Saw II Ending Explained [SPOILER!]

SPOILER ALERT: the following article contains massive spoilers, including the ending. If you have not yet seen the movie, proceed at your own risk, or better, come back to this article later!

On the hunt for the twisted vigilante and serial killer Jigsaw (Tobin Bell), Detective Eric Matthews (Donnie Wahlberg) and his team must apprehend the elusive murderer to rescue eight people trapped in an abandoned house, before they succumb to his torturous and murderous games. One twist to this task is that Matthews’ own son, Daniel (Erik Knudsen), is among the eight people Jigsaw has chosen to test for their lack of morality. With nerve gas pumping through the house, every second counts.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Saw II Plot Summary and Synopsis

Police informant Michael Marks awakens in a room with a spike-filled mask locked around his neck. Michael has one minute to cut into his eye to obtain the key, but can’t bring himself to do it and is killed when the mask closes. At the scene of Michael’s game, Detective Allison Kerry finds a message for her former partner, Detective Eric Matthews, and calls him in. Matthews joins Kerry and Officer Daniel Rigg in leading a SWAT team to the factory which produced the lock from Michael’s trap. There they apprehend John Kramer, the Jigsaw Killer, who indicates computer monitors showing eight people trapped in a house, including his only known survivor Amanda Young, and Matthews’ son Daniel. The other victims are Xavier, Jonas, Gus, Laura, Addison, and Obi. A nerve agent filling the house will kill them all within two hours, but John assures Matthews that if he follows the rules of his own game, he will see Daniel again. At Kerry’s urging, Matthews agrees to buy time for the tech team to arrive and trace the video signal. During their conversation, John reveals to Matthews that one of his main motivations to become Jigsaw was a failed suicide attempt after his cancer diagnosis, which led to a newfound appreciation for life; his games’ purpose is to help his victims develop the same appreciation.

The group is informed by a microcassette recorder that antidotes are hidden throughout the house; one is in the room’s safe, and the tape provides a cryptic clue. Xavier ignores a warning note and uses the key provided with the cassette on the door, which triggers a gun that kills Gus. Once the door opens, they search the house and find a basement, where Obi, who helped with the abductions, is killed in a furnace trap while trying to retrieve two antidotes. In another room, Xavier’s test involves digging through a pit filled with syringes to retrieve a key to a steel door in two minutes, but he instead throws Amanda into the pit.

She retrieves the key, but Xavier fails to unlock the door in time. Throughout the game, the group discuss connections between them and determine that each has been incarcerated before except Daniel. During his father’s test, John reveals their affiliation to Matthews who was a corrupt police officer framing his suspects in various crimes recently.

Xavier returns to the safe room and finds a number on the back of Gus’ neck. After realizing the numbers is the password for the safe, he kills Jonas and begins hunting the others. Laura succumbs to the nerve agent and dies; not before finding the clue revealing Daniel’s identity. Incensed by the revelation, Addison leaves on her own and finds a glass box containing an antidote but her arms become trapped in the openings which are lined with hidden blades. Xavier enters the room and leaves her to die after reading her number. Amanda and Daniel find a tunnel from the first room leading to the dilapidated bathroom. Xavier finds them and, agitated by Amanda’s notion, cuts off a piece of skin from the back of his neck to read his own number. Before Xavier could finish them off, Daniel slits his throat with the hacksaw.

Having seen Xavier chasing his son, Matthews assaults John and forces him to lead him to the house. The tech team tracks the video’s source and while Rigg’s team searches the house, Kerry realizes that the game took place days before they captured John until the timer for Matthews’ game expires to reveal Daniel inside a safe, bound and breathing in an oxygen mask.

Saw II Ending

Unaware of these events, Matthews enters the house alone and makes his way to the bathroom, where he is subdued by a pig-masked figure. He awakens shackled at the ankle to a pipe and finds a tape recorder left by Amanda, who reveals she had become John’s accomplice after surviving her first trap and helped him set up Matthews’ test during the game at the house, intending to continue John’s work after he dies. Amanda then appears and seals the door, leaving Matthews to die as John hears his screams outside and smiles.

Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 3.0).