Send Help ending explained: What happens between Linda and Bradley?

Sam Raimi fans had to wait a long time for a brand new original film from the Evil Dead creator – so it comes as welcome news that his latest movie Send Help marks a return to form.

The film – which stars Rachel McAdams and Dylan O'Brien – contains plenty of the trademarks that have come to characterise his singular career: kinetic camerawork, a streak of pitch black comedy and, of course, plenty of cartoonish, bloody gore.

McAdams stars as Linda Liddle, a woman who is frequently belittled and has been repeatedly passed over for a promotion by her boorish boss Bradley (O'Brien), who has only risen to the lofty heights of CEO out of pure nepotism.

But although Bradley is initially the one wielding all the power, their dynamic is completely upended when they are the only two survivors of a terrifying plane crash, and must fend for themselves on a desert island.

While Bradley is less than useless in these new surroundings, Linda – a devoted follower of the US reality series Survivor – is very well equipped to deal with the situation, and soon finds that her boss is completely reliant on him for her survival. And so a lot of fun begins...

"It’s fun to see them come to those realisations," Raimi explained to RadioTimes.com in an exclusive interview ahead of release. "Her that she’s useful and powerful and him that he’s – in his current state – pretty useless. But it’s as much about them growing into these positions as it is about the island being a place where they are revealed.

"She’s always been capable, but never in our society had a chance to express it. And he’s always been worthless, but no one ever could see through him because he held this position of power."

So where does this all lead – how exactly does Linda wield this newfound power over her boss? Read on to have the Send Help ending explained.

Send Help ending explained: What happens between Linda and Bradley?

Although Bradley initially attempts to build his own camp without Linda's input, he soon realises that this plan of action is simply no good: his best chance of surviving – at least with any degree of comfort – is by swallowing his pride and letting Linda take the lead.

For her part, Linda finds that she is very well suited to this new role. She takes great joy out of bossing Bradley around and becomes increasingly confident and more contented by the day. Meanwhile, she also educated him about the island, explaining that there is one part – on the other side – which he should avoid at all costs, explaining that it is too dangerous.

Linda is actually enjoying her new life so much – living out her Survivor dream and all – that when she sees a boat sailing nearby, she deliberately avoids trying to appeal for rescue. Why go back to her humdrum regular life when she's found her true calling on this island?

Slowly, Bradley appears to soften towards Linda and they begin to bond a little. One night they enjoy some home made fruit wine and share a heart to heart, with Linda letting slip her darkest secret: she was previously married to an abusive man, and on one occasion she had deliberately let him drive while drunk – which eventually led to his death in a car accident.

At first, Bradley seems to be genuinely moved by this story and offers to cook her dinner, but it turns out this is all part of an evil plan. He spikes her food with poisonous berries before trying to escape on a raft he has built – leaving her to die.

But being the useless man that he is, this plan fails spectacularly. Not only does he not add enough of the berries to actually put Linda's in danger, his raft hardly lasts a few seconds on the choppy ocean before completely collapsing, and it eventually falls to a sick Linda to rescue him – before she proceeds to projectile vomit all over his face.

After this doomed attempt to double cross her, she makes it clear that she won't be playing nice any longer. She paralyses Bradley using venom from an octopus and threatens to castrate him – forcing Bradley to admit that she is the boss now and he must behave accordingly.

Unfortunately, something soon happens which threatens to ruin this new idyll Linda has built for herself. Bradley's finacée Zuri (Edyll Ismail), who it emerges has been on the lookout since the crash, has located them to the island and arrives on shore with a rescue boat and it's captain.

At this point, Linda takes a pretty drastic measure. With Bradley unaware of their arrival, she lures both Zuri and the captain to a rocky cliff before pushing them and letting them fall to their deaths. Later that night, Bradley goes out to hunt alone – with Linda understandably shaken by her actions – and he finds his fiancée's corpse washed up on the beach.

When he confronts her, Linda admits she had knowingly murdered Zuri and a brutal brawl breaks out between the pair of them. We get plenty of Raimi's trademark blood spatter in this sequence, with Linda's eye even being partially gouged out before she establishes the upper hand and stabs Bradley in the side, leading him to run away.

Desperate to escape, he goes to the part of the island Linda had previously told him was out of bounds, and discovers the reason why. Turns out, they hadn't really been that much in the wilderness at all – there is an extremely luxurious beach house right there, which Linda had found and deliberately kept schtum about.

Linda follows him there and admits she had kept this secret from him, before aiming a shotgun at him. Now in a state of utter desperation, Bradley makes a final plea for mercy – claiming that he is in love with her and would like to stay on the island forever – but she isn't convinced.

Although it turns out the gun wasn't loaded, she grabs a golf club and beats him to a bloody pulp. He won't be surviving that one!

The film ends with a flash forward, where we find Linda back on the mainland and enjoying a luxurious new life – made possible by the wild success of her memoir about how she was the only survivor of the plane crash, which is now set to be adapted into a book.

She might have committed a few murders, but she's not only got away with it, she's altered the course of her life completely. That plane crash was the best thing that ever happened to her!

Send Help is now showing in UK cinemas.

Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.