The original post: /r/television by /u/westsidesweetheart on 2025-02-20 20:03:25.
So I just watched the Amazon prime series “Swarm” with my sister for the first time, and her interpretation of the ending was so much better than what actually happened I figured I’d share it and hear other people’s thoughts on it:
(SPOILERS AHEAD!!!) Basically, at the very end as we see Dre begin to approach the stage and run towards Ni‘jah before we see the close up of it actually being “Marissa’s” face, my sister said that she initially believed this to symbolize Dre actually being dead, and this scene is sort of her envisioning her and Marissa reuniting again, and now being able to share their love for Ni‘jah once more in the after life.
Now with a quick google search I know this to not be true, especially with the special documentary style episode where it essentially foreshadows that Dre would’ve gotten arrested for tackling Ni‘jah on stage, and disguising herself as Tony. So in actuality she’s just hallucinating this to be Marissa, but a few other things made me theorize that her being dead is not such an outlandish theory.
For one, in episode 4 “running scared” when Dre is asked by Eva if shes afraid of death she quickly says no, “Because I think it’s beautiful—because it’s equal. It happens to everybody.” I found this to be intriguing, considering the ending shot is of “Marissa” (who we know is gone) and Dre hugging, which I perceived this as them now being equal.
Another thing I happened to notice was that throughout the series we were never shown Dre to be hallucinating Marissa up until the very end. While it could be argued that this was just a factor of her reality slowly deteriorating in front of her eyes once she finally came within close proximity of Ni‘jah (which explains the jarring ending scene where the two things she loves the most begin to morph into one being), I do however disagree with the interpretation of this ultimately being Dre’s mental decline, and a sudden symptom added in just didn’t sit right with me.
To explain, I believe the show almost goes out of its way to not lean into giving her several reasons on why she’s a bad person outside of Marissa dying—she just is. I heavily applauded this, as I don’t agree with the idea that media often perpetuates that people with mental illnesses or who go through traumatic things are all capable of being harmful, so I do appreciate this idea of Dre just being a bad person who kills anybody, and who’s fully aware of what she’s doing throughout the series.
With all that being said, I personally wouldn’t understand why the ending would be representing just Dre hallucinating Marissa, when she hadn’t portrayed any other similar symptoms up to that point if I can remember correctly. If this was actually the case, I think Marissa would’ve appeared in every one of Dre’s waking moves especially with each kill, but she doesn’t. The closest we get to her hallucinating is her texting from Marissa’s phone and then responding to herself, and occasionally texting her throughout but the only time we ever see her is once more at the very end.
Now… with this theory can I say how Dre would’ve died? No. My best guess at first was that Dre would’ve died trying to get on stage with Ni‘jah by security of some sort, but then that seemed too far fetched. However, if she was willing to bite her, I think there’s no telling what else Dre would do within close proximity of Ni‘jah, and that tackling may have ultimately lead to her getting shot or something, but I’m curious to hear other people’s thoughts!