'Before' Finale (Episode 10) Recap: Did Eli Cure Noah And Himself?

Here’s a very basic and chronological recap of the events of Before before I dive into the finale of the miniseries. Back in the ‘60s, I guess, Benjamin Walker started to have night terrors, which eventually got so bad that he had to part ways with his family. While self-medicating, he got into a relationship with Lynn, who apparently indulged his “quirks” and took him to a remote farmhouse to “reconnect with his past.” That’s when he suffered a seizure and was brought to the ER of St. Benedict’s, which is where Eli was posted. Benjamin passed away, and later on, Eli and Lynn got into a relationship. They built a family, had a daughter named Barbara, Lynn became a famous children’s author and illustrator, and Eli established himself as a child psychologist. Over the years, Eli poured his heart and soul into his job, which caused rifts in his relationship with his wife and daughter. When the couple was approaching their twilight years, Lynn was diagnosed with cancer, and she died by suicide. Eli was in the middle of his grieving phase when he crossed paths with a kid called Noah. The more time he spent with him, the more he realized that they were connected on a deeper level, and solving the mystery around it was the only way to put an end to both of their psychological issues. Eli believed that the key to said mystery was the aforementioned farmhouse. So, he kidnapped Noah and drove all the way to that location. Did the tenth episode of Before reveal what was at the center of this mind-bending maze? Let’s find out.

Spoiler Alert

Eli and Noah Reach the Farmhouse

Episode 10 of Before opens with Eli taking Noah to Sullivan County, which is where the fabled farmhouse is. Jane gets in touch with Eli through the radio in the van that he is driving and tries to dissuade him from doing anything catastrophically stupid. Eli says that Noah and he have been carrying their trauma in their bones, blood, and souls, and they need to exorcize them in order to live healthily. Jane again tells Eli to turn the van around and come back to St. Benedict’s so that both of them can be treated properly, but Eli rips out the radio and focuses on the road. Upon reaching the farmhouse, Eli asks Noah if he recognizes the place, and Noah says that something bad happened there. Eli waits until Noah starts to remember his past life, and eventually, the kid claims that he once used to be a girl. Then the duo starts walking towards the farmhouse, hand in hand, and walks through the doors to their past, I suppose. The last time Eli entered the farmhouse, it morphed into his house and then took him on a trip down memory lane. This time, nothing of that sort happens. That said, Eli does notice something shadowy moving in, well, the shadows. Eli tries to tell Noah to stay close to him, but the kid has taken refuge in a corner of the dilapidated building and is protecting himself with a pair of scissors. Also, he is hissing like a cat. Eli approaches Noah and asks him to put the weapon down, but Noah keeps saying “No” on a loop and then tells the old-timer to not do “it.” Eli tries to understand what he is referring to, but Noah makes a run for it. Eli goes after him and finds himself at the rear end of the farmhouse. This is the point where the episode begins to oscillate between the past and the present.

Eli, Lynn, and Noah’s Past Lives

Now, here’s what happened. Once upon a time there were three good friends; two girls and a boy. They were playing in the woods behind the farmhouse when they came across what looked like a wasp’s nest (I don’t know if bees make nests on the ground). Of course they poked at it, and the insects started chasing the trio. When they came across a lake, the boy accidentally pushed one of the girls onto the frozen waterbody. The girl immediately died because the impact caused a severe skull fracture. The surviving girl told the boy to jump in and save her, but instead of doing so, he ran away. It’s not very clear, but the boy is supposed to be Eli from a previous life, the girl that died is Noah, and the other girl is Lynn. In the present day, Eli finds Noah sitting inside a hollow tree, and he apologizes to the kid for killing him in their past life. Noah emerges out of the tree, shaking and muttering to himself, and Eli notices worms crawling under his skin. Eli asks Noah what he wants him to do, and he hears the past-life version of Lynn telling him to jump. So, Eli grabs hold of Noah, jumps into the lake, and starts descending to the bottom. This prompts a flashback where we see a sick Lynn telling Eli that she can’t deal with the cancer treatments anymore. Eli was adamant that Lynn needed to keep persevering even though she didn’t want to. During their last argument, Eli walked out of the house, leaving Lynn all by herself, to get egg drop soup for her. By the time he returned home, Lynn had slit her wrists and was bleeding out. However, she wasn’t dead yet. Eli tried to save her, but Lynn forced him to drown her, and that was how she died.

Eli Miraculously Cures Himself and Noah

Back in the present day, a drowning Eli lets go of Noah’s lifeless body while they are underwater. Then he wakes up and drags himself and Noah out of the lake. Noah has lost consciousness, and Eli uses CPR to bring him back to life. It works, and, oddly enough, the episode begins cutting back and forth between Eli lying beside Lynn’s dead body and Eli lying beside Noah. Jane, Denise, and the authorities eventually arrive at the farmhouse and take Noah to safety. During the epilogue at the end of Before episode 10, it’s revealed that Noah and Eli are doing fine, but due to Eli’s last stunt, he has been asked to stay away from the kid. The whole “link” between them was apparently a heightened case of “shared delusions.” The recovery is simply chalked up to a “miracle.” Eli continues to see worms in his head, which are supposed to represent his trauma and grief. However, since his bond with his granddaughter, Sophie, is getting better, he doesn’t resort to hurting himself. Also, Sophie can apparently see dead people, and he relays Lynn’s advice to Eli about keeping his ears open and listening to what his loved ones are saying.

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