Okay so, new thoughts about the ‘Sacrifice Arcadia Bay’ ending. Keep it as it is.

Just add one more scene at the end, after we fade out on the car.

Like the ‘dark room’ teasers, it starts with the camera pointing at a shelf - but instead of binders, its books about photography, skateboarding, indie and punk music, travel books for countries all around the world.



Then pan around, the room illuminated by the light of the golden hour flooding through an open window, and we see that on the table there is an unfinished scrapbook album being worked on, full of pictures of Max and Chloe at various points over the next few years. You can see that they were happy together - oh, and there’s at least one photo of them kissing.

There’s also a bunch of newspaper clippings strewn around the table, about the survivors and the victims of the Arcadia Bay tornado - with certain people surviving based on your relationship with them, but still too many dying, always too many. There’s the photo of young Joyce and William, dog-eared and with splashes of water damage around the edges, recovered from the wreckage of the Price house.

There are articles about Max’s photography career, and several about awards Chloe’s won for her varied charity work (for LGBT teens, mental illness, and helping war veterans - there’s so many thanking her for changing their lives) to really bring home the idea that the world isn’t better off losing Chloe Price. Maybe one life is still worth saving, for the difference a single person can make.

As the camera pans away up to the window, a blue jay flies in and perches on the windowsill. There’s a moment of stillness, then the sound of a camera shutter, and a flash of light.