SEND HELP: Why to root for Linda Liddle!
Everyone is calling Linda Liddle the villain of the movie because she took things too far in the second half or third act of the film. But before I explain what she did, here's what we know:
Linda is a socially awkward and downtrodden corporate strategist Linda Liddle anticipates a long-promised promotion from Bradley Preston, the son of her former boss, upon his appointment as CEO. Instead, the abrasive and sexist nepo baby awards the position to Donovan, a recent hire and former fraternity brother while planning to sideline Linda in a dead-end role because of her abrasive manner and lack of charisma. Then the plane crash happens where a business trip for an impending Bangkok merger leads to a crash in the sea where Linda and an injured Bradley wash up on a remote island near the Gulf of Thailand. This is right after Donovan humiliates Linda by playing an audition tape she made for SURVIVOR. During the explosive decompression, Donovan attempts to strangle Linda and take her seat, but she stabs him with a fork. He and the two other executives definitely deserved to die for not only mistreating and humiliated Linda, but Donovan tried to kill her.
On the island, she becomes drunk with power while helping and trying to get through to Bradley and that's when audiences are forced to pick sides with one or the other. Linda also mentioned that she had an abusive husband who stopped hiding his car keys after beating her and he died in a drunk car crash. Admit it, you would've done the same thing and the monster husband brought it on himself for drunk driving.
Of course, the one scene where it becomes hard to root for Linda is when Bradley's fiancee Zuri and a boat captain arrive where she has both characters fall off an island cliff. Yes, they did nothing to her, but Dylan O'Brien who plays Bradley did have a point. Here's what he said regarding Linda and her actions:
For me, personally, I ride for Linda. It’s not that I don’t also ride for Bradley, but it’s been really interesting to hear the various reactions that people have. I have been very surprised to hear how many people are like, “Well, Linda is a murderer.” And I’m like, “Well, yeah, but she was abused."
But Linda has lived her life as somebody who nobody pays an ounce of attention or respect to whatsoever, so I get why she desperately doesn’t want to go back to that world. What are you willing to forgive? What are you going to hang your hat on? She goes to barbaric places, which is what’s really fun about the premise involving these characters. It’s about how much sympathy you have for her, and so I wouldn’t want to go back [to her previous life] either. She’d be rescued and taken back to the prison that they’d already set for her [in a satellite office]. They never paid mind for how they treated her in civilization, and she knows that will be her fate again. ---- SOURCE: The Hollywood Reporter
I'm definitely not saying killing Zuri and the boat captain was the right thing to do. Far from it. But none of us wanted Linda to go back to her life of suffering and abuse again. She's not only the protagonist, but also a victim of abuse from both the workplace and her dead husband. The movie's producer Zainab Azizi has said:
I mean, Sam always loves to root for the underdog. Power can corrupt you, and ultimately, it does corrupt Linda. There’s a saying – if you can’t beat them, join them. She ultimately becomes the monster that she hates at the beginning of the film. As we find, she is a golfing pro, she’s her own boss, and she’s our anti-hero. We wanted to make sure she was still somewhat redeemable. And I know the story goes full crazy in the third act, but we didn’t want her to get too dark in the halfway point. ---- SOURCE: The National News
The movie's screenwriters Mark Swift and Damian Shannon also refer to her as an "anti-hero" and when asked if audiences should be rooting for her, Mark says:
Then, at the end of the day, we leave it to the audience. It’s none of our business. We are not going to choose who you root for. We are going to make it complicated for you. We are going to make it muddy, but if you cast somebody who is incredibly likeable, we are going to get away with a lot. Because they chose Rachel, I often ask the audience during these screenings, “How many people here think Linda Little is a hero?” It’s either hero, anti-hero or villain. I’ll tell you what. Mostly they say hero, which is very surprising to me, but that’s none of my business. I love to see it. ---- SOURCE: ComicBook.com
And finally, as Slash Film discusses the alternate ending where Franklin tries to blackmail Linda, they ask if Linda Liddle is a good person:
Indeed, the violence is so aggressive, one might begin to question if Linda has become a terrible human being. She didn't just regain her agency, she became vicious. She was willing to kill for her newfound power. That's a much less conventional "inspiring message."
If the alternate ending of "Send Help" sees Linda facing down a blackmailer, then it implies that she remained aggressive and kind of monstrous. There's a wicked sense of fun to that, and Sam Raimi loves to blend comedy and horror, but the alternate ending would alter the moral of the story. Linda wasn't just free to be assertive. She would have entered her villain era. ---- SOURCE: Slash Film
I continue to root for Linda not just because she's the protagonist, but also the anti-hero of the story.
My issue is that there are videos on YouTube claiming that Linda was "never a victim" (EX.: She Was Never The Victim | Send Help (2026) Ending Explained), an IG video saying she is the villain (Was She Really the Villain? Episode 29), comment on Reddit articles that call her a "villainous protagonist", and What Culture calling her a villain (20 Recent Movie Villains Who Were Instantly Iconic - Page 13). There's even villain wiki pages about her HERE - Linda Liddle | Villains Wiki | Fandom and HERE - Linda Liddle (Send_Help) | The Female Villains Wiki | Fandom.
It's all making me wonder if I've been rooting for the wrong person. Did I love this movie for nothing? And if Linda is a villain, does that make other great anti-heroes like Jack Sparrow and Paul Atreides villains? I asked a friend about the "never a victim" YouTube video and how unfortunately, most of the almost 300 comments agree with it. Wasn’t she a victim of her abusive husband, Bradley, and his buddies? My friend responded that the video is a wild take and didn’t think she was orchestrating a hostile takeover while also saying it's just a conspiracy theory and didn’t get how this movie wasn’t wild enough for the video's creator and the commenters that they had to make this stuff up.
So no, Linda Liddle is not a hero. But as my friend pointed out, she can't imagine anyone will be disappointed with the ending. She was rooting for her throughout. Thing is Bradley, Donovan, and their buddies deserved what they got. Zuri and the skipper didn't. I know it's fiction, but I hope Linda doesn't burn in Hell when she dies for what she did to the latter two. I'm just tired of everyone calling her a "villain" or a "villainous protagonist" when she is written as an anti-hero.
That's my hot take, but what did you think of Linda Liddle and which of the two main characters were you rooting for?