'Black Eyed Susan' Ending Explained & Full Story: What Happens To Derek?

In modern-day genre filmmaking, there’s always a pinnacle for all sorts of things. For example, in folk horror, Robert Eggers’ The Witch (2015) is considered the holy grail (sure, you might have other opinions, but I’m saying it from a general perspective). Similarly, when it comes to AI robot stories, Alex Garland’s Ex Machina (2013) has become quite the cult hit now. Sure, there are shows like Humans or Black Mirror (I’m specifically referring to the episode Be Right Back here), but the Garland movie is the one that has inspired many similar things afterwards. The reason I brought this up here is that the central idea of Black Eyed Susan seems to come straight from Ex Machina. Yet, it stands on its own simply because it is quite well made in every possible way—the writing is solid, the direction is good, and the acting is on point. However, what elevates the whole thing into a complete experience is the rawness it brings to the table. The aesthetics of it are very nineties-like. There’s an unmistakable Cronenberg hangover, which is something I really dug into as a fanboy. Although director Scooter McCrae—who I discovered is quite a big name in the indie genre filmmaking circuit—keeps the whole thing quite straightforward, one might feel a little confused about the ending of Black Eyed Susan. Hopefully this article is going to resolve that.

Spoilers Ahead

What Happens In The Movie? 

We are not quite sure what time period Black Eyed Susan is set in either, but it does not seem like the present day. A man, Alan, and a woman, Susan, appear to be in some sort of strangely erotic situation. He seems abusive, but she seems to be turned on by that. Just when you’re thinking this might be some kind of kink they’re trying out, you hear another voice giving Alan certain instructions. Soon you realize what’s really happening when that other guy, Gilbert aka Gil, walks in. Susan is a prototype designed to fulfill the very common male fantasy of physically abusing a woman and getting off on it. Gil is the one who’s running the show here, and Alan is working for him—participating in the experiment. The movie’s title comes from Susan being given a black eye by Gil, making her look like a fragile woman who’s getting abused by a powerful man. To take things to the next level, Gil asks Alan to take Susan to an Upstate New York house of his, which mostly stays empty. That’s the last of Alan we see in the movie. 

The focus now shifts to Derek, a down-on-his-luck cab driver who doesn’t even have a place to spend the night. It turns out that Derek, Alan, and Gil were all close friends. Alan has died very recently. At Alan’s wake, Gil offers Derek Alan’s job, but doesn’t quite tell him what it involves. It’s a no-brainer for Derek, considering the financial situation he is in. Pretty soon, we see Gil breaking it down to Derek, who is quite fascinated to see Susan on the table—lifeless this time, but seeming completely like a real human. Gil explains the purpose of Susan and what Derek has to do—basically abusing her and getting involved in sexual activities. There’s one thing Susan can’t do, though—unlike human beings, she is unable to walk. Gil has not been able to pull that off, and he suspects it might always stay that way, not that it matters much.

Before getting to work, Derek needs to go through an evaluation by Amanda—a Siri-like AI system, except obviously much more advanced. Amanda always stays inside Susan’s head to monitor the situation and see if things are getting out of control. Derek is asked whether he has ever tried BDSM, to which his responses are negative. He does say that back in school, he found beating a kid who used to heckle him satisfying, but that’s a pretty common thing. Despite being separated from his wife, Derek doesn’t have a history of violence either. In fact, we see him calling his wife and asking whether he has ever abused her. We do get to know that there was one time when Derek fell from grace, but he also says that he is forever ashamed about it. 

Quite naturally, Derek’s initial interaction with Susan goes differently from what we saw between Susan and Alan. Compared to Alan, Derek appears a much softer, more compassionate man who would think twice before hitting Susan—even though he is perfectly aware that’s exactly what he needs to do. That said, he still finds himself pretty much drawn to Susan. He also asks Gil if Amanda can be taken out of the equation, as he feels the AI is kind of judging him by monitoring what he is doing with Susan. Gil agrees to the request just this once, and Derek ends up having a kind of experience with Susan that he hasn’t had before. She bites his finger, which he didn’t expect to happen;  and as a reaction, he attempts to hit her. But Susan blocks it and begs him not to hit her, and tells Derek that she loves him. Derek also finds tears in Susan’s eyes, but they don’t feel warm; they are actually cold.

How do things go at the house? 

We knew for a fact that Gil would ask Derek to take Susan to that house, where Alan was sent (and most likely, where he died). While taking Susan to the house, Derek plays her some Beethoven, but finds out that Susan doesn’t understand the concept of music. Right after reaching the house, Susan is ready to get busy, but Derek opts out of it as he is quite exhausted—I suppose it is more mental than physical. Before going to bed, Susan asks him to get naked, as he has always seen her like that, but she never got to. This confirms Susan is built in a way where she also has desires and urges, which is done to give the whole thing an extremely realistic feel. Derek fulfills her wish, and upon her request, he doesn’t turn on her sleep mode. Instead, we see him falling asleep beside her while Susan is gently caressing his head.

Things turn quite freaky for Derek the next morning, though. Upon seeing him shaving, Susan requests to see the razor. She inspects the device, which is fine, but then she takes the blade out and puts it inside her mouth. That is followed by her initiating a game where she and Derek are supposed to earn each other’s trust. She asks Derek to kiss her and promises to not hurt him. He hesitates, but after a while, that goes away. That leads to her giving him oral, with him climaxing emphatically. Only when he’s done, she starts bleeding from her mouth, which has to be on account of the blade that she was hiding inside all along. 

One thing that makes Black Eyed Susan very interesting is that Derek, the tester, is not exactly the kind of man who would need a Susan. Quite simply, he is not someone interested in brutality. He is more of a basic human needs guy, who would rather cuddle with Susan than hurt her. As the movie progresses, Derek grows closer to Susan in a very platonic manner. There’s a scene where we see him putting clothes on her. This only confirms he regards Susan like a human being only, despite her being a pleasure doll.

How did Alan die?

Now this is a question we needed an answer to from the very beginning. And for a fact, we knew that this whole experiment had something to do with her. I suppose Derek should have asked for more details about Alan when he took his old job. Since he didn’t do that, he is obviously surprised to hear that Susan came to the same house three months ago with Alan. That conversation was always bound to come up, but what Derek finds out from Susan is quite shocking—Alan hanged himself. Susan failed to stop him from doing it because she didn’t think he would end up hurting himself. The reason Alan killed himself is nothing short of traumatizing—he found out that Susan is not Gil’s only project. He has another one in line, where he is basically making child robots to cater pedophiles. The robots are called Pedopals. After knowing about this, Alan could not take it anymore and took the ultimate step. 

What happens to Derek in the end?

Upon finding out about Alan, Derek starts reacting in the same manner as his dead friend did. At least that’s what Susan tells him. She does ask him to not hurt himself and hurt her instead. Derek, however, decides to do something else—call Gil and confront him regarding ‘Pedopal’. Under the circumstances, this is a logical choice, not to mention. Gil happens to be on the way to a high society party, and he was not at all expecting Derek to ask him questions about Pedopal. He initially tries dodging the bullet, but Derek is quite persistent, so Gil has no choice but to tell him the truth. Pedopal is indeed a child robot, which is being developed to satisfy pedophiles. Derek is sick to hear something like this, but Gil has his own justification here. He believes this will reduce the abuse of human children, as the ‘needs’ of many pedophiles is going to be met by the robot. Quite similarly, thanks to Susan, a lot of real women are going to be spared by their abusive spouses. I do see the logic here, but even then, this is a terrible idea that almost sounds like it’s giving garbage men some kind of toys to play with. The movie never talks about rape, but by Gil’s logic, he would happily sell Susan to a potential rapist to stop actual rape from happening.

Coming back to Pedopal, we do see a child—Billy, who is a robot Gil is taking to the high society party. Billy looks like he has taken quite a beating already, but his scars are healing pretty quickly. Gil hopes that the rich men at the party get impressed by Billy. Hear me out here; I have a wild theory. What if Gil is not going to a party but to a church? You realize what I’m hinting at here, right? Not that it matters much in terms of the actual story. 

Coming back to Derek now, once he is done with the phone call, he feels even more furious. He downs a whole bottle of booze, going against the advice of Susan, who appears to be pretty concerned about Derek’s well-being. Susan also repeatedly asks Derek to hit her in order to calm himself down. By how, Derek is absolutely disgusted with everything, and that includes his participation in this sick experiment. He also doesn’t seem to see Susan as a human anymore. Finally, in a moment of rage, he starts kicking Susan mercilessly. Susan, as you’d expect, continues to encourage him. Derek then goes on to break her jaw, which damages her pretty face. Realizing that he is actually trying to destroy Susan, Amanda lets him know that it is not going to do any good, as the whole idea of Susan is inside a server, and it can very well be replicated by being installed inside another prototype. Clearly this suggests that Gil is unstoppable and nothing can be done about that. But Derek still goes on to destroy Susan by burning her, as he has to feel better about himself. His action here is solely for himself and not for society. 

Black Eyed Susan ends with Derek sitting alone, staring blankly into the distance. It does seem like he’s introspecting and has also given up on everything. That’s a very dark ending but also very fitting for a movie as bold as Black Eyed Susan.

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