Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen Ending Explained: Does Rachel Survive?

Netflix’s Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen weaves together Faustian bargains and family curses, leading to an exciting ending that’s as entertaining as it is bloody. The Duffer Brothers worked together with the series creator, Haley Z. Boston, to bring to life a must-watch horror series that explores the fear of marriage from a woman’s perspective.

The story starts with an engaged couple named Rachel (Camila Morrone) and Nicky (Adam DiMarco), who go to their family’s remote cabin in the woods to get married, surrounded by family. However, as soon as she gets there, a feeling of pure dread hits her. She knows that something very bad is going to happen. She just doesn’t know what.

As their ill-fated nuptials get closer, Rachel learns that her family is cursed, and it could lead to her death. She must decide whether Nicky is her true soulmate. The Netflix psychological thriller blends various types of horror, culminating in a climactic ending that answers whether Rachel survives her wedding.

How Rachel (Kind Of) Survives Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen

The Netflix horror presents Rachel with an ultimatum that has three possible outcomes. Rachel marries Nicky, he’s her soulmate, and they both live. She marries Nicky, he’s not her soulmate, and she dies. She walks out on the wedding, she becomes the Witness, and every member of Nicky’s family gets the curse. No option is good for her.

Unfortunately, her terrible fiancé both saves and dooms her with his own selfishness. At the altar, Nicky backs out, forcing Rachel to become the Witness. Then, he tricks her into marrying him after the curse had already spread. They are, obviously, not soulmates. Consequently, she dies but then comes back to life as a ghost, which is how she survives.

Rachel is still forced to become The Witness even though neither backing out of the wedding nor getting married was actually her fault. Her only mistake was putting her confidence in the wrong man and letting him pressure her into marriage, despite her desire to never marry.

Ultimately, this reinforces the core message that marrying the wrong person can destroy someone’s life. Marriage is not for everyone. If Nicky were truly her soulmate, he wouldn’t have pushed her to get married at all. He would have respected her wishes. At the same time, Rachel should have stood her ground, and she now has a permanent front seat to the reason why.

The Details Of Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen’s Family Curse

Rachel’s family curse stretches generations back in the Netflix original show, and it didn’t even originate with them. The whole thing started with an engaged couple who are deeply in love. He dies in a hunting accident before his wedding. She begs Death to bring her soulmate back, leading to a Faustian bargain.

Death agrees that the young woman can get her love back. However, she will die on her wedding night if she marries him, and he’s not her soulmate. She agrees, not knowing that the deal will apply to every member of her generation for eternity.

Unfortunately, the curse passes from the original bloodline to the Harkins family after an afflicted man backs out of his wedding. As a punishment for his cowardice, death passes the curse on to the man’s beloved, Marion. She marries Thomas Harkin, starting Rachel’s family curse.

As previously laid out, the rule is that an engaged fiancé must marry their future spouse by sundown on their wedding day.

If that person is their soulmate, they both live, and the curse continues with any future kids. If that person isn’t their soulmate, they die from hemorrhaging out of their orifices on their wedding night. If they walk away, every family member of their would-be spouse gets the curse. This means every living member

Why Rachel Chooses To Trust Nicky Despite His Betrayal

After looking into her family tree, she discovers that one person managed to survive the curse. With the help of Portia and Nell, they summon the ancestor, who gives Rachel a potion recipe. She needs one of her bones, the sperm of her fiancé, the hair of her future mother-in-law, and blood. This will change her into his soulmate.

Although Rachel takes steps to prepare the potion, she ultimately decides not to drink it. She realizes that she is just as flawed as he is, so she can’t think of herself as above him. Rachel is ultimately willing to take a leap of faith, believing he will as well.

Additionally, it seems likely that Rachel’s afraid of losing herself to the potion. She didn’t want to lose herself to marriage or a baby. She refuses to let Nicky’s family change the way she expresses herself or her values. Her decision to trust Nicky is ultimately a decision to trust that she’s good enough as she is.

Who The Witness Is & Why He’s Following Rachel

Throughout Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen, Rachel is followed by a creepy old man who asks her, “Are you sure he is the one?” Halfway through the show, she discovers that his name is Zlatko, and he is the current Witness.

Zlatko is the one who left Marion at the altar, thereby causing the Harkin family curse. He must suffer through watching every couple get married and the cursed individual die. Zlatko has no choice but to come to Rachel’s wedding. His only way of helping the bride is to make her question whether her fiancé is her soulmate.

Why Nicky’s Family Is Acting So Cagey In The Netflix Show

Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen initially fakes out the audience, leading us to believe that Nicky’s family is the source of Rachel’s dread.

The Cunninghams keep secrets, whispering about the bad thing that’s going to happen. They try to force Rachel to become their ideal version of a bride, making her wear the dress and jewelry they want. Rachel finds a grimoire. Jules has pentobarbital. The husband is digging a grave. Her dress hangs on a weird stick doll in the woods.

All signs point towards the Cunningham family planning to kill her. Frankly, I would have thought the same thing from their cagey behavior.

However, it turns out that all the strange interactions and details, except for the stick doll, stem from the family’s dysfunctional reaction to grief. Everyone except for Rachel and Nicky knows that Victoria, the family matriarch, is dying. They decided to make the wedding into a proxy funeral, which is where all the weird controlling behavior comes from.

The Sorry Man Myth, Explained

The Sorry Man myth started when Jules was a child. He supposedly went out into the woods, where he heard a woman screaming no matter which direction he ran. He saw a man with long, sharp, dirty fingernails and a distended belly. He cut open a woman while crying “I’m sorry” over and over, while turning her inside out. Blood summons him, and he wants brides.

Like most myths, it started grounded and gets more terrifying and intense as it spreads from person to person. However, it isn’t entirely fictionalized. The Sorry Man’s true identity is Jay Harkin, Rachel’s dad. Jules ran away to a nearby cabin and hid under the bed when Jay and Ali entered the room.

Jules saw Ali drop to the floor dead and assumed that Jay had killed her. He watched as Jay cut open Ali’s pregnant belly to get baby Rachel out of the body alive. He only learns the truth of the situation when he goes to save Rachel from the Sorry Man as an adult.

The True Meaning Of Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen’s Ending

The Duffer Brothers’ follow-up to Stranger Things has a very strong, clear message about the trust that should exist before entering a marriage.

Generation after generation, the women in Rachel’s family have continued to marry, literally losing themselves as they become wives. This is a physicalization of the common experience of women metaphorically losing themselves in marriage. Due to societal pressures, they have to let go of the core traits, personality, and hobbies that define them as individuals.

They’re expected to fit into a bride-shaped hole, just like Rachel mentions back in episode 2. Like Rachel’s ancestor makes clear, the only way to have a successful marriage is to change themselves into their husband’s ideal wife. It’s no coincidence that the potion recipe literally requires Rachel to cut off a piece of herself to become what Nicky needs.

The end of Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen is a prolonged metaphor for everything that can go wrong when a person, especially a woman, doesn’t marry their soulmate – the person who understands and accepts them. Luckily, it also leaves a small amount of hope that the right individual won’t force a person to change for them.