The Fostered Ending Explained And Movie Recap: Who Kills Heather And Matt?

Fostering or adopting kids is a complex situation as much for the parents as it is for the kids. The kids undergo changes in their new household, and the parents have to keep up with the changing needs of the child who came from an entirely different context socially. “The Fostered,” churns its horror out of the trope of the unfamiliarity between fostered kids and the parents, as well as the resonating trauma of being a witness to abuse that turns into more violence. While the tropes seem familiar and somewhat predictable like “The Orphan”, the film seems to carry a significant message at its heart—one that points towards having a more sensitive approach towards foster kids who have witnessed traumatic events and now cannot escape that trauma. Let’s take a look at what happens with Morgan and Madison, a pair of thirteen-year-olds, who move in with farmer couple Kevin and Amy.

Spoilers Ahead

Do Morgan and Madison Fit In Well?

The short answer is no. They do not. But often, we make the mistake of jumping to a shorter answer while in fact we should be carefully looking at the longer one to understand the story better. Morgan and Madison come from a household of abuse. When their mother was finally able to leave their father, the father could not handle that. He came back one night wanting to be let in; the mother hid the kids in the bathroom and went on to face the father, only to be shot dead.Cut to now, the kids are moving in with Amy as she drives them to their farm. They have a doll with them who they claim their mother had given them and acts sort of taciturn. Well, one of them does. One seems a little intrigued to make friends with Amy, but the other one seems pretty guarded. At dinner, the kids meet Kevin, who is a farmer, and when they ask Amy what she does, she says that she is a writer, only to be dismissed by Kevin who says it’s more of a hobby. Kevin is borderline abusive, and the girls are quick to clock it in. The body learns to recognize silent signs of potential abuse; they become really concerned for Amy. One of them decides that Amy needs protection—a protection that they could never offer their mother (a tendency in PTSD children is to become a savior or carry a guilt of not being able to protect their parents from being abused). The girls start acting aloof and, might I say, a little violent. One morning, Kevin finds a large kitchen knife under his bed, and on another day the girls poison Kevin’s coffee, which Amy consumes, unfortunately and starts throwing up. While Kevin seems wary of the girls, Amy appears to be willing to look past this initial friction and allow them some time to settle in. Until things start going outside their hands in a macabre way.

Who kills Heather and Matt?

While Amy writes her book, Kevin has quite a colorful life at the farm. He has his buddy Matt to help him out with things and also Heather, Amy’s book club friend, with whom he is having an affair. When he was living with just Amy, hiding the affair was not a problem, but with the girls’ arrival, things quite changed as they witnessed Kevin getting intimate with Heather and confronting her. They also start getting really insecure about the marriage falling apart just like their parents’, and think that Amy deserves happiness. One day, Amy falls sick, and Kevin rushes her to the hospital. The girls use this opportunity to drop their doll in the well and get Heather to pick it up. While trying to fetch the doll back, Heather falls in the well. Matt was there already, having an argument with Heather, who called him names, so he does not save Heather but brings a stone and throws it upon her, drowning her to the bottom of the well.Upon finding out about Amy’s pregnancy, the girls get more insecure. One day they overhear Matt and Kevin having a conversation in the shed where Matt jokingly tells Kevin that he should try to get rid of the foster kids, either in the well or in the forest. Considering Matt’s violent act before, the girls put their guards back on. They decide that Matt needs to be killed in order for them to have a secure household. While Kevin is out, they kill Matt in the shed and hide his body. Later, they try to frame Kevin for it when Kevin gets out at night to hurt them. However, Kevin catches up to them, but is it really them?

Who exists—Morgan or Madison?

The remarkable twist in this film is the revelation that Madison is just Morgan’s protective alter ego who nudges her to do the violence just like in the film “Goodnight Mommy”. In the beginning of the film, we see Morgan’s father struggling with his double self in the car just like Morgan before he breaks into the house. His double self prompts him with insecurities so that he does what he does that night. Morgan is psychologically of the same build as his father and has her own other-self who instructs her. Often, in kids who suffer trauma, there is a tendency to have an alter ego since it makes it easier for them to dissociate and distance themselves from trauma. In time, the self also becomes a sort of guardian looking after them—a guardian that they lack. In the entire duration of the film, the kids are never called individually by their names except for once while being introduced. After a little contemplation, I figured out that Madison was probably the doll’s name, which Morgan also used as a vessel to hallucinate Madison, which is her own other self. There is a conscious effort to keep their identities near-perfectly anonymous, which will lead you to think that the girls may, after all, be just one girl. However, when this is discovered, Morgan is fighting for her life to keep Amy safe once Kevin’s actions get more aggravated.

Who Kills Kevin?

When Kevin chases Morgan down in the night and tries to give her a whipping, Amy turns up at the scene. While they are struggling—Amy to save Morgan and protect herself against Kevin—Morgan climbs up to a higher ground while Kevin is about to fall down. Morgan hits Kevin with a shovel, and Kevin falls to his death. Morgan reunites with Amy, hugging her in tears—her mind probably feels safer now with Kevin gone, in whom she saw the shadow of her father. However, soon she starts feeling unsafe again. This happens after quite some time passes. Morgan now lives with Amy. She rushes to her with her new book that has been finally published. After Kevin’s death, Amy has finally been able to finish the book. She also has had the baby and vouches that Morgan is a wonderful big sister. Amy has cleaned up well and moved on with her life and now introduces Morgan to Eddie, presumably a man she has met. While Eddie greets Morgan, we see Madison appear atop the rack on the shed, showing us how the instinct never went away, and what happened before might just happen again. Morgan is still far from healed—she is trying to work on her symptoms of traumatic reliving by making the decision to kill, obliterate, and put threats behind her. However, unless she truly makes peace with her past, this will keep happening again and again.

What starts like a typical “evil child” thriller in “The Fostered” slowly unravels into something that asks us to contemplate the implications of an unsafe household on a child. In the disguise of a psychological thriller, it shows how violence can give birth to more violence. Her dissociative split into Morgan/Madison is not a malicious twist but a defense mechanism to protect themselves. Amy may offer Morgan temporary compassion and stability, but the return of Madison is clearly indicating that healing must reach deeper than the solace of the present moment. Healing is not superficial but about facing the ugly truths and coming to terms with them, and perhaps Morgan never came to terms with hers.

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