Weapons Entire Storyline Explained (In Proper Order)

Warning – MAJOR Spoilers for Weapons Below!

Writer-director Zach Cregger’s second horror movie hit Weapons, unfolds in a non-linear narrative, but one that is still fairly easy to parse out into its proper chronology. Weapons centers on the quiet town of Maybrook, Pennsylvania, whose residents awaken one morning to learn that 17 children inexplicably walked out of their homes and ran off into the night without any trace of their destination. All 17 of the children were from one fifth-grade classroom at Maybrook’s local elementary school, which immediately places the children’s teacher, Justine Gandy (Julia Garner), under the entire town’s microscope. Meanwhile, Justine begins her own investigation into what became of the 17 missing children, as does one of the missing kids’ fathers, Archer Graff (Josh Brolin).

Compared to the more straightforward narrative of Zach Cregger’s previous horror movie, 2022’s Babarian, the eerie tale of Weapons takes the perspective of several different characters in the movie’s story, including Justine, Archer, and Alex Lilly (Cary Christopher), the one student from Justine’s class who did not disappear. Because of the multiple points of view from different characters that Weapons adopts, the timeline of events seen in the movie shifts back and forth, with events and character arcs also overlapping and intersecting. Here is the entire story of Weapons in the actual chronological order in which it unfolds.

Gladys the Witch Arrives in Town

The events of Weapons are chronologically set in motion by the arrival of Alex’s “aunt” Gladys (Amy Madigan). Despite her warm greeting to Alex, telling him that she hasn’t seen him since he was a baby, Alex immediately grows uneasy and suspicious due to his parents sitting at the dinner table in a catatonic state, with them asking Alex how his school day was in a mindless, robotic tone. Alex’s insistence on knowing what is going on leads Gladys to reprimand him by sending him to his room without dinner.

The next morning, Alex awakens to find his parents still at the table in their catatonic stupor, with Gladys also at the table. Revealing herself as a ruthless witch, Gladys admonishes Alex not to tell anyone of her presence or that his parents are “resting”, and demonstrates the consequences of what will happen if he does by using her witchcraft to make Alex’s parents repeatedly stab themselves in the face with their forks. Having shown Alex the seriousness of her threat, Gladys then frees his parents from stabbing themselves and sends him to school.

Gladys Casts Her Spell (& Forces Alex To Help Her)

Over the next few weeks, Alex is tasked by Gladys with feeding his catatonic parents chicken noodle soup. One night, Alex finds a greatly weakened Gladys in her room, which reveals that the elderly Gladys is sustaining herself by siphoning off the energy of Alex’s parents through her witchcraft. However, their combined life force proves insufficient for the frail Gladys, who tells Alex to collect an item from each of his classmates at school, assuring him that doing so will make her better and she will “go home”.

The next day, Alex steals the name tags from the cubbies of each of his classmates and brings them back home. Armed with an item owned by all 17 of Alex’s classmates, Gladys uses her witchcraft to psychically summon all of them to the Lilly household, with the 17 kids sprinting off into the night directly to Alex’s house. Gladys then keeps all 17 of Alex’s classmates under her spell and captive in the basement, with Alex continuing to feed them and his parents chicken noodle soup to keep them alive.

The Town Unravels After the Children Vanish

Following the sudden, unexplained departure of 17 children in one night, Maybrook, Pennsylvania, becomes gripped with panic and paranoia. The police investigation is able to determine that all of the missing children left their homes at 2:17 A.M., due to some of them either tripping home alarm systems or being caught on security camera footage when they ran away. With Alex being the only child present the next day in the classroom of Justine Gandy, the police investigation immediately turns to both of them. Gladys is able to manipulate the situation in her favor, posing as a caretaker for Alex’s father, whom she claims recently suffered a stroke, and temporarily sending the kids out of the basement when the police investigate the Lilly household, with their visit turning up nothing unusual.

Justine is far less lucky, with the young school teacher immediately becoming the town pariah. While the police investigation finds no evidence of Justine’s involvement in the 17 kids’ disappearance, the town and especially the missing children’s parents remain convinced she had something to do with it. A town hall meeting at the school becomes very heated, with Justine swearing she wants to find the kids as much as their parents do, only to be driven out of the school and put on administrative leave by Principal Marcus Miller (Benedict Wong), with Marcus advising her to keep a low profile.

Archer & Justine’s Stories After the Town Hall Meeting

Following the tense town hall meeting, Justine has a one-night drunken dalliance with her ex-boyfriend, local police officer Paul Morgan (Alden Ehrenreich), which sparks the anger of Paul’s wife Donna (June Diane Raphael), who assaults Justine the next day. Meanwhile, Justine begins independently investigating the mystery of the disappearances, visiting the Lilly household and finding all the windows covered with newspaper, save for a gap that reveals Alex’s parents sitting catatonic in the shadows.

Meanwhile, Archer is plagued by nightmares of his son’s disappearance, and remains convinced of Justine’s involvement, following her home from the town hall meeting and painting the word “Witch” on the side of her car. Analyzing the security camera footage of some of the kids running off, Archer manages to plot their destination to a vague radius within the neighborhood. While heading off the investigate further, he sees Justine at a gas station and pulls in to confront her, only for the two of them to be assaulted by a mind-controlled Marcus.

Marcus had previously put his foot down to Gladys during an office meeting about speaking with Alex’s parents. Gladys subsequently arrives at Marcus’ home, performing another mind control ritual to force Marcus to kill his husband Terry (Clayton Farris). Gladys then sets Marcus after Justine using a lock of her hair (having obtained it by sending Alex’s mind-controlled mother to snip it from Justine, who was sleeping in her car outside of the Lilly house during her investigation). In the end, Justine manages to flee in her car with Marcus still chasing her; Archer pursues in his truck, and the frenzied Marcus is finally struck by a car and killed. Realizing that Justine is not the kidnapper, Archer shares his plotted map of where the children seem to have run off to with Justine, who pinpoints one of the houses in Archer’s plotted radius as the Lilly household.

Paul & James’ Intersecting Stories in Weapons

Concurrently overlapping with Archer and Justine’s stories, Paul is also pulled into the midst of Gladys’ scheme when he stops local drug addict James (Austin Abrams), whom he witnesses trying to break into a building to steal items to pawn for money. After Paul accidentally pricks his finger on one of James’ syringes while searching him, the enraged cop punches James unconscious and goes to treat the wound, hoping that it is not infected with AIDS. Paul then realizes that his police car’s dash cam recorded his assault, and strikes a bargain with James to let him go free on the condition that he never enter this specific part of Maybrook again. Paul’s police captain father-in-law, Ed Locke (Toby Huss), also agrees to cover up the assault, assuring him that the dash cam footage will get recorded over in a month.

James, meanwhile, continues trying to steal items to pay for his drug addiction, and eventually breaks into the Lilly household to do so. While in the house, James sees Alex’s frozen parents and discovers the children all in a frozen, mind-controlled state in the basement before fleeing. While trading some silverware stolen from the house at a local pawn shop, James sees a sign offering a $50,000 reward for information on the 17 missing children, and immediately calls in to claim it. Unfortunately, as James goes to the Maybrook police station to report his discovery, Paul sees him and gives chase. Eventually, Paul catches James in his tent in the woods, with James telling him he knows where the children are. Paul then places James in his squad car and drives to the Lilly residence, only to remain in the house for several hours. He eventually emerges as another of Gladys’ mind-controlled zombies, dragging James into the house with him to be placed under Gladys’ spell.

The Climax in the Lilly Household

As Archer and Justine arrive at the Lilly household to investigate, Gladys has already set the next stage of her plan in motion. Having told Alex to pack up for their departure the next day, Gladys places lines of salt across the living room floor and in front of her bedroom, with Alex’s mind-controlled parents, along with Paul and James standing guard. When Archer and Justine enter the house, Justine steps over one of the lines of salt, triggering Paul and James to violently attack them. Justine manages to get her hand on Paul’s sidearm, shooting and killing both him and James, while Archer heads into the basement. Unfortunately, he runs into Gladys, who quickly places him under her spell, forcing him to attack Justine.

Meanwhile, Alex steps over the line of salt in front of Gladys’ room, causing his parents to violently chase their son. However, Alex manages to get his hands on Gladys’ spell tools and a strand of her hair, performing the same mind control ritual and triggering the 17 children in the basement to target Gladys, who immediately senses what Alex has done. In a panic, Gladys flees the Lilly residence, with the 17 children in hot pursuit, smashing through windows and gates through the neighborhood until they catch Gladys and violently tear her apart.

The death of Gladys causes all 17 kids, along with Archer and Alex’s parents, to be freed from her control. Archer finds the kids standing over Gladys’ corpse and carries his son Matthew (Luke Speakman) home. However, despite being freed from the witch’s control, the spell still leaves Alex’s parents and the kids in catatonic, dream-like states (Archer, by contrast, regains full control of his mind and body, presumably due to the brevity of the mind control he was under). Alex’s parents are subsequently sent to a mental hospital, with Alex being sent to live with his actual aunt. The child narrator reveals that some of the 17 kidnapped children eventually began speaking again, though it remains ambiguous if the long-term effects of Gladys’ two-month-long spell in Weapons is something all of the kids and Alex’s parents will ever fully be “free” of.

Weapons is now playing in theaters.

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