Mrithyunjay Movie Ending Explained And Full Story: Is Sadhu Dead?

Director Hussain Sha Kiran’s “Mrithyunjay” tells the story of a man who catches the wrath of a contract killer after discovering a concerning pattern in two “accidental” deaths. This Telugu crime thriller on Netflix utilizes suspense to its full extent, leaving no loose ends in its 122-minute-long runtime.

Spoilers Ahead

What happens in the film?

Officegoer Achyuth gets scared while coming back home because he feels someone is following him. Rushing back home in a hurry, Achyuth hears the sound of a mechanical leg trailing him in the dark. Luckily, he makes it back home that night and feels relieved after hugging his daughter Anjali upon arriving, but trouble keeps following him. Because soon, Anjali hears the same sound her father heard, in the dark street near their house. We are then introduced to our protagonist, Mrithyunjay, or Jay, who’s our main character, works in a newspaper company and dreams of becoming a crime scene investigator. He is an expert salesman who goes around encouraging families of the dead to put out obituary ads, and he is damn good at it. He arrives at a dead man’s house, learns about his weaknesses or habits, and manipulates the family to book an obituary ad in his newspaper company. For the sake of his job, Jay does not back away from dressing up, walking around in disguises, and fleeing from the scene with the help of his friends.His attention gets shifted towards the BBA bank scam, but Jay’s boss forbids him to go beyond his ranks even after praising him. Jay continues his work, but one day, he comes across the dead body of Achyuth with burn marks, and Anjali’s stone face surprises him. He tries to brush it off, but when Vikranth, a BBA Bank employee, dies and has similar burn marks over his body, Jay puts on his detective hat.

Why Is Jay So Desperate To Find Why Achyuth Died?

Jay lost his parents when he was just a child, and even after growing up, he couldn’t get over the trauma. The day he saw his father’s lifeless body being prepared for the final rites, he felt sad, angry, shocked, but most importantly, confused. Jay wanted to know why his father died, and in the process, he grew bitter because he suppressed his sadness. Finally, when his aunt came to check on him, Jay broke down in tears, and that made him understand that bottled up grief feeds the demons in our minds.

When Jay reaches Achyuth’s house, he sneaks into the upper bedroom and learns that Anjali lost his mother at a young age. Achyuth was bringing her up with everything he could, and now that he was gone, Anjali had become an orphan. Jay sees the same confusion on her face, the feeling he had when his dad died; Anjali was gulping down her sadness just like he did once. He feels bad for the girl, but he understands that Achyuth’s death is a murder after Vikranth’s death rattles the city. Vikranth promised to be a whistleblower in the BBA Bank scam, something that Jay and his newspaper had been pursuing for weeks. After Jay finds the hard-to-miss similarities between the deaths of Vikranth and Achyuth, he discovers that both these men died after getting electrocuted while praying in a roadside temple. In both cases, the overhead wire full of lights snapped, which was too much of a coincidence. Soon, Jay gets to know from a trusted informant and a nearby bank’s security officer that Achyuth was often watched by a bald old man with heavy spectacles and a polio-affected leg, supported by a mechanical brace that makes the same sound that Anjali heard in the dark alley.

Who Killed Achyuth and Vikranth?

Achyuth always maintained a simple lifestyle; he had a normal job, loved to spend time with his daughter, and his workplace never ran a scam. Vikranth, on the other hand, was a wanted man who had valuable information that could put the BBA bank owners at serious risk. Achyuth had no connection with Vikranth, he was just a guinea pig in the whole evil plot, as his death was  the contract killer, Sadhu, practicing before the actual assignment. BBA Bank owners and stakeholders contacted Bashir, a notorious handler in the area, to put down Vikranth before he makes a move in court and exposes them. Sadhu took the contract from Bashir but to do the job, he wanted to know more about Vikranth, his habits, daily activities, and the places he visits. Since it was a very risky mission and he had only one shot to kill Vikranth since he was guarded by cops, Sadhu tried finding someone who had similar habits. He started following Achyuth because just like Vikranth, he also used to go to the temple, board the metro and walk back home alone. The mechanical noise that Achyuth and Anjali heard came from Sadhu.

Before the D-Day, Sadhu tried killing Achyuth by forcing a traffic accident and by pushing him off the stairs, but he failed. When he saw that the temple had a watery pothole just where devotees pray barefoot, he sprinkled some rock salt there for the current to conduct. That night, he put on the disguise of a polio-affected bald man and waited till Achyuth casually walked into the pothole and snapped the overhead live lighting wire, making it fall into the water. Sadhu found the whole execution absolutely flawless because nobody saw his real self, and using the same method, he killed Vikranth.

Why Is Seetha Lying?

ACP Seetha leads the investigating team looking into Vikranth’s death, and from the very beginning, she stops labeling the incident as a mere accident. She is an honest police officer, unlike the corrupt police commissioner, who wants to protect BBA Bank owners. When Seetha goes through the crime scene, she understands that something must be wrong, and just like Jay, she knows that these deaths are not coincidences. Despite her team and Constable Murthy stressing on the death being an accident, she refuses to believe that and keeps digging for the truth. After her press conference, Jay pays her a visit and lets her know that she is correct. Unfortunately, Seetha receives a call from the commissioner who strictly orders her to rule it out as an accident, which frustrates her. She lies in the next press conference, Jay gets triggered by this, and he desperately tries to find Sadhu at any cost. He figures out that Sadhu might be a resident of the apartment opposite to Achyuth’s house, which was perfect for monitoring the dead man’s activities.

Why Is Sadhu Trying To Kill Jay?

Despite surveying the whole apartment, Jay fails to find someone matching the description of the bald-headed man with the polio-affected left leg. He comes across Sadhu’s apartment, and upon getting interrogated by Jay, Sadhu plans to kill him, as he realizes Jay is inch closer finding the truth. He goes up to the roof and waits to shoot Jay when he walks out of the apartment. Luckily, his aim gets covered by heavy rain, and Sadhu decides to let Jay go for the time being but tracks his location using cell towers. In the meantime, Jay goes to the hospital and requests Satthi, his compounder friend, to let him go through the post-mortem files. He understands that Sadhu is a perfectionist, who has definitely taken several lives before. When Jay searches for files of similar incidents, Sadhu sneaks into the room to kill him, but he fails again as Jay escapes, disguised as a Muslim.

Jay spends the whole night researching deaths and finds loads of patterns. When he leaves with the file the next morning, Sadhu enters his apartment, finds out about Jai’s investigation, and leaves the safety valve of the gas cylinder open. He then fixes matches around the door in such a way that once it opens, the whole room will ignite.  After handing the file over to Seetha, Jai returns home but does not enter his apartment as he notices the misplaced key above the door. Realizing this is a trap and Sadhu is watching, he secretly breaks the windowpane to let the gas out and comes out on the street. Now completely aware of the fact that Sadhu is trying to kill him, Jai deliberately slaps a police officer to get arrested and learn more about Sadhu’s handler from jail. Sadhu has now experienced Jay slowly destroying his hard-earned image of being a deadly killer who stays in the shadows before committing the perfect kill, and this is why he wants to kill Jay at any cost. Somehow Sadhu understands that Jay is going for the kill, and before his identity gets discovered, he kills Bashir. Seetha and Jay arrive at the scene, and they discover the location of a local bazaar stuck under the chair, and the police arrange a sting operation to catch Sadhu. Despite the presence of police and cameras, Sadhu slips away, and before he does, leaves a note for Jay, stating that he will kill him on 10 October. 

Is Sadhu Dead?

After Sadhu slips away, a frustrated Seetha cuts ties with Jay, but he figures out a way to add pieces of Sadhu from all the footage of the market. Jay identifies Sadhu from the footage after noting his habit of throwing an empty water bottle, just like the man at the Apartment that day. He never revealed it to anyone, but during his time there, Jay managed to capture everyone’s face since he had secretly recorded it on his phone. Once he finds the face, Jay puts out obituary ads with Sadhu’s figure, giving his number below, and pretty soon, an old man reading the newspaper spots Sadhu. Once he calls Jay and gives the location, Seetha arrives with a huge police force, but things get chaotic as Sadhu fires shots. After a lot of effort, when police try to enter the house, it blows up, and they find a body burnt to a crisp on the floor, but it’s not actually Sadhu’s. Nobody but Jay understands it because he knows that Sadhu has been watching them from afar. While Seetha arrests the BBA Bank scammers, Jay takes help from his uncle and friends to set a trap for Sadhu in the graveyard. Quite naturally, Sadhu arrives in disguise and introduces himself before shooting at Jay, but after the sprinklers fire jets of water at his eye, he misses the shot. Jay fights back with a shovel, but a bullet grazes his leg. The fight goes on, as Jay tries to slow Sadhu down by injuring him, and the killer fights with extreme prejudice, shooting Jay in the leg.

None of them gives up given both Jay and Sadhu are perfectionists in what they do. Sadhu finds his worthy opponent in Jay because in all these years, this is the first person who has managed to pull Sadhu’s face out from the shadows. He thinks that Jay has probably electrified a nearby puddle of water, but he never notices that his bottle of water, which he has been carrying since he entered the cemetery, has been altered. Jay has swapped it with a bottle of poison, and Sadhu falls prey to that because of his habit of staying hydrated. Sadhu finally falls to his death on an already opened grave.

What Happens To Anjali and Jay In The End?

Jay has been sympathetic towards Anjali right from the beginning after he saw his splitting image on her. After Achyuth’s death, he helped her cross a busy road and even admitted that he lied about knowing him. He was keen on pulling the truth out to the light for the sake of Anjali because that poor girl had the right to know the reason behind her father’s death. After Sadhu dies, Anjali finds a wounded Jay sitting on a bench, and he reveals that Achyuth was murdered. He playfully says to Anjali that he has sent the killer to apologize to Achyuth. When Anjali asks him about what he wants, Jay makes it clear that he wants to see her happiness and smiling face. This sentence triggers Anjali’s emotions, and she hugs Jay while breaking down in tears. “Mrithyunjay” ends with a beautiful note, showing how Jay is trying to do his best to nurse Anjali’s trauma, something that has destroyed his entire childhood.

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