Rohan Jain
Created by Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese, Netflix’s ‘1899‘ is a sci-fi thriller TV series that follows the journey of a ship called Kerberos from London to New York. The vessel carries numerous migrants trying to escape their past and start a new life in the New World. During its journey, Kerberos mysteriously encounters Prometheus, a steamship that’s been missing for four months. Captain Eyk, a few crew members, and a passenger named Maura Franklin go aboard Prometheus to see if any survivors are left. To their surprise, everything on the ship is shattered, and it seems like a storm had hit Prometheus.
What’s eerier is that Maura and Eyk find a small boy locked inside a cupboard with a small pyramid in his hand. The Captain and Maura wonder how could just one boy survive a catastrophe. Maura rescues the boy and takes him to her room to find out what exactly happened to Prometheus, but the boy doesn’t speak. Instead, he whispers to her that she has to ask the Creator, who is listening to everything. So, who is the boy? Let’s find out. SPOILERS AHEAD!
Who is the Boy?
The boy’s name is Elliot, and he is Maura and Daniel’s son. After a series of unfortunate events, Elliot goes missing, and nobody knows where he is. To rescue him, Maura and Eyk go down the shaft in the former’s room and end up near a grave outside Maura’s father’s mental hospital. It is the same place where Maura last saw Elliot. While Maura and Eyk are looking around the hospital, they cross paths with Daniel.
Seeing a remote in his hands, the two do not trust the enigmatic person. Before a confrontation could arise, Daniel sends Eyk to Prometheus in the archive using his remote, and Maura gets scared. Daniel tries to reassure her that he’s on her side and, to prove his statement, even reveals that he’s her husband. Daniel tries to explain how everything around her is not real, and she needs to wake up to reality. Only then she’ll be able to remember who Daniel really is. Maura, who is already terrified, gets overwhelmed by this information and locks Daniel up.
Following this, she finds her way into the room where Daniel and Maura had slept. She first sees the bed and gets some of her memories back. Maura also notices a few photographs in which Daniel, Elliot, and herself are together. By this point, even Daniel reaches the room and tells her that Elliot is indeed their son. When Maura asks why she can’t remember any of this, Daniel says that she wanted to forget the pain. He insists Maura wake up and remember everything. Otherwise, she’ll be trapped in the simulation forever.
While the message sounds quite cryptic, Maura’s father, Henry, later reveals the truth when he finds and talks to Elliot. Henry shows him how Daniel and Maura knew he was sick and would die. To escape the misery, Maura created an entire simulation to keep Elliot alive. To end this simulation, Henry needs Elliot’s pyramid, which has a keyhole. The key to this lies with Maura. Henry threatens Daniel and Maura that he will not spare Elliot if the latter doesn’t give him the key. So, does Elliot die? Is Elliot alive in reality?
Does Elliot Die?
Yes, Elliot dies in reality after succumbing to his illness. Maura is unable to bear the pain and wants to forget that Elliot ever existed while also wanting him to live. So, Maura creates an entire simulation where Elliot can live for eternity even if she doesn’t remember him. Although this isn’t explicitly revealed, the grave outside Henry’s mental hospital indicates that Elliot is dead. In addition, the fact that the first ever simulation Maura and her husband Daniel had created was a bunker underneath the grave. It is almost like the parents were trying to build a home for Elliot where he lies.
Maura’s father, Henry, wants to snap her out of the simulation because everyone is trapped in it. The only way to do that is to take her key, insert it into Elliot’s pyramid and turn the simulation off. After Henry’s threat, Daniel gives Maura his ring and asks her to save Elliot. While Maura tries to find Henry’s office, Daniel goes into the mainframe, hacks it, and releases a virus.
When Maura reaches the office and gives Henry the key, he injects a chemical into Maura to wake her up. Following this, Henry tries to turn off the simulation but is unable to do so. This is because Daniel changed the simulation’s complete architecture and let the virus devour the old one. We see Maura wake up outside the mental hospital near the same grave with a bunker underneath it.
Maura goes into the bunker, and Daniel meets her there. He tells how this bunker was the first simulation Maura and Daniel created for their son, but her brother changed everything. But now, Maura doesn’t have to worry about it. While hacking the mainframe, Daniel manages to transfer the pyramid and the key’s power into a toy pyramid and ensures that the key is Maura’s ring. He says that when she inserts the key inside the pyramid, she’ll wake up to the actual reality.
Read More: Is 1899 Based on a True Story?
