‘Love Lies Bleeding’ Ending Explained: Why Does Jackie Become a Giant?

Now that Love Lies Bleeding is streaming on Max, even more people will get a chance to watch Kristen Stewart’s excellent lesbian crime thriller that came out earlier this year. Lesbians just keeping winning.

Written and directed by Rose Glass (also known for her 2019 horror film, St. Maud) Love Lies Bleeding first premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival to rave reviews. Set in 1989, Stewart stars as a gym manager, and Katy O’Brien stars as a body builder who trains at her gym. The sparks between them are immediate, and the sexual tension boils over. But as Love Lies Bleeding proves, romance can be a messy business.

Also starring Jena Malone, Anna Baryshnikov, Dave Franco, and Ed Harris, Love Lies Bleeding is both a sweet romance and a noir crime thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat. The movie ends with a totally unexpected—but definitely not unwelcome—venture into magical realism, and that may leave some viewers confused.

Read on for a full breakdown and analysis of the Love Lies Bleeding plot and the Love Lies Bleeding ending, explained.

Love Lies Bleeding plot summary:

Kristen Stewart stars as Lou, a small town lesbian in rural New Mexico in the year 1989. Lou works as a manager of a local gym, and she takes notice of one of the new regulars, Jackie (Katy O’Brian), a bodybuilder who is in town while she trains for a nearby competition in Las Vegas. Sparks fly between the two women, and, after a particularly steamy scene where Lou offers Jackie some steroids, and Jackie eventually accepts, they begin hooking up. Jackie moves in with Lou while she continues to train, and starts taking more and more steroids, becoming erratic and quick to rage. They also have a lot of sex, and fall in love.

Meanwhile, Lou deals with her family drama, which includes trying to protect her sister, Beth (Jena Malone), from Beth’s abusive husband, JJ (Dave Franco); and trying to protect her estranged father, Lou Sr. (Ed Harris) from an FBI investigation. We’re not entirely sure why the FBI is looking into Lou Sr., but it probably has something to do with the illegal guns he is smuggling through the gun range that he runs (where Jackie gets a job).

One day, JJ beats Beth nearly to death, landing her in the hospital. Jackie goes with Lou to the hospital to visit her sister, and finds herself enraged by what JJ has done. Lou Sr. promises to take care of JJ, but Jackie—seeing the distress of Lou, the woman she loves—decides to take matters into her own hands. In a steroid-driven rage, Jackie goes to JJ’s house, and beats him to death. Lou shows up, and is horrified, but dutifully takes control of the situation. She and Jackie dump JJ’s body in a ravine. One the way to dumping the body, they run into Lou’s friend/obsessive suitor, Daisy (Anna Baryshnikov). It’s revealed that Lou previously helped her father dump other dead bodies in that, ravine, too.

Lou and Jackie clean JJ’s house to remove the evidence. Jackie reveals she still plans to compete in the body building competition in Vegas, despite Lou’s pleas not to leave the state until they are in the clear. They fight, and Jackie leaves for her competition. While at the body-building competition, Jackie hallucinates vividly as a result of the steroids and stress. She ends up assaulting another body-builder, and is put in jail.

Back in New Mexico, Daisy knows Lou had something to do with JJ’s disappearance, and blackmails her into a relationship. Lou Sr. bails Jackie out of jail, and convinces her to kill Daisy. Jackie does, shooting Daisy from behind at Lou’s apartment. Jackie flees the scene in a panic, while Lou is once again left to clean up her mess. Lou Sr. calls Lou and tells her that he forced Jackie to kill Daisy in order to protect Lou. Oh, and also, he kidnapped Jackie and plans to frame her for all the murders that the FBI is investigating. He warns Lou that if she interferes, he will use the dead body in her apartment to frame her, too. In turn, Lou threatens to tell the authorities about the remains in the ravine, and about everything he’s done, unless he lets Jackie go.

Soon after that phone call, a corrupt police officer who has been paid off by Lou Sr. shows up at Lou’s apartment, and tries to murder her. Lou manages to knock him out. Lou loads up Daisy’s dead body into her truck, then goes to her father’s mansion, to save her girlfriend.

Love Lies Bleeding ending explained:

At Lou Sr.’s mansion, Lou runs into her sister, Beth. Beth knows Lou was involved in JJ’s death, and she does not forgive her. She tells Lou she knows nothing about love. But she’s wrong. Lou exacerbates Beth’s injuries, and gets her to reveal where Lou Sr. is hiding Jackie.

Lou frees Jackie from where she is restrained, in an equipment shed. At first, Jackie—still out of her mind on steroids—believes Lou betrayed her. Lou insists to Jackie that she loves her, and that she’s done absolutely nothing wrong. (What’s a few murders between girlfriends?) Lou convinces both Jackie, and herself, that one murder was justified, and that the other was not Jackie’s fault.

But before these two psychotic lovebirds can escape, they are confronted by Lou Sr. Lou is shot in the leg by her father, and it seems like he’s going to kill her… but then something weird happens. In a fit of magical, surreal, steroid-induced rage, Jackie quite literally hulks out, and become a huge, giant woman.

As a giant, Jackie is able to easily defeat Lou Sr. and protect her girlfriend. Together, they escape in Lou’s truck, ready to start a new life together. In the final scene of the movie, Jackie dozes in the passenger seat, while Lou drives. Lou hears movement from the truck bed, and realizes that Daisy is just-barely still alive back there. Lou casually strangles Daisy to death and dumps her body, while her girlfriend sleeps peacefully.

The message here? Both Jackie and Lou have completely lost themselves to love. Neither of them are “good” people anymore. Lou has become a reflection of her dad. Jackie has become out-of-control and driven by drug-fueled rage. But they are in love, and will do anything to protect each other.

How does Jackie become a giant in the Love Lies Bleeding ending?

Stop thinking so literally, people! This is art. The Love Lies Bleeding ending indulges in magical realism in order to play out Jackie’s fantasy of becoming strong enough to protect herself and her girlfriend from the evils of the world. No, steroids can’t really make you into a giant in real life. But it’s a representation of how powerful Jackie feels, and how Lou sees her. She’s the biggest, strongest woman in the world. Nothing can stop her.

Is it a hallucination, like Jackie’s hallucinations at the Vegas show? Maybe. Director/writer Rose Glass deliberately chose to blur the lines of reality, by implying that both Kristen Stewart and Ed Harris also see Jackie as the giant that the audience sees. In an interview with IndieWire, Glass explained that she intended the un-reality of the movie to reflect the sort of shared delusion of Jackie and Lou’s insane love affair.

“When we were writing it, we tried versions [of the ending] where it all stays very grounded and real, and it just never quite felt like a satisfying resolution given the tonal shifts of the film,” Glass said. “It felt like we needed to do something that leaves the real world behind, perhaps practically speaking, but sticks to a much more sort of emotional reality. They’re so seduced by being back in each other’s lives. That running off into the sunset kind of feeling love makes you feel, and that you can do anything.”

In other words, it’s a metaphor. Also, it’s really cool. Embrace it!