Black Crab: What happens to Caroline’s daughter, Vanja?

Noomi Rapace stars as a desperate mother and a skilled soldier in Netflix‘s new Swedish thriller Black Crab. The film is about a group of soldiers assigned the arduous task of trekking across a frozen landscape to deliver a package that could put an end to a horrible war that has pushed humanity toward extinction.

SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for Black Crab.

The beginning of the movie introduces us to the film’s post-apocalyptic setting and Rapace’s character Caroline Edh. Not long after meeting Caroline and her daughter Vanja, the pair gets attacked by soldiers while they try to drive through a tunnel. The soldiers kidnap Vanja.

After that chilling opening sequence, the movie skips ahead an indeterminate amount of time to show Caroline has become a soldier to better search for her daughter. General Raad enlists her for a special mission with the promise that she’ll be reunited with Vanja if she completes it.

What happens to Caroline’s daughter in Black Crab?

At the end of Black Crab, Vanja and Nylund make it to Odo and hand over the canisters containing a deadly virus meant to end the war (and all of human life with it). Even though the virus basically spells extinction, Caroline is driven to complete her mission so she can be reunited with her daughter.

Sadly, it quickly becomes apparent that General Raad and everyone involved in this mission lied to Caroline to keep her motivated. Vanja is not in Odo waiting to greet her mother. In fact, Caroline is informed that Vanja was never there at all. Understandably, Caroline is devastated.

In short, we don’t know what happened to Vanja. She was taken by the soldiers and never seen again. But she could still be alive somewhere. The next best thing Caroline can do to protect Vanja is to destroy the virus because if Vanja is still alive and the virus gets out, she could die from it.

Caroline then works together with Nylund to destroy the virus. If you want to find out the full extent of what happens at the end of the movie and whether Caroline and Nylund survive, you can read our ending explanation post right here.