Warning! This post contains major spoilers for The Platform 2.
Like its predecessor, The Platform 2 intentionally leaves viewers with many unanswered questions, but many subtle details throughout its runtime might have provided some concrete answers. After featuring a sequence that reveals many prisoners’ dietary choices in the pit, The Platform 2 jumps ahead and shows how someone from the floors above has been feasting on Zamiatin’s pizza. Zamiatin is drawn to the idea of eating someone else’s food. However, the people above him preach about solidarity and encourage him to stay hungry to ensure everyone gets their share.
This opening sequence sets the stage for the movie’s conflict, highlighting how the people in the pit are divided into groups: the loyalists and the barbarians. While the loyalists believe they must act in solidarity and not overconsume, the barbarians prioritize their survival and eat as much as they please. Zamiatin’s cellmate, Perepuan, initially supports solidarity. However, the horrors of the pit force her to switch sides. However, upon reaching some of the lowest levels in the prison, she finds answers she did not know she was seeking.
What Letting The Child Ascend Means For Perempuan In The Platform 2’s Ending
Perempuan Finds Redemption By Letting The Child Go
In The Platform 2‘s ending arc, a gruesome war ensues between the loyalists and the barbarians, leaving little to no survivors. Perempuan takes the opportunity to block her airways by swallowing a torn section of The Dog painting. As a result, she chokes and falls to the ground, which prevents her from inhaling the gas the pit’s cleaners use to neutralize the remaining prisoners. Everything goes as planned when she regains consciousness and finds the cleaners attaching her to the harness that collects all dead bodies.
However, to her surprise, when she descends to Level 333 with the other bodies, she notices the cleaners bringing a child to the bottommost level and tucking him in. At that moment, she faces a dire choice: she can either act selfishly and escape to the surface of the pit or put her life on the line to protect the child from the prison’s atrocities. After recalling her past criminal actions, she chooses the latter. However, while saving the child, she hits her head, suggesting that, like Goreng in The Platform‘s ending, she, too, experiences a certain death.
When she actively chooses to protect the child instead of harming him, the platform descends below Level 333 to a level that seemingly represents Perempuan’s conscience. This is where she encounters other souls, including Zamiatin, who are projections of her dying mind, encouraging her to let the child ascend. They do this because they realize that even though Perempuan, like them, has redeemed herself, her circumstances have corrupted her, making her unworthy of going back.
In an interview (via
Digital Spy
), director Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia confirmed the lowest level does not exist: ”
Goreng is dead before he arrives, and that’s just his interpretation of what he needs to do
.”
The child, in contrast, gets to ascend because his innocence and purity will play a crucial role in making the world a better place. By letting the child ascend while staying behind, Perempuan makes her final sacrifice to free herself from her guilt and escape from her self-imposed purgatory. At the same time, she also accepts her suffering, realizing that redemption comes at a cost.
The Platform 2’s Mid-Credits Scene Explained
The Scene Connects The Sequel To Its Predecessor
In The Platform 2‘s mid-credits scene, many prisoners descend to the pit’s bottom with different children. The scene seemingly highlights that while many continue to suffer in the vertical prison, a few redeem themselves by saving the children in Level 333. It also shows that the Authority above puts a new child at Level 333 every month.
The sequel’s mid-credits scene could also imply that the Authority has built many similar vertical prisons across the globe, where each is put through pervasive cycles of the same social experiments. In an interview (via Collider), director Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia also confirmed this. “Many and in many different ways,” he said when asked whether there are more similar facilities out there.
Why The Administration Puts Children At Level 333
The Children Have Always Been A Part Of The Bigger Social Experiment
While the Administration’s purpose of conducting the social experiment in the pit remains unclear, it seems like they do not wish to encourage solidarity among the prisoners. Instead, they only want to observe what leads to them acting in solidarity. Put simply, the prisoners are mere lab rats for the Administration to understand the depths of human behavior, probably because they wish to implement their findings in the real world to establish control. As shown in The Platform 2‘s ending, the children, too, are mere ploys in the experiment.
…given how the Authority puts the children in such a dangerous environment only for the sake of experiment, it seems likely they do not care whether they make it back or don’t.
The fact that the Authority does not even spare children highlights how far they are willing to go to exert control over the masses. Since the prisoners are unaware of how the child ended up in Level 333, they feel hopeful when they send the child to the surface. However, given how the Authority puts the children in such a dangerous environment only for the sake of the experiment, it seems likely they do not care whether the children make it back.
Why Perempuan Came To The Pit
She Wanted To Free Herself From Guilt
Flashes of Perempuan’s interview before she entered the pit reveal she was an accomplished artist. She had once created a sculpture of a dog that had sharp edges. Many had warned her to keep stanchions around it because its jagged edges could be dangerous. However, she did not listen. When her boyfriend visited her home one day, his son slipped and fell over one of the sharp edges of the sculpture. Instead of accepting her mistake, Perempuan hired the best lawyers and avoided going to prison.
She even sold the sculpture for a huge sum, using the proceeds to bolster her career as an artist. However, her guilt eventually got the best of her. Despite avoiding legal trouble, she could not help but believe she deserved to be punished. Therefore, she decided to imprison herself in the pit, hoping that she would be able to forgive herself. She eventually achieves this by sacrificing herself to ensure the child from Level 333 stays safe and reaches Level 0.
Why Zamiatin Jumped To The Bottom Of The Pit
He Finally Confronted His Life’s Harsh Truths
While Zamiatin tries to portray himself as a formidable figure in the pit, flashbacks of his interview with the Authority reveal that he has been living a lie. He claims to have left his children and burnt his parents’ home. However, the interview discloses his wife and children left him before his parents sent him to the pit to discipline him. After going without food for weeks, Zamiatin’s fake exterior shatters, and he finally starts accepting the truth about his life instead of creating a self-comforting imaginary narrative.
The pit in
The Platform
movies has 333 floors, with each floor accommodating two people. This implies that there are 666 people in the pit, which is referred to as the “number of the beast” in the Book of Revelation (Revelation 13:18). The 333 can also be seen as a reference to the Third Circle of Hell in Dante’s Inferno, which is reserved for punishing gluttons.
The lack of sustenance in the pit becomes a metaphor for his unfulfilled life as he realizes he kept lying to himself even after entering the pit. To repent for his mistakes, he chooses not to lie to himself for the last time and leaps to the pit’s bottom. His leap becomes a final rejection of all the lies he had adopted throughout his life as he experiences a certain death.
The Symbolism Behind The Drowning Dog Painting Explained
The Painting Is A Reflection Of Perempuan’s Journey
The painting of the drowning dog featured in the original Netflix sci-fi movie was created by Spanish artist Francisco de Goya. Referred to as “The Dog” (Spanish: “El Perro”), the painting is often interpreted as a man’s struggle against evil forces. In The Platform 2, the painting seemingly represents Perempuan’s journey, where each new obstacle is greater than the last after she refuses to take accountability for her actions in the real world.
| The Platform 2 Cast & Character Breakdown | |
| Actor | Role |
| Milena Smit | Perempuan |
| Hovik Keuchkerian | Zamiatin |
| Natalia Tena | Perempuan’s Second Roommate |
| Óscar Jaenada | Dagin Babi |
| Ivan Massagué | Goreng |
| Antonia San Juan | Imoguiri |
| Zorion Eguileor | Tiramigasi |
| Tadashi Ito | Bárbaro 21 |
Therefore, when she swallows the painting, she takes responsibility for her past actions and accepts the suffering that comes with them. With this, she experiences a certain death that leads her to the path of redemption and self-forgiveness. Since almost every character arrives in the pit to seek redemption or grapple with their shortcomings, the setting can be seen as a representation of the biblical Tower of Bable.
…like the humans in the tale of the Tower of Babel,
The Platform 2
‘s characters struggle to find peace because they seek it through self-glorification.
Just like the Tower of Babel represents humanity’s effort to reach God through shallow means, the pit reflects Perempuan and Zamiatin’s desperation to make up for their past shortcomings. However, like the humans in the tale of the Tower of Babel, The Platform 2‘s characters struggle to find peace because they seek it through self-glorification. Only when Perempuan and Zamiatin surrender to their suffering and acknowledge their failures do they walk toward redemption.
The Anointed One’s Law Explained
The Law Strictly Promotes Solidarity
To enforce solidarity among the people in the pit, the Anointed One, Dagin Babi, implements a law that his followers religiously obey. Referred to as the Loyalists, Dagin Babi’s followers are expected to eat only the meals they demanded during their interviews before entering the pit. All loyalists keep the top buttons of their shirts closed and ensure that the people in their neighboring cells are following the law. When someone defies the law, the four people directly above the offender are responsible for serving justice to them.
The Anointed One’s law divides the people in the pit into two factions:
- The Loyalists
- The Barbarians
Dagin Babi’s socialist methods stand against the trickle-down economic structure the pit generally follows. Perempuan initially supports his ideals because she finds it fair. However, she soon learns that Dagin Babi is no different from the greedy barbarians when he adopts extreme measures to implement the law. Therefore, she eventually adopts a middle ground, where she teams with the Barbarians but refuses to resort to cannibalism for survival.
What The Platform 2’s Ending Really Means
The Sequel Is Open To Interpretation
If Netflix’s The Platform 2‘s dystopian setting is merely perceived as a skewed social experiment, the ending highlights that the Authority remains in control regardless of whether the prisoners in the pit send the children to Level 0 as “The Message.” The people above will continue setting up ploys and adopting cheap tactics to control the environment inside the prison.
Since many characters, like Perempuan and Goreng, ultimately accept their sins and sacrifice themselves to save the children, their redemption offsets the sense of hopelessness that permeates the pit due to the Authority’s experiments.
However, in both movies, the pit is also portrayed as a self-imposed purgatory for characters. They can descend further into hell or repent of their sins. Since many characters, like Perempuan and Goreng, ultimately accept their sins and sacrifice themselves to save the children, their redemption offsets the sense of hopelessness that permeates the pit due to the Authority’s experiments.
How The Platform 2’s Ending Sets Up A Third Movie
The Platform Seemingly Has Franchise Potential
Since The Platform 2‘s mid-credits scene hints that many pits exist in different parts of the world, a third movie could take the Bird Box approach and unfold in a completely different location. Although The Platform 2 clears the air surrounding many of its predecessor’s mysteries, it also leaves one with new questions surrounding the Authority’s true purpose. A third installment in the movie franchise could explore the broader implications of these mysteries and unexplored ideas. However, The Platform 2‘s follow-up will only see the light of the day if the sequel performs well on Netflix.
