Netflix’s In the Shadow of the Moon: Ending explained

Netflix’s In the Shadow of the Moon is filled with twists and turns. Here is everything you need to know to fully understand all of the moving parts.

If you just watched the new Netflix original movie In the Shadow of the Moon, you might have a lot of questions. While you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to understand what is going on, there are enough components that make In the Shadow of the Moon denser than your standard mystery.

To be clear, this will be spoiler-filled so if you haven’t watched the movie yet, it will be in your best interest to watch it and come back after. Without further adieu, let’s get into all of the nooks and crannies of In the Shadow of the Moon.

How Time Travel Works

We discover at the midway point that we are dealing with a time-travel movie. One thing that is a little confusing is how time travel in the movie works.

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In the scene in 1997 where Dr. Rao visits Lockhart (Holbrook), Rao explains what he believes is going on. While Lockhart and his partner quickly dismiss his claims, he proves to be right all along.

In a nutshell, every nine years the moon aligns in a certain position via the lunar cycle. At this position, a bridge to a theoretical different place is possible.

In the future, Rao develops the technology needed for Rya (Cleopatra Coleman) to access this bridge and travel through time. This is the reason why each set of murders is every nine years and why Rya is moving backwards through time.

Whether or not this is remotely scientific is unknown but for the purposes of the movie, these rules work quite well.

The one thing that isn’t 100% crystal clear for me is what happens to the future of where the bombings already happened. It looks like once the targets are terminated, this future is erased. The reason I think that is because the ending includes the 2024 bombing being undone.

After watching Avengers: Endgame, I felt that the representation of time travel makes the most sense. Nonetheless, the movie doesn’t go against the rules it has set which makes it work.

Rya’s Mission

The opening moments of In the Shadow of the Moon show the aftermath of a devastating bombing. We later learn that the people responsible for the bombing was Harold Nowak and members of the “True American Movement”. The bombing leads to civil war and the destruction of the country.

Rya’s mission is to kill every member of the movement in order to stop the idea of the bombing from ever happening. To do so she injects these members with a compound that essentially melts their brain. Once Rao “detonates” the compound in the future, her mission is complete.

Because of the moon cycles, she only has a limited amount of time to inject each person. This explains why she can’t just inject everyone during one trip.

Since she is moving backward in time, her death in 1988 is inevitable. Unbeknownst to us, she is already aware that she is going to die in the 1988 scene. Nothing can be undone because it has already happened in the current timeline.

I don’t think her death matters too much because since she succeeds in the mission, her reality is erased. The real heartbreak is for Lockhart who not only has to live with the guilt of killing his granddaughter, but also the fact that he ruined the experience of seeing his daughter grow up.