is dead or just injured.

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Is Newlon really dead?

After a giant explosion like the one Jessica orchestrated, everyone believed Newlon to be dead. There was also no trace of his body. However, the final moments of the film showed a man in a firefighter mask, walking away from the scene. Jessica also had dreams of the masked killer, as the film concluded.

Was the man in the firefighter mask Newlon in disguise? Is his revenge saga not over? What do Jessica's nightmares hint at? Perhaps we will never know, or we may know if the filmmakers plan on a sequel hinting at the return of Newlon in his old disguise.

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Thanksgiving is now streaming on Netflix.