Abhiroop Das
Helmed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, ‘Ready or Not 2: Here I Come‘ steps directly back into the world of the cult hit comedy horror film ‘Ready or Not.’ Having defeated the Le Domas family for good, Grace is still on track for a physical and psychological recovery when she is pulled back into the world of horrors. As it turns out, the demonic entity known as Le Bail has plans for a second game, this time with more elite players and even more twisted rules and locations than before. By the end of this movie, Grace is faced with a moral dilemma: whether to endure a personal sacrifice and end the cycle, or manifest a secret third path that rejects all propositions and promises to give her a life she really wishes to lead. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Ready or Not 2 Here I Come Plot Synopsis
‘Ready or Not 2: Here I Come’ begins in the immediate aftermath of the first movie, with Grace making it out of the burning mansion only to fall unconscious, get cuffed, and hospitalized. By the time Grace returns to her senses, it is already too late, and plans for a new game are already in place. Here, she reunites with her estranged younger sister Faith, who hasn’t talked to her since college, and sincerely wants to make amends. That doesn’t last for long, however, as the duo is abducted and brought to a mansion, where a council of the elite seems to have assembled. As it turns out, Le Bail has another game in the works, and hearing about the death of the Le Domas family and the creation of a power vacuum, several wealthy and powerful people decide to join the fray.
Among the elites are Ursula and Titus Danforth, who kill their father, the leader of the Danforth family, to technically qualify for the game. They are joined by all sorts of wealthy and evil people, who are given the singular task of killing Grace and taking her ring before the break of dawn. While there is the added rule of players not being allowed to target each other, the prospect of receiving an all-powerful ring seems to trump the risk in the players’ minds. When the game begins, the sisters are forced to participate and either kill or be killed. In the middle of the hunt, one of the elites, Chen Xing, tells Grace that the game can be ended early if she marries one of the participants, as in that case, the blood oath is nullified, and the husband gains the High Seat. Before Xing can explain any further, he accidentally kills a player named Ignacio, bringing both him and his own family to ruin.
Following the deaths, the next of kin of both Ignacio and Xing’s family join the game, but feel outmatched by the veteran member Ursula, who nearly takes Grace’s life at one point. Though Faith initially argues that Grace should simply get married and nip the problem in the bud, Grace believes that it is no different from selling her soul to the devil. However, as the game gets fiercer by the night, Grace is left with no choice but to agree to a wedding alliance with Titus. Before the ceremony, Ursula warns her about the evil side of Titus and how he is not someone who lets go of others easily, but he manages to overhear all of that. Not long after, Titus kills Ursula, laughing about how murder within family groups is allowed. Having seen enough, Grace realizes that playing by the books will likely never get her out of this hellscape, and she must get aggressive.
Ready or Not 2 Here I Come Ending Explained: Do Grace and Faith Survive?
‘Ready or Not 2: Here I Come’ ends with Grace relinquishing control of the ring and freeing herself, before narrowly surviving the night alongside Faith. Though Grace is initially left with no choice but to marry Titus and bring the conflict to a relatively amicable end, her perspective changes swiftly after he kills Ursula. Realizing that she might just have to spend her life with a figurative monster, Grace takes a stand by stabbing Titus in the chest with a fountain pen. It is the same pen that she uses to sign the familial blood pact documents, which makes it her comeback for her earlier line about killing within the family being fair play. Though the blow isn’t enough to take Titus out for good, she still manages to kick him into a pit full of sacrificed goats, and that does the trick.
The idea of Titus joining ritual sacrifices in his death serves as a reversal of roles, as the entire movie has been about killing Grace or controlling her life for purely selfish reasons. While Titus belongs to the latter camp, it soon becomes clear that living with him would have been no less abusive for Grace. Instead, she rejects both sides of the equation in favor of choosing her own path, even if it means giving up on the possibility of becoming all-powerful. In the aftermath of Titus’ murder, Grace is able to distract the entire council by throwing the ring into the pit, which triggers a mad rush as everyone clamors and charges to become the next holder of the ring.
Though relinquishing the ring is never depicted as a viable way out of the death game, it is never outright rejected as a possibility either. In exercising that choice, Grace figures out a loophole that allows her to live another day, but not before she technically wins the game. Despite wielding enormous power at this point, and with only moments to go before victory is hers forever, Grace realizes that such power is bound to corrupt one’s psyche. Unlike the others, who have primarily been involved in the story as hunters, Grace knows what it’s like to be denied the right to live, all in search of power. Her experience, as such, gives her both the courage and wisdom to say no to such a temptation, effectively creating a glitch in the game that allows her to live.
Who Gets the Ring? Is the Council Dead?
At the end of the movie, nobody in the council gets their hands on the ring, and ultimately, all of them die horrible deaths. When Grace drops the ring into the pit, a part of her knows that the sheer number of sacrificed goats, as well as the dirt and mud, are bound to obscure its presence. In essence, this becomes a needle-in-a-haystack situation, where every second wasted only makes the council more aggressive and less coordinated in their search. It also doesn’t help that most of them choose to cull their competition rather than look for the ring, and end up causing a bloodbath. Given the ritualistic relevance of the sacrificial pit, the violence that follows is likely much to Satan’s delight, regardless of whether or not anyone emerges victorious.
By the time dawn arrives, several council members turn out to be dead already, with the ring still far from sight. As a result, the inevitable punishment comes through, and everyone still registered as a participant in the game is blown to smithereens. This most likely also includes the woman who left the game early by her car, as the only exception so far is Grace, who won it all before calling it quits. As the Danforth mansion gets bathed in blood, the only ones who are still standing are Grace, Faith, and the enigmatic lawyer. In essence, the movie ends the same way ‘Ready or Not’ does, with Grace narrowly cheating death and defeating the entire council by the time dawn comes. This time, however, she is not left all alone, as Faith is still by her side.
Why Does Le Bail’s Spirit Appear?
After the game ends in the goriest of fashions, Le Bail himself pays Grace another visit, manifesting out of the statue at the Black Temple before disappearing just as quickly. While this confirms that he has been watching everything from the shadows all along, it also means that Grace’s escape and survival is personally greenlit by him. Though Le Bail is who he is due to a Faustian bargain that doomed him for life, it still doesn’t stop him from admiring those who can do what he couldn’t: defeat fate as a whole and still get their heart’s desire. In both movies, Grace wins a game designed specifically to hunt her down, which shows just how tenacious the human spirit can be, with or without any supernatural experience.
A failure to bring the game to fruition will slowly chip away at all the wealth that came out of the Faustian bargain. However, that doesn’t quite explain why he smiles and nods at Grace both times she escapes. Given how little we know about Le Bail, his actions can be interpreted in one of two ways. While it is possible that this is him genuinely cheering her on and sending her off after two traumatic experiences, another, grimmer reading is that he is laughing at her inability to combat fate. Just as she breathes a sigh after leaving the nightmare behind, Grace is promptly pulled back in, and only a satanic demon steps out of the bounds of space and time in foreshadowing what exactly is written in her fate.
Will Grace Get Arrested? What’s Next for Her and Faith?
As Grace’s previous journey of making it out alive ends with her in cuffs, it remains to be seen whether or not she can make it out of the fiasco without getting arrested. Unlike last time, the bodies are not strewn all around the mansion; instead, they are mostly stacked into a pit, which makes connecting the crime back to her particularly difficult. More importantly, however, Grace is not alone on this journey like she was the last time. This time around, she has a best friend and ultimate confidante in the form of her sister. Throughout the movie, Faith proves that she will never leave Grace’s side, no matter how risky things might get, and by the end, Grace makes that promise back, vowing never to leave her sister ever again.
Though Le Bail’s nod essentially means that the girls are free to go, that doesn’t mean that they are completely out of the danger zone. Because Grace was trapped in the hospital, she became an easy target for the new power-hungry group. This time, it is in the sisters’ best interest to leave the town and never look back if they are to survive. This idea is perhaps best, if comically, communicated through the goat. Meant to be part of the sacrificial ritual, the goat is perhaps the only one in the same position as the sisters. Grace’s choice to free the goat and bring it with her and Faith into the new life highlights her new outlook on the world, one that would always try to sacrifice people like her for their own means. In front of this ever-present threat, it is only through loving her close ones that she can find the small happiness and the grit to live through and fight.
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