Run (2020)

Run (2020) Full Recap

A baby girl is born way too early and the doctors rush her into an incubator. She's so small she barely looks real. Machines beep all around her and a team of nurses works to keep her breathing. Her mother, Diane Sherman, sits by the glass and asks the only question that matters to her.

Nobody gives her a straight answer. 17 years later, Diane is sitting in a circle at a support group for parents of sick kids. The group leader turns to her and asks how she feels about her daughter leaving for college in a few months. Diane says they haven't heard back from any colleges yet. Then she jokes that for 17 years she hasn't traveled, gone out, or had any time to herself.

So honestly, she feels great when another parent asks if her daughter can really handle being on her own. Diane doesn't even blink. She says Khloe is the most capable person she knows and that if there's anyone nobody needs to worry about, it's her. Her daughter Chloe has been sick since day one.

Asthma, diabetes, a heart that skips beats, some kind of blood problem, and legs that don't work. So, she's in a wheelchair. Her mornings go like this. Prick a finger, check the sugar, pills. So many pills. then breathing with mom counting 5 6 7 8. Diane homeschools her too and she runs the day like clockwork with an hour and a half of physics, then literature, then biology.

Khloe has never been to a real school, never had a phone of her own, and never spent a night away from her mom. Her whole world is this house. Khloe is desperate to get into college, especially the University of Washington, and she's been waiting for weeks. So, when Diane says the mail is here, Khloe races to the door so fast that she runs out of breath.

Diane tells her to use her inhaler and promises that if a college letter ever shows up, she'll hand it over without even looking at it. For now, there's nothing. Chloe isn't just smart. She's the kind of kid who builds things. Her room is full of circuit boards, solaring tools, and gadgets she's taken apart and put back together.

At dinner, she proudly tells her mom she beat her record on the armike. Later, while a promo video for the University of Washington plays on her laptop, Diane asks a random question. When was the last time the two of them went to see a movie? That night, after Khloe goes to bed, Diane sits alone in front of the TV and watches an old home video.

It shows Khloe as a little kid sitting at the table and saying hi to her mommy. Diane watches the screen like it's the most precious thing in the world. The next day, Diane gets a call from Khloe's doctor and steps outside, saying the reception in the house is terrible. While she's gone, Khloe goes digging through the grocery bags looking for chocolate.

Instead, she finds a bottle of green pills. The label has her mom's name on it, not hers. At dinner, Diane hands her one of those green pills and explains that the company that made one of Khloe's old medicines went out of business, so the doctor wrote her a new prescription. And Chloe says she thought the pills were her mom's because she saw her mom's name on them.

Diane smiles and says that was just the receipt. It was wrapped around the bottle and that's where they always put her name. It sounds reasonable. And Chloe lets it go, at least for now. But she can't stop thinking about it. Later, she checks the medicine cabinet and looks through her pill bottles one by one.

The next day, Diane leaves to fill in for a math teacher at the local school, and Khloe gets the house to herself. When her mom comes home and walks in on her, Khloe nearly jumps out of her chair, like she's been caught doing something wrong. When she's alone again, Khloe takes a closer look at the bottle. Her name's on the label, sure, but it's on a little crooked, like somebody slapped it on in a hurry.

She gets a fingernail under one corner and pulls. It comes right off. There's another label under it, and that one says Diane. Somebody covered her mom's name with hers. The drug is called Tricoxin. Tricoxin. That night, Chloe waits until the house goes quiet. Then she rides the stairlift down to the family computer and types the name of the drug into the search bar.

The page won't load. The internet is down. She tries again and again, but nothing comes up. What she doesn't know is that her mom is standing in the dark watching her the whole time. The next morning, Diane is on the phone yelling at a customer service agent, complaining that the internet could be out until the end of the month.

Kloe asks how long it'll be down, and then something hits her. How did her mom know the call was about the internet. Diane admits she used the computer last night and asks what Khloe was looking up. Kloe lies and says she was trying to fix her printer. Chloe doesn't have a cell phone, so when her mom leaves the room, she rolls into Diane's bedroom and picks up the landline.

She calls the local pharmacy and asks about Trioxin. But the woman on the other end recognizes the number and asks if it's Diane. Chloe slams the phone down, so she tries something crazier. After a failed try with directory assistance, she ends up on the phone with a total stranger.

He's in the middle of a fight with his girlfriend, and he thinks Khloe is a telemarketer. She tells him she's 17. She has no internet and no cell phone, and she needs one quick Google search. It takes some begging and a little flattery, but he agrees. He looks up Trioxin and reads it out loud.

It's a heart medication used for serious heart problems. Then, Chloe asks him what the pills look like. He says they're all the same, small and red. Khloe stares at the green pill in her hand and hangs up without a word. Whatever her mom has been giving her every night, it isn't heart medicine.

Little red pill. She needs to know what that green pill really is, and she can't ask her mom. So, at dinner, she brings up a movie night, the idea her mom had a few days earlier. Diane is happy to go. They drive into town and find seats in the dark theater. A few minutes into the film, Kloe whispers that she needs to use the bathroom.

Diane offers to come with her, but Khloe tells her to stay and catch her up on what she missed. As soon as she's out of sight, Khloe wheels straight out of the building. There's a pharmacy right across the street. She gets across, pushes past the shampoo and the cold medicine, and reaches the counter.

And of course, there's a line. Her mom is going to notice pretty soon that this is a really long bathroom break. So, Khloe asks the people in line if she can skip ahead, and she isn't shy about pointing at the wheelchair. The pharmacist, Mrs. Bates, knows her. Khloe holds up the pill and asks what it is.

But the prescription is under her mom's name and Mrs. Bates says that's confidential. So Khloe makes up a story on the spot. She says it's a scavenger hunt and that she and her mom love scavenger hunts. Mrs. Bates loves games and she checks the system. What she finds makes no sense.

The pharmacy shares its system with the vet next door. And according to the records, Diane gets these pills for a dog. The drug is called Ritica. It's a muscle relaxer for dogs with leg pain. Khloe asks what would happen if a human took it. Mrs. Bates is confused by the question, but she guesses it could make your legs go numb.

It's dog medicine. Chloe can't breathe. She's having a full-blown panic attack right there in the middle of the store. And then Diane comes running in, calling her name. She kneels in front of her daughter, tells everyone to back off and hugs her close, whispering that it's going to be okay.

Then she quietly pushes a needle into Khloe's arm and Khloe goes limp. That night, Diane calls Mrs. Bates to apologize for the scene. She blames it on the new medicine, saying it messed with Khloe's head. Then she gets to the real reason for the call. She wants Mrs. Bates to tell Khloe that her mom would never give her a drug made for animals and that even if she did, it would be perfectly safe.

She isn't asking for a favor. She's cleaning up her story before anyone starts asking questions. Chloe wakes up in her own bed. She gets herself into her wheelchair and tries the door, but it's locked from the outside. She talks through the door and tells her mom she just wants to talk.

She says there must be a good explanation for everything. Nobody answers. Diane has left the house and Chloe is locked in. So, she does something terrifying. She opens her window and pulls herself out onto the roof using only her arms. Her legs drag behind her like dead weight. Inch by inch, she crawls across the shingles toward her mom's bedroom window with nothing to stop her from sliding off the edge.

One wrong move and she falls two stories onto the ground below. She keeps her eyes on the window and doesn't look down. The window is shut. Kloe uses some quick science, heating the glass with a solaring iron and then splashing it with water until it cracks. She breaks through and drops onto the floor.

Then her asthma kicks in. She can barely breathe and she has to crawl all the way back to her room to reach her inhaler. With her lungs working again, Khloe heads for the stairlift, her only way down, but it won't move. Her mom has cut the power cord. Diane wasn't just making sure Khloe stayed in her room.

She was making sure she couldn't leave the house. Khloe throws her wheelchair down the staircase, then tries to lower herself after it. She falls and lands hard on the floor. She's bruised and shaken, but as she lies there, something strange happens. She looks at her feet and one of her toes moves.

Without that green pill in her system for a few days, her legs are starting to wake up. It's tiny, but it's the first time in her life she's ever felt something like that. She drags herself back into the chair, gets out of the house, and rolls down the empty country road as fast as her arms can push her. Then, she sees a mail truck.

She waves it down, crying, and the mailman, Tom, stops. Khloe tells him her mom has been poisoning her, and he agrees to help. But before they can go anywhere, Diane's car pulls up. She jumps out panicked, asking if her daughter is hurt. Tom tells her Khloe said her mother hurt her.

Diane says that's ridiculous. She claims the new medicine is making Khloe confused, and she begs Tom to believe a mother who knows her child is sick. Tom doesn't budge. He says he can't let Khloe go with her. She said, "I have her." Diane pretends to give in and Tom gets ready to take Khloe himself.

But while he's closing up the back of his truck, Diane sneaks up behind him and stabs a needle into his neck. Tom drops. Chloe starts panicking again and everything goes black. When Khloe opens her eyes, she's in the basement. Her wheelchair is chained to a metal pole. She can hear her mom upstairs dragging something heavy through the hallway.

Chloe has never been down here before, and it's full of boxes and old files that her mom never wanted her to see. She starts going through them. She finds photos of herself as a little girl standing and walking on her own two feet. Then she finds a death certificate for a baby girl named Chloe Sherman, who lived for only 2 hours and 11 minutes.

And then she finds an old newspaper article about a couple whose newborn baby was stolen from the same hospital. Under all of it are the college acceptance letters she's been waiting for. Her mom hid every single one. Khloe got into college. She got her way out of this house months ago and her mom just made sure she never found out.

Now Chloe understands the truth. Diane's real baby died right after she was born. So Diane walked into the nursery and took someone else's baby. That baby was Chloe. The woman she grew up calling mom isn't her mother at all. Diane comes down the stairs and Khloe confronts her. She tells her she's not her real mom.

Diane insists she is. When Khloe asks about her real parents, Diane says they don't matter and that she saved Khloe from them. Chloe asks if she was ever actually sick. Diane won't answer. She just says no one in the world loves their kid more than she does. You poisoned her. Chloe tells her she poisoned her.

Diane says she protected her. She talks about starting over and forgetting all of this. so things can go back to how they used to be. She even says Tom is fine and just sleeping. Khloe looks her in the eye and tells her she didn't do any of this for Chloe. She did it for herself.

Diane shakes her head and swears that's not true, but for the first time, she can't find the words to argue back. Then Diane picks up a syringe and fills it with something she made herself. Kloe begs her to stop. Diane promises it'll wipe all of this away. And when Chloe wakes up, she'll be her baby again, like nothing ever happened.

Chloe throws herself out of the chair, drags herself across the concrete, and shuts herself in a tiny storage closet. She locks it. Diane stands outside in her softest voice, saying there's nothing to be scared of. In the closet, Khloe sees a bottle of pesticide sitting on a shelf, and she gets an idea that shows how desperate she is.

If she's sick enough, her mom has to take her to a hospital. Hospitals have doctors and nurses, people who might listen, so she drinks it. When Diane breaks the door open, she finds her daughter on the floor and screams. At the hospital, Khloe survives. Diane wants to take her home right away, but the doctor refuses.

Since Khloe swallowed poison on purpose, she can't leave until a mental health specialist talks to her. Wh When will when will that happen? The doctor also brings up something odd in the file. In just 6 months, Khloe has had more than a dozen different doctors. Diane doesn't have a good answer for that.

In her room, Khloe has a breathing tube in her mouth and can hardly lift a finger. When a nurse named Cammy comes in, Khloe tries to tell her something with her eyes. Cammy figures out that she wants to write and gives her a crayon. Kloe starts writing letter by letter as slowly as her shaking hand allows.

Then an emergency alarm goes off down the hall, and Cammy rushes out before she can read it. That's all Diane needs. She slips into the room, lifts Khloe into a wheelchair, and ties her in. She whispers that she knows she scared her and hurt her, but she'll spend the rest of their lives making it up to her.

Run (2020) Ending Explained

Then she says the line she's been saying all along. Kloe needs her. She always had. When Cammy comes back, the bed is empty. She looks down at the paper Khloe left behind. In big shaky letters, it says one word, "Mom." Cammy realizes exactly who took her. She calls security and an alert goes out across the whole building.

Diane pushes the wheelchair through the halls with her head down, looking for a way out while alarms ring through the building, and guards start searching every floor. But Khloe has one weapon left. She presses her foot down and holds the chair in place, slowing her mom down. Kloe tells her she doesn't need her anymore.

Diane says she will. Then security guards corner them at the top of a staircase. Diane pulls out a gun and points it at the guards, yelling that they're going home. One of the guards fires and hits her in the arm. She tumbles backward down the stairs. Khloe sits frozen in the wheelchair at the top, watching the woman who raised her lie, still at the bottom. 7 years pass.

Kloe comes into a prison on her own two feet, slow, leaning on a cane. Some days she still needs the wheelchair, but short walks aren't a problem anymore. The guard at the front says hi to her by name. She's been coming here every month. Diane is lying in a prison infirmary bed, weak and barely able to move.

Khloe sits beside her and tells her about her life. She has a little daughter of her own who's learning to walk, and she works fitting kids with prosthetic legs. She even mentions that her daughter spends holidays with her grandparents, so she's back with her real family. Before she leaves, Khloe pulls out three green pills she smuggled in.

She smiles, tells Diane she loves her, and says, "Now open wide." 17 years of being kept sick by the one person who was supposed to keep her safe, and Chloe still got out.