Diksha Sundriyal
Netflix’s ‘It’s What’s Inside’ presents a mind-bending story about a group of friends who decide to play the game of swapping into each other’s bodies using a machine. It is supposed to be fun in the beginning, but with each round, the game gets more and more twisted. By the end, so much has changed for each person in the group that they all appear unrecognizable. Arguably, the person who goes through the most significant transformation is Shelby. The final scene between her and her boyfriend, Cyrus, showcases the stark change that has happened within her following the events of the party, so much so that it makes Cyrus wonder if it’s really Shelby or someone else in her body. SPOILERS AHEAD
Shelby, in the End, is Not Who She Was in the Beginning
By the end of the night, two people in the group are dead, the bodies of most of them are swapped, and Cyrus is in prison, accused of murdering the said victims. He and the rest of the group know that he is innocent but is in prison simply because Dennis when he was in Cyrus’ body, decided to confess to the cops to stir things up, mainly because his own body was the one that died when Reuben was in it. So much transpires in the span of one night that no one seems to have come to see Cyrus in prison except Shelby. Because she is his girlfriend and they’d planned to run away in other bodies the previous night, Cyrus thinks that Shelby has come to bail him out. However, he is shocked to discover that she has no such intentions. Moreover, she is there to break up with him, which confuses Cyrus, considering that she was the one who proposed that they swap into Nikki and Reuben’s bodies and live off the rest of their days together.
It turns out that Shelby never had any of those intentions. In fact, it was simply a test with which she wanted to gauge Cyrus’ true feelings. In their eight-year relationship, Shelby had never felt loved by Cyrus. Recently, he’d even started to maintain a physical distance from her, as she felt that he didn’t even touch her anymore, let alone have sex with her, even when she tried so hard to cater to his fantasies. She knew that he had a crush on Nikki, whom Shelby felt jealous of because of her huge Instagram following. However, at the party, Shelby discovers that there is more to Cyrus’ feelings. When they were in college, he proposed to Nikki, who rejected him, following which he started paying attention to Shelby, which made her feel like a consolation prize.
Shelby could forgive this transgression, but over the course of the night, she realized that Nikki was what Cyrus had always wanted. What further broke her heart was that he had refused to be physically intimate with her despite her repeated efforts to be what he wanted, but when he swapped bodies, he made out with Maya, who was in Nikki’s body. Later, when Shelby offers that they should swap into Nikki and Reuben’s body, Cyrus immediately agrees to it, when only minutes ago, he had been vehemently against being in anyone’s body other than his own. Shelby was shaken by the fact that Cyrus was ready to let her be in someone else’s body for the rest of her life because that’s only how he thought he could love her.
This discovery opens Shelby’s eyes to all the times she had been wronged by Cyrus, but she let it go. All these years, she tried to do what he wanted and be what he wanted, but she was never appreciated, let alone loved for it. She wanted to marry Cyrus, but he didn’t seem to have the same feelings that she did, and he wasn’t even honest enough to let her know that and end the relationship. Instead, he continued with it because it was convenient to him, and he didn’t have it in him to face a confrontation. Following the party, Shelby is convinced that she has bent to his will for too long now, and he is the last person to deserve all the love and effort she offers. For Cyrus, this side of Shelby is completely new, which is why it is easier for him to believe that it is someone else in her body rather than accept that she has changed for the better and will not be pining after him anymore.
Read More: It’s What’s Inside: What Happened to Forbes’ Sister, Beatrice?
