'Trap' Ending Explained: What Happens to Josh Hartnett in M. Night Shyamalan's New Film?

The new M. Night Shyamalan film Catch is now streaming on Max, just in time for Halloween weekend.

Written and directed by Shyamalan, the film stars Josh Hartnett as Cooper: a loving father by day and a sociopathic serial killer by night. Cooper takes his daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) to a concert for her favorite fictional singer, Lady Raven (Saleka Night Shyamalan). When he realizes that the concert is a trap set by the FBI to catch him, he only has the duration of the concert to find a way out.

Catch The film grossed $71 million at the global box office, more than doubling its production budget of $30 million. Although it was a financial success, Catchlike many Shyamalan films, proved controversial for both critics and audiences. Some viewers, including you, found Hartnett so endearing and Shyamalan's mastery of suspense so compelling that they were willing to gloss over the unsatisfactory writing. However, others will undoubtedly object to the plot, particularly when it comes to the convoluted ending. Read on for a full breakdown Catch Plot summary and the Catch End explained.

Catch Plot summary:

Cooper Abbott (Josh Hartnett) takes his young daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) to a concert in Philadelphia for her favorite pop star singer Lady Raven (Saleka Night Shyamalan). At the concert, Cooper notices an unusually large police presence and asks one of the merchandise sellers what's going on. Salesman Jamie (Jonathan Langdon) informs Cooper that the FBI has received a tip that an infamous Philadelphia serial killer, The Butcher, will be at the concert. The authorities have therefore secured all exits in order to “lock” the butcher in the venue with no way out.

We soon learn that Cooper is actually the butcher. He has a live broadcast on his cell phone of one of his victims, Spencer, whom he trapped in a basement. Cooper attempts to escape the venue through various means and in the process discovers FBI profiler Josephine Grant (Hayley Mills) who is in charge of his case. Cooper lies to Lady Raven's staff by claiming that Riley has leukemia, so she is chosen as a special fan who is allowed to go on stage during the show and meet Lady Raven backstage. Cooper thinks he can avoid security by going backstage with Lady Raven… but he discovers there's security at the back door too.

In response, Cooper reveals to Raven that he is the Butcher. He shows her Spencer's livestream and threatens to kill him via toxic fumes unless she agrees to privately escort him and Riley out of the venue so they can bypass security. Raven agrees, but then asks Riley to come with them to her house. Unable to say “no” in front of his daughter, the three return to Cooper's house, where they meet with Cooper's wife Rachel (Alison Pill). Raven tells the whole family what she learned about the butcher from the FBI profiler: that he has mother problems, that he has obsessive-compulsive disorder, and that they knew he would be at the concert today after they bought one of his concert tickets A receipt had discovered fake houses.

Raven manages to steal Cooper's phone and locks herself in the bathroom. She uses his phone to communicate with Spencer to get details about where he was taken and to send livestreams to her followers describing the house. One of her followers knows the house and she tells them to go there to save a man who needs help. She also texts her driver to call the police. Meanwhile, Cooper locks his family upstairs. He breaks into the bathroom and kidnaps Raven. In the house's garage, Raven distracts Cooper by pretending to be his mother, bringing up the mommy issues the FBI profiler told her about.

There's enough time for Mom, Riley, and her brother to escape by climbing out the window, a detail Cooper didn't think of because he's never thought of his family as kidnap victims before. The Abbott family is taken away by the police while Raven drives in her limousine. When the police search the house, they do not find Cooper in the house. He escapes through a secret tunnel by disguising himself as a member of the SWAT team, getting into Raven's limousine and taking on the role of driver. Raven manages to escape Cooper in the limo by alerting nearby fans that she needs help, but Cooper also manages to escape by blending into the crowd.

Catch Ending explained:

Cooper returns to his family home where he confronts his wife Rachel. It turns out that Rachel already suspected that Cooper was the Butcher, and that she was the one who left the receipt for the concert in one of his safe houses for the authorities to find and informed them about the house. Cooper wants to kill Rachel with a butcher knife, but she convinces him to eat a piece of cake first.

After Cooper eats his cake, he realizes that Rachel drugged him with the same drugs he used on his victims to “calm” them down. While drugged, Cooper hallucinates during a conversation with his mother, who praises him for showing emotion and humanity. She convinces him to come closer, and he does – and is attacked with a Taser by a SWAT team and captured. It turns out that FBI profiler Josephine Grant, like Raven before, was posing as Cooper's mother. From this we can conclude that Grant must have suspected that Cooper would return to the house to talk to Rachel and that the whole thing was just another trap designed to trap him. Only this time it worked.

Cooper is taken out of the house in chains. Before he leaves, he rights a fallen bicycle in the yard. He has OCD, remember? In the final scene of the film, we see Cooper chained in the back of the truck. Using a spoke from the bicycle he stole while he was being judged, he picks the lock on his handcuffs and frees himself. He laughs and the film ends with the implication that Cooper will escape this trap again. Just call him Houdini!

There is one Catch The scene is mid-credits, but it's just a funny, tongue-in-cheek moment where the salesman, Jamie, realizes he helped the Butcher escape. He vows never to speak to anyone at work again. However, the news anchor does not clarify whether Cooper is currently in custody, so the film leaves open whether Cooper escaped or not. Personally, I like to think he did. You can't catch the master!