'Hell Motel' Finale Episode 8 Recap: Are Paige And Andy Dead?

In the 7th episode of Hell Motel, Shirley, Floyd, and Paige turned against Andy and painted him as the third killer. Shirley and Floyd needed to sacrifice one dead person and one living person to complete their ritual of summoning Baphomet. In keeping with the “final girl,” they wanted to keep Paige alive and sacrifice Andy. So, they convinced Paige that Andy was the serial killer and got her to help tie him up until the altar was ready. Since this was traumatic for Paige, she decided to chill out in her bath. That’s when the WiFi system in the Cold River Motel somehow reactivated, and she managed to not only call 911 but also used the internet to find out that Shirley and Floyd were cultists. Paige and Shirley got into a fight because of that, and the latter died in the process. Then Paige and Andy banded together to take down Floyd. Soon after that, the police arrived, thereby bringing their violent saga to an end. That said, during its closing moments, two things were revealed: a human heart in Paige’s room and a Baphomet costume on the roof of the motel. Did the 8th and final episode finally reveal who the third killer was? Let’s find out.

Spoiler Alert

Episode 8 of Hell Motel opens with Paige shooting for the latest installment of Doomed Service, where she has a disagreement with the director, Aaron, about Caitlyn, the version that she plays in the in-universe movie franchise, standing around and waiting to be saved. She wants Caitlyn to save herself instead of depending on someone else. Aaron takes her advice and leaves the scene to talk to the writers about this subtle change. Given how Paige proceeds to “direct” the stunt actor playing Baphomet about how he needs to hold the axe, it’s apparent that the popularity that she has received after surviving the Cold River Motel massacre has gone to her head a bit. I say “a bit” because, while talking to Aaron about some more changes that need to happen in the script, she shows some level of self-awareness that she is claiming to know more about horror storytelling than the director and the writers. But Aaron makes it clear that he is thankful that Paige has agreed to be a part of this reboot, because they can blend her real-life experience and this fictionalized retelling to make something masterful. The focus of the episode then shifts to Andy, who has seemingly used the popularity he has gained from the aforementioned incident to become a full-fledged teacher on the subject of genre-specific storytelling. But his class is derailed by a student, who really wants him to talk about horror, because he can’t stand people who still think that real-life crimes should be re-analyzed through the lens of fiction. 

Andy dismisses the students from his class and then attends to a text from Paige, saying that she should have responded to the flowers that Andy had sent to her a few months ago. It’s obvious that a lot of time has passed between episodes 7 and 8, but now it looks like some more time has passed between the scene where Paige gets the flowers and the scene where Andy gets a text from her. She was busy with shooting the Doomed Service reboot, which is why she couldn’t get back to him, and in order to apologize for this, she asks Andy to come to her place for dinner. In addition to that, she invites him to the screening of the new film, which he says that he’ll think about. Later on, Andy finally addresses the elephant in the room: the human heart that he found. Paige essentially says that Shirley and Floyd, who she thinks were the only two killers responsible for all the murders, must’ve put it there to frame her in case they failed to convince Paige to turn against Andy. Surprisingly enough, Andy accepts that theory and apologizes profusely for even thinking that Paige could be the third killer. Paige accepts the apology, and they proceed to partake in some “sexy time.”

Paige and Andy’s pillow talk covers topics such as surviving against the odds at the motel, the link between death and sex, the plot points in the new Doomed Service movie, what’s considered canon, and what’s not canon in that franchise anymore. The thing that Andy fixates upon, though, is the fact that the fictional Caitlyn has a daughter from her first husband, who is revealed to be Baphomet. Andy says that the real-life first husband of the real-life Caitlyn was cleared of all charges, and yet he was harassed until he died. Paige argues that this isn’t real life; hence, facts can be distorted for the sake of entertainment. It doesn’t sit well with Andy, but since he can’t do anything about it, he just accepts that if the latest installment in the Doomed Service franchise ends up being a hit, then it’ll revive the career of the girl he loves. That in turn will make all the trauma they have been through seem worth it. At night, we see Paige and Andy attending the special screening of Doomed Service: DNA, where Paige addresses the audience about how excited she is to be back on the silver screen, and that she can’t wait to see how this rebooted trilogy pans out. Aaron pretty much snatches the mic from Paige’s hands to announce the casting of the actress playing Caitlyn’s daughter: Paula. It’s pretty evident from all this that Paige has been brought back to appease old fans of the franchise, and she’ll be replaced by someone who is younger and more appealing than her. 

That’s proven to be true when Paige finds out, while watching the movie, that Aaron has killed off her character. He shot an ending with Paige, but when the plans changed, he literally used a dummy for the killing scene so that he didn’t have to inform Paige about that alteration. Paige is scandalized by this revelation, and she walks out of the screening in a huff. Andy goes after her to calm her down. He tries to reason with Paige by telling her that, during the test screenings, they found out that the ratings were better when Paula was on-screen. Paige points at the reaction of the audience and how enthusiastic they were about her return to refute Aaron’s claim. However, as mentioned before, the plan always was to use Paige as nostalgia bait and then make Paula the face of the franchise. Paige threatens to sue them, and Aaron seemingly doesn’t even care about that threat, because he knows he is well within his rights to kill off a character or extend their stay in a franchise. He does try to be friendly with Andy amidst all this chaos and gets lambasted by him, following which he heads back into the screening room to finish watching the movie. Andy advises Paige that they should head back to her house, but Paige decides to stay back and see it all the way to the end.

Now, instead of cutting to the credits, Doom Service: DNA starts showing real footage of Caitlyn and Joey, shot from the perspective of a child. Based on Aaron’s reactions, he isn’t responsible for this. So, he rushes to the projector room to stop the screening. When the footage cuts to images and videos of all the people who died at Cold River Motel, Andy and Paige also rush to the projector room and tell Aaron to get a handle on the situation as soon as possible because all this is really disrespectful. An unknown assailant takes out Aaron, leaving him to bleed out on the stage in front of the movie screen. Panic ensues, and everyone leaves except for Paige and Andy. Paige accuses Andy of being the one who has killed Aaron, and then starts theorizing that maybe he has been the third killer all along. Andy tries his best to defend himself against these allegations, but it becomes clear that Andy is actually Caitlyn’s son, and he has been trying to protect his mother’s memory from all the leeches who have been fictionalizing her final moments. 

Yes, Paige is guilty of killing both Shirley and Floyd, but the rest? That’s Andy’s handiwork. Paige is his final target, and he actually lunges for the machete that he used to kill Aaron, but Paige gets to it first and impales Andy with it. As the police officers rush in, Andy uses his dying breaths to frame Paige as the serial killer. Paige doesn’t put down the machete in time and gets riddled with bullets. As the light flickers in both of their eyes, they promise to meet each other in hell. Since this whole exchange was recorded on somebody’s phone, at the end of Hell Motel episode 8, we see someone being cast to play the role of Paige in a super-meta movie about the events leading up to the incident at the screening of Doomed Service: DNA, thereby continuing the cycle of monetizing true crime. Yes, that actress is played by Sarah Bennett, who was in Slasher: The Executioner. Hell Motel was originally conceived as a part of the Slasher franchise, but then something happened, and it was released as a standalone TV show. The Slasher franchise did repeat actors, with Paula Brancati (who played Paige) being in all the installments. So, I don’t think Sarah’s casting here means anything. It’s just a nod to the Slasher franchise and a tiny commentary on humanity’s ever-increasing fetishization of real-life horrors.