Warning: Major spoilers below for Bird Box Barcelona!Bird Box Barcelona is the terrifying next chapter in Netflix's horror franchise, and the ending teases there's more to come in the near future. Bird Box Barcelona wrongfoots viewers within the first 20 minutes with its protagonist Sebastián, who is trying to survive in post-apocalyptic Barcelona with daughter Anna (Alejandra Howard). He soon meets up with a group of survivors - only to lead them all to their deaths by exposing them to the Bird Box franchise's monsters, who induce suicide when observed. It turns out that Sebastián sees the creatures as "angels," and he believes he's "saving" people by forcing them to look.
His daughter Anna is also a hallucination, as she died months earlier when other humans forced her to look at the creatures. Sebastián then encounters another group, but while initially working to subvert their goal of reaching safety at Montjuïc Castle, he comes to bond with fellow survivors Claire (Georgina Campbell) and a young girl named Sofia (Naila Schuberth). After suffering more losses, the group reaches the cable car station to the castle. Sebastián sacrifices himself to buy Claire and Sofia time and the two reach the safety of the castle, where Sofia is also reunited with her mother.
Related: Bird Box Barcelona Review: A Compelling, Thrilling, Frightening Horror Spinoff
Why Sebastian Sacrifices Himself In Bird Box Barcelona's Ending
Bird Box Barcelona cast Mario Casas as Sebastián, who is by far the most compelling element of the spinoff. The opening does an excellent job of setting him up as a sympathetic protagonist, making his betrayal of the survivors who take him in all the more devastating. Flashbacks explore the trauma he suffered, including watching his wife die as the city was invaded by the creatures. He also fought to keep his daughter Anna safe, only for Bird Box Barcelona's main human villain Padre Esteban (Leonardo Sbaraglia) and his men to capture her and force her to look at the "angels."
Sebastián also sees the creatures, and in his grief, he comes to believe they are angelic beings. However, interacting with Bird Box Barcelona's other survivors makes him realize the monsters are anything but divine, and he recognizes how wrong his "mission" was. In Bird Box Barcelona's ending, he also realizes Padre Esteban and his horde won't stop coming, so he stays behind at the cable car station's entrance to buy Anna and Claire enough time to cross.
Padre Esteban is so intent on his mission that he walks over a burning car to fight Sebastián, with the two ultimately killing each other with a piece of rebar. Sebastián at least lives long enough to see that Claire and Sofia made it into the cable car, and he has one last vision of his daughter hugging him before he dies.
Are Claire & Sofia Actually Safe?
Bird Box Barcelona's ending makes Claire and Sofia work for their victory though. When they reach the top of the station, Claire has no choice but to take her blindfold off so she can operate the machinery. Naturally, a monster soon arrives to complicate matters, and it mimics her late brother's voice to try to get her to look. Claire then has to close her eyes and listen to the timing of the opening and closing of the cable car doors, so she and Sofia can jump across a broken platform to the safety of a moving car.
Claire's timing when she eventually leaps is perfect, and she and Sofia are met by army personnel on the other side. There are many other survivors in the castle too, who are helping grow food and plants, while Sofia is reunited with her missing, presumed-deceased mother. Assuming nobody accidentally lets some of the creatures across to the castle and their supplies hold out, Claire and Sofia should be safe for the foreseeable future.
Why Humans Help The Creatures In Bird Box Barcelona Explained
Fans of the original Bird Box will recall there were human characters like Tom Hollander's Gary whose minds were corrupted after witnessing the creatures. Inside of dying by suicide, they sought out and attacked other people, forcing them to look at the monsters. With Sebastián, Bird Box Barcelona's story explains in more detail what's driving these people to assist the monsters. In Sebastián's mind, he sees them as divine, and by exposing people to them, he's saving their souls. In fact, when he witnesses people die, he even sees their spirits exit their bodies.
The will of the monsters is also represented in his hallucinations of Anna, who spurs him on to "save" the people he meets, and that when the time is right, they'll be reunited in heaven. It's only when Sebastián starts to lose his "faith" that he realizes they're not divine entities, which then makes him focus on saving Sofia and Claire instead. At the end of the movie, the army also claims that seeing Bird Box's creatures causes genetic alteration of the DNA, which may also explain why people become obsessed with them if they survive their initial encounter.
Bird Box Barcelona's "Observers Effect" & How It Explains The Creatures
Bird Box Barcelona, like the original movie, doesn't show the creatures. This is a wise move, and a theory the spinoff puts forth is that it's also impossible to actually show them, as they have no true form. Supporting player Octavio (Diego Calva) has a degree in physics, and theorizes the monsters could be "quantum beings." In quantum mechanics, he explains, all particles exist in a state of indefinition, with all possibilities existing at once. It's only when they are observed that all those possibilities collapse into one and take on a definite shape.
This is called "Observers effect," but Octavio believes Bird Box Barcelona's monsters have no true state of their own, and they shape themselves based on the person who sees them. So for example, Sebastián sees them as angelic, with the creatures morphing themselves into that state based on his persona or beliefs. Another character might see them as aliens, or a loved one. While Bird Box Barcelona doesn't present this as the only explanation for the creatures, it's certainly a compelling argument.
Why Sebastian Sees Bird Box's Creatures As Angels
Bird Box Barcelona's hero Sebastián is depicted as catholic, with Anna also being sent to a catholic school. He also gave his daughter a necklace of a Seraph, which is commonly as a six-winged angel. If Octavio's "Obeserver's effect" theory is indeed accurate, this would explain why Sebastián's faith plays a role in how he sees the creatures. This also gives him a "divine" mission, as he believes he's sending souls to heaven when he lures the monsters to them.
How Bird Box Barcelona's Ending Sets Up Bird Box 3
Bird Box Barcelona's ending finds Claire being taken for a blood test by the army, who refers to those infected by the creatures as "Seers." They reveal that seeing the monsters changes people's DNA, which is known to happen in extreme forms of stress caused by abuse, violence or grief. The army doctors are also drawing blood samples from seers to create a compound that could grant immunity from the monsters.
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Bird Box Barcelona's final scene involves the army drawing blood from a seer, and testing it on rats. They've also captured a creature and have it in containment, and use the rats to test exactly how long they survive after being injected with a seers' blood. This suggests a vaccine against the effects of the creatures could be found for the next Bird Box movie, and by studying the captive monster, mankind may begin to understand what they are and where they came from.
