Foe ending explained: What happened to Junior?

Foe looks like a psychological thriller that involves a look at relationships and the development of technology. It ends up being a much deeper movie that will require a few watches to really understand it all.

Hen and Junior seem to live a perfectly quiet life on a farm in the near future. When Junior is offered a chance to go to space for two years, a stranger shares that the company will create an AI form of Junior to keep his wife company during that time. The stranger spends time getting to know Junior and Hen to make sure this AI form is perfect.

Of course, Junior isn’t happy that he is going to be replaced, even if it is a robotic form of him. It turns out that there’s a huge twist and a heartbreaking ending to Foe.

Which Junior did we get to know in Foe?

The ending reveals that the Junior we’ve come to know throughout the movie is the robotic version of him. This explains the changes of emotions and some of the disconnect. It also explains the struggle toward the end, as Hen realizes that she is falling more and more in love with this AI.

This is similar to the book. You can tell through the formatting of the storytelling by the end that we’ve been witnessing everything through the eyes of the robot at first. This helps to bring up questions at the end when it comes to Hen’s character in the book.

What happened to the robot in the movie?

At the end of the movie, the real Junior returns from space. It’s time for the robotic version to be decommissioned, and it’s done in such a cruel and inhumane way. There’s this stark reminder that this Junior isn’t human.

He’s placed in a fluid and destroyed while the real Junior watches. The real version of the character has no emotion for the robot, except for jealously. All he sees is this inferior form of himself.

However, when Junior gets back home, he’s unable to bridge the gap between himself and Hen. She loved this robot, even though it wasn’t a human version of her husband. Despite Junior being human, he is empty inside. He’s the version that many would have thought the robot to be.

Does Hen stay with Junior in Foe?

In the end, Hen realizes what she needs to do. She needs to experience the world in the way she and her robotic husband did. She thinks that this is a good way to honor him, and so she leaves. Of course, Hen can’t leave her real husband alone for this time.

The stranger, who is actually called Terrance, strikes a deal. He’ll create a Hen bot so that Junior has someone. It certainly connects to the end of the book, which is slightly left open for interpretation but the formatting of the speeches makes it clear that a Hen bot turns up at the end.

Foe is available to stream on Prime Video.