Too Late 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!

A private investigator (John Hawkes) scours the streets of Los Angeles to track down a missing woman (Crystal Reed) from his past.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Too Late Plot Summary and Synopsis

The film follows a nonlinear narrative: it consists of five segments which are presented out of chronological order. The five segments are described here in the order they appear in the film:

A young girl, Dorothy Mahler, is hiking on a nature trail near to downtown Los Angeles when two dimwitted street dealers, Jesse and Mathew, turn up by chance. She borrows the phone of one and calls to Mel Samson, a private investigator, whom she had met earlier, saying she needs his help because some bad guys in the city are angry with her. While waiting for Samson to arrive, Dorothy takes ecstasy given to her by the dealers, who have to go but promise to come back for her later.

Dorothy begins talking to a seemingly friendly park ranger (Skippy Fontaine). Dorothy and Fontaine chat until we see that there is a dead body nearby. Suddenly Fontaine attacks Dorothy and strangles her. The returning Jesse and Matthew come across her body and believe that she overdosed on the drugs they gave her, and they run away in fear. Samson arrives, too late, to find Dorothy dead.

In the second segment, Samson arrives at the home of sleazy strip club owner Gordy, saying he’s been in a car accident and needs to use their phone. He speaks with Gordy’s much-younger, neglected wife, Janet, and has a drink. When Samson eventually comes face to face with Gordy and Roger Fontaine, Skippy’s father, he reveals his real identity and tells them the motivation for Dorothy’s murder: Dorothy had photographs of Gordy receiving oral sex from another stripper, and Gordy arranged Dorothy’s murder to keep Janet from finding out.

Janet is incensed by Samson’s story of her husband’s infidelity and retrieves a gun. Provoked by Samson, she shoots Gordy and Roger dead, before (despite Samson’s protests) turning the gun on herself. Samson remarks to himself that he needs to get his life together.

The third segment shows what would have been first chronologically. Samson sits in a strip club and is offered a lap dance from a performer named Jill, which he declines. He meets Dorothy and asks her to get a drink with him but she diverts him and leaves without him noticing. Samson goes to a neighbouring club where a friend’s band is performing live music. He finds Dorothy waiting for him and she joins him in a photo booth. He plays guitar and performs a song.

The fourth segment shows what would have been last chronologically. Jill is working at a drive-in movie theater, where she’s approached by Samson, who has a non-deadly bullet wound in his chest. They discuss their year-long romantic relationship, which ended some time earlier.

Samson reveals that he’s come to the theater to confront one of its patrons, Skippy Fontaine. He gets into Fontaine’s car and points a gun at him but Fontaine manages to stab him in the abdomen with a broken bottle and escape. Jill joins Samson in the car and holds him as he dies. He shows her the “Jilly Bean” tattoo he got in her honor.

In the final segment, Samson goes to see Dorothy’s grandmother and mother about taking her case, but he insists on doing it at no cost, out of loyalty to Dorothy.

Speaking privately to Dorothy’s mother, Mary, Samson reminds her through an allegory that they had had a relationship many years earlier, revealing that Samson is Dorothy’s father and had watched her grow up from a distance her whole life. Walking to his car, Samson is attacked and shot in the chest by Jesse and Matthew, who believe Dorothy died from the drugs they gave her and don’t want to be implicated in Samson’s investigation.

Too Late Ending

They flee, and Samson gets into his car with painful but survivable injuries. Energized by glancing at the photos he and Dorothy took in the photo booth the night they met, he starts his car and drives off.

Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 3.0).