Wildwood ends with Prue pulling her baby brother away from a villain’s knife using a power she only just discovered. The battle for the forest, a family secret, and Alexandra’s plan all collide in the final act.
Spoilers ahead
What Happens in the Wildwood Ending?
Prue’s rescue mission turns into a war. Her allies include the General, the giant golden eagle who leads the Avian Principality, the mystic Iphigenia, and the Bandit King Brendan, voiced by Mahershala Ali. Curtis breaks out of Alexandra’s cages with a talking rat named Septima and a coyote named Dmitri, then brings the other prisoners into the fight.
Everyone converges on an ivy-choked ruin where Alexandra is preparing her sacrifice. The climax is a full-scale battle with Alexandra’s coyote army, and a number of characters we’ve gotten to know do not survive it.
In the middle of the chaos, Prue discovers she can command plants the way the mystics can. She uses that gift to pull Mac out of Alexandra’s reach. The danger to Mac is over, but the forest still has to deal with what the war left behind.
Why Aoes Alexandra Want Mac?
Alexandra believes Mac can bring her dead son back. The film opens with the death of Alexandra’s son, Alexei, whose body ends up covered in ivy and can’t be recovered. She plans to sacrifice Mac with a special knife to wake the forest’s ivy and force it to give up her son’s remains.
Mac was chosen long before the crows showed up. Prue learns that her parents could only have her and Mac by making a bargain with Alexandra, and the price was the second child.
That twist turns a rescue into something heavier, since the adults who were supposed to protect Mac were the ones who traded him. Alexandra also tricks Prue along the way. She’s a mother wrecked by grief, and the film plays her that way.
What Does Prue’s Power Mean?
It marks her as someone who belongs to Wildwood too. Outsiders aren’t supposed to get into the forest, but Prue walks in and the ivy parts for her without a fight. That’s the early clue, and the plant power is the payoff.
I think the closing image of a sprout in her palm is the confirmation that the forest comes home with her. Prue starts the film ignoring her parents’ rules and ends it with something she can’t explain to anyone in Portland.
Why Does Curtis Stay in Wildwood?
Curtis becomes somebody in the forest. He starts as a gamer tagging along behind Prue. Alexandra drafts him into her coyote army and orders him to put a sword to a fallen soldier, and he can’t do it.
After he turns on her, he spends the middle of the film imprisoned, then leads a rebellion. For a kid who only played at being a hero in his role-playing games, that’s a huge shift. I think going home would mean going back to being the sidekick, so he stays where he’s needed.
How Does The Ending Compare to the Novel?
The book ends in a similar place, with Prue going home with Mac while Curtis stays behind to start a new life as a bandit. In the novel, Brendan shoots Alexandra with an arrow and the ivy consumes her, then Brendan commands it to go dormant.
The film puts Prue’s plant powers at the center of Mac’s rescue. Colin Meloy’s story continues with Under Wildwood and Wildwood Imperium, but no Wildwood sequel has been confirmed as of writing.
Wildwood is in theaters now.
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