'Interior Chinatown' Show Ending Explained & Finale Recap: Does Willis Make It Out?

There’s something seriously terrifying about how real Interior Chinatown is despite being a meta, sci-fi drama about a man stuck in a police procedural TV show. The show follows Willis Wu, a young waiter who wants more from his life, bored of constantly doing the same thing and living in the interior of old and rusty Chinatown. The show makes comments on Hollywood’s representation of Asian characters, specifically the Asian-American diaspora, in a satirical version of Law & Order. You know how sometimes when you’re watching something, and you feel like it’s going to end up all being a dream but it’s really not? Well, this one actually does end in a dream. Maybe not exactly a dream, but it takes it one step ahead and makes it the Inception of TV shows, which in some ways could confuse you enough to stray from the main plot, but let me try and put Interior Chinatown’s ending together so we catch all the details and somewhat figure out what’s going on.

Spoiler Alert

Interior Chinatown’s final episode begins with Willis meeting the Painted Faces, the apparent gang that’s been stirring trouble across Chinatown. The reason for unrest and mayhem in the city. But these people are just regular old people, and they tell Willis what’s really going on. Willis learns that a company called HBWC controls all the media in town. Hei Bai Wu Chang is what Willis’ dad always used to talk about—the Chinese mythology about escorting souls to the underworld. HBWC is essentially us in this scenario; it’s not just production houses or Hollywood itself, but both those who produce and consume media are the ones who control it. HBWC controls what’s happening in “Interior Chinatown.” Willis also learns that the painted faces are not a gang but just a group of friends, which included Willis’ brother Jonny. After high school, the gang got in trouble for little things such as graffiti, etc. and wore the masks for fun; however, the cops gave them the name “Painted Faces.” When Jonny stopped “playing by the rules,” i.e., decided to change his story, things got messed up. 

The people from Chinatown who died would always go to the HBWC containers and come back recycled. I guess this is a commentary on Asian characters having the same supporting roles that get recycled over and over again. This episode is the series finale of “Black & white,” and Willis Wu is the big villain. The gang realizes they’re being watched at that exact moment too, and tries to get Willis out of there because he’s the one they’re looking for. 

As Willis tries to escape, Sarah Green secretly meets Lana in her car. The two women are now friends, and they’re on Willis’ side. Lana has figured out that Jonny was sending messages for Willis through the game in Uncle’s restaurant. She knows exactly what they need to do to get out. On the other hand, it is the night of the Lunar New Year, and there’s a banquet at the Golden Palace where Willis’ mom is winning an award for the commendable job she’s been doing. She doesn’t accept the award because she’s become a shell of herself trying to live up to the standards of what the society outside of Chinatown wants of her. Instead of sticking to doing her own thing to make Chinatown a better place and bring in new people, she turned into another Betty Chan and gave up on her real dreams. She’s also hurting from messing up and handing over Chinatown for gentrification. 

In the meantime, Willis gets Miles to help him escape, but Lana and Sarah show up there too. Willis explains how they’re in a TV show called “Black & White,” where Miles and Sarah are the leads and he’s stuck as an extra. Lana then explains how she has found the messages from Jonny in the game. She also tells them that HBWC, the company, is registered under the name Hulu Black and White Cooperation (yes, this is a Hulu show). According to Willis, Hulu means container, which links to the death containers. The conclusion is that the showrunners would want Willis to go to the restaurant and get caught by Sarah and Miles, so that’s what they decide to do. 

Willis’ mom realizes he’s in the restaurant, but his best friend Fatty saves him by bringing out the dragon. Willis apologizes for being a prick to Fatty and forgetting he’s his best friend. The chief then arrives at the Golden Palace and tells Willis to come out with his hands up. Willis knows exactly how this will end and puts up a fight. Fatty, Lana, Sarah, and Miles help him escape. In the meantime, Sarah and Miles have a little moment together. Willis and Lana end up on the roof, and news helicopters are surveilling them. Unfortunately, they’ve not really managed to escape, and the news claims that Willis is holding Lana hostage. Finally, Lana tells Willis that he needs to not give them the ending that they want and speak the truth on live television. Lana describes how Jonny was trying to escape but he couldn’t, because somebody was controlling the whole thing. The people are watching from the other side. But Willis managed to mess with the plot because he wanted to tell his story. Willis speaks about how he’s not meant to be the hero, and he’s just a regular waiter from Chinatown, not the kung fu guy or a fancy detective. Willis explains how it should be the story of his mom, with her big dreams, who came to a different country, learned a new language, and raised two boys, or his dad, who was his Shifu. But they lost their son in this mess. Willis reminds us that this is the story of every regular person in Chinatown, and he now remembers who he really is and where he came from. It’s quite an emotional story, I guess, but it’s not over yet. 

In Interior Chinatown’s ending, Lana jumps off the roof with Willis, because the message from Jonny is for them to die. The building they own looks exactly like the one from the video game they play, “Neighborhood Rumble,” where Jonny was sending messages (A possible reference to Jackie Chan classic, “Rumble in the Bronx”). There’s a sweet underlying message here, which is to essentially question the system and never forget where you came from. I guess for many Asians and POCs in the industry, they have to stoop low and change themselves for the characters they’re stereotyped into, even though it’s nothing like who they really are. Some people get their happy endings, while others get stuck in the box, trapped in a system. It’s up to Willis to end the story. Willis and Jonny meet in what looks like screenplay purgatory. But wait, the show is still not over. After hugging it out with Jonny, Willis gets the closure he needs to get to the “other side,” i.e., “the real world.” Here he’s a writer with a deadline, and he’s now at the end of his screenplay, which is dedicated to his brother. There’s a new recruit at the company, and this happens to be Lana. 

Interior Chinatown ends with the camera panning out on Willis’ face and showing us yet another screen. I suppose this means that while Willis has escaped one box, he’s still stuck in another, and this will probably go on forever. The show reminds us that it’s not just those who tell the stories that are responsible for these boxes, but those who consume them too. There’s a lot of stuff this show talks about in a meta way, such as “the American dream” or systematic racism. But hey, in the end, Willis managed to get out of being the generic Asian guy and became the leading man.