Who is the Hag in Below?

Netflix’s ‘Below‘ begins with Calvin Penney, who is relocated to the town of Snook’s Arm with his family at a young age. On the way, they encounter a mysterious sea creature that brings down their house and kills Calvin’s father. The event is so shocking that he has to convince himself that it was all an accident and he didn’t really see anything. A couple of decades later, the town is terrorized by another sea-faring force, leading Calvin to revisit his memories. At the same time, his son, Wade, encounters this creature, leading to hallucinations of a woman resembling the old hag from the island’s folklore. Things get more interesting when it turns out that this woman is neither old nor a supernatural hag. SPOILERS AHEAD.

The Old Hag is a Young Girl From Another Town

After Wade survives a deadly encounter with the giant squid in the sea, he suffers hallucinations and bad dreams. In one such dream, he sees a woman in white, her hair falling over her face, dripping wet as if she had just walked out of the sea. He sees her beckoning to him from the top of the iceberg that suddenly appeared in the water a couple of days back. Things get worse when Wade realizes that the woman, whom he describes as the old hag, has wandered out of his dreams and is now physically haunting him. When he wakes from his dream, she appears from under his bed and crawls over him. When his brother comes in after hearing him scream, he tells Wade that it was just a nightmare.

But the wet marks by his bed tell a different tale. The next time the hag visits, Wade is not afraid because she turns out to be friendly. She takes him across the sea to another island town called Little Pot Rock. This is the place the Penney family had migrated from when Calvin was still a child. It turns out that not all residents left the town. Some, like Calvin’s childhood friend, Walton, stayed behind and continued to live there, cut off from the rest of the world, who had no idea Little Pot Rock was still inhabited. The hag turns out to be Walton’s daughter, Maggie. She was born and raised in the town that Wade’s father left years ago. At the time of her birth, there were still many people around, but now there are only three.

Maggie has taken a liking to Wade and wishes to be with him. She visited the Penney household several times, and she is the one who stole things like tea boxes and Noah’s ring and brought them back home. Wade is one of those things, and he, too, feels at home, understands her, and doesn’t make any effort to run away. To him, living on Little Pot Rock with Maggie without any restrictions from his father and fishing as much as he wants is an ideal situation. But soon, Calvin, too, ends up in town, which is when the truth behind the situation starts to emerge. It turns out that the remaining residents of Little Pot Rock forged a deal with the squid, whom they call Mudder.

Maggie Meets an Uncertain Fate Following the Penneys’ Escape

According to the deal, Mudder would bring them all the fish they wanted and not attack them while they were on the water. In return, they will feed her with human meals. At first, the townsfolk give her the old and withering. Then, there are those on the brink of death, like Walton’s wife, who had cancer and preferred to die in the service of her people rather than being buried on the island. Slowly, the population of Little Pot Rock began to die out, and now it has only Walton, his father, and Maggie. When Wade comes into the picture, being left alive by Mudder after her last attack, they take it as a sign that he has been marked as Maggie’s mate. Together, they will have children who will repopulate the island.

Walton shares this intent with Calvin, who fears that once Wade has given Maggie the children she wants, he, too, would be turned into squid fodder, like the poor Portuguese sailors, whom the authorities had been looking for several days. At first, Wade refuses to believe Calvin and wishes to stay on Little Pot Rock. But eventually, he shows up for his father, saving him from Walton, who has already killed the Portuguese sailor. As Walton’s house burns down, Calvin and Wade escape the town on their boat, leaving Maggie behind, while she screams Wade’s name in anger and horror. When things settle down in Snook’s Rest, Wade doesn’t go back for Maggie.

One can imagine that she stays in Little Pot Rock, but as we know, Mudder dies soon, which means Maggie will eventually have to leave the island to survive. While Calvin and Wade escaped with the boat, there is likely another boat somewhere, or some other arrangement she can come up with to sail to Snook’s Rest. Or, perhaps, she will be ready to make another deal with the next sea creature that emerges from the depths of the ocean, now that there is another iceberg floating in the waters. The show leaves her fate at an uncertain note, much like the fate of the Penneys and the rest of the town’s residents.

Read More: Below Ending Explained: Why Are There More Icebergs Near the Town?