Diksha Sundriyal
Netflix’s ‘Purple Hearts’ is a love story that uses the enemies-to-lovers trope to further its plot. It has two people, Cassie and Luke, who come from different backgrounds and have different thought processes, with different goals for their lives. While they look to go in separate directions, their paths collide, giving them a single and effective, though risky, solution to their problems.
The film has a lot of heart and soul, with great music to complement the story. It also keeps the audience worried about the protagonists because if their secret is outed, it could mean the end of both of their careers. With a bunch of other problems that they have to tackle along the way, we wonder if they’ll survive the storm or stick to their original plan and part ways when things get tough. If you want to find out how things end for Cassie and Luke, we’ve got you covered. SPOILERS AHEAD
Purple Hearts Plot Synopsis
Cassie works at a bar where she also performs with her band. Apart from this, she works as a delivery person, and to keep herself from being thrown out of her apartment, she gives piano lessons to her landlord’s daughter. As if that was not enough, Type I diabetes throws her into a pool of medical bills that she can’t keep up with. She needs insulin to stay alive, but with her insurance not covering it, it is too expensive for her to get it.
She finds a way around this dilemma when she discovers that marrying a Marine would give her the insurance and the financial cover to keep her from dying. She finds a suitable match in Luke. Having newly enlisted, he is ready for his first tour in Iraq. He only has a couple of weeks before he leaves. He also has a debt that he owes to his ex-drug dealer. Because his family keeps a distance from him, he has no other option but to get married and avail of the benefits that come with it.
It looks like a match made in heaven for Cassie and Luke, but the trouble is that they are very different people. Thankfully, Luke’s time in Iraq puts the distance much-needed distance between them which allows them to develop a friendship, which is put to test when Luke comes back home with an injury. Now, they have to keep their ruse going, lest anyone finds out their secret and they have to face criminal charges.
Purple Hearts Ending: Do Luke and Cassie Stay Married?
Things had always been a bit dicey for Luke and Cassie. Their first meeting didn’t turn out so well when both of them made assumptions about each other and soured the interaction. If it wasn’t for their personal desperate causes, they would have liked to keep their distance from one another. It was a marriage of convenience for both of them, while also being the last resort to keep themselves alive. Over the course of their marriage, it looked like things would more or less get back to the same point, even when they developed a sense of friendship and understanding that they’d never thought possible.
Even with their differences, they take care of each other, more in sickness than in health. Cassie helps Luke with recovering from his injuries and Luke takes care of her when she almost falls unconscious because of her diabetes. They become so close that they succeed in fooling everyone about the true nature of their marriage. But then, Luke’s past stirs the pot and tears apart their sham of a relationship.
His ex-drug dealer, Johnno, starts hounding him about the money that he still owes. It turns out that following the death of his mother, Luke fell into drugs. One day, he got so desperate that he stole a very expensive car that had come into his father’s garage for repair. Not just that, but he totaled it. His father told him to get the money back and Luke had to borrow some from Johnno.
When he gets married to Cassie, Luke starts getting the extra money that allows him to slowly start paying back Johnno. But then, he gets injured, which stops the payments. To remind him of the debt, Johnno breaks into Cassie’s mother’s house. Seeing that the consequences of his actions will prove dangerous to Cassie, Luke decides to pay off the entire debt, but he also beats up Johnno a little bit, who retaliates by telling Cassie’s mother the truth about their marriage. Not only that, but he also outs Luke to his bosses, which leads to his arrest and court martial. Before he stands in court, both he and Cassie feel that their relationship has changed a lot from what it was in the beginning.
Cassie wouldn’t have thought it possible before, but Luke has now become her muse. She writes songs about him, which is what leads the popularity of her band to soar and puts them on the map of the music industry. She’d written songs previously, but none of them had as emotional depth as the ones that she wrote with Luke in her mind. For Luke, whose family had kept him at a distance ever since his drug problems escalated and landed them in trouble, Cassie becomes the source of inspiration and support. She keeps his spirits high, and even though she acts like she wants to be rid of their marriage, she makes real efforts to help him recover from his injury. She even gets him a dog!
In the end, Luke sacrifices his entire career to keep Cassie on the path to her success. She’d started getting gigs that were really pushing her career forward. Going to prison at this time would destroy everything she’d worked for all these years and he doesn’t want that to happen. At the hearing, he takes all the blame on himself to spare Cassie from being tried in civil court. For this, he is sentenced to six months, following which he is to be discharged for good conduct. While he prepares himself for prison, Cassie performs at The Hollywood Bowl. While singing the song that she wrote for Luke, she realizes that despite everything that happened, she is in love with him. After the performance, she rushes to find Luke before he goes away for the next six months.
She catches him just in time and professes her love. Both of them agree to not get divorced, despite what they’d originally planned. They realize that while playing the roles of husband and wife, they have developed real feelings for each other. Even with the many differences in their thoughts and ideologies, they have found a common ground where they have turned to each other for support and care, and they’re not going to throw away all of that. So, when Luke comes back home, they start their married life in the true sense. As the credits start to roll, we see Cassie and Luke, and their dog, getting their happily ever after.
Read More: Is Netflix’s Purple Hearts Based on a True Story?
