u/abigupta96

I know, I know. Somerset’s the tired old cop who wants out, the moral center, the guy giving us the “world is bad but worth fighting for” ending. But the more I sit with this movie, the more the ending bugs me for a specific reason:
John Doe is way too controlled a person to leave the entire climax up to chance.
This is a guy who kept a man tied to a bed for a year to make a point about Sloth. He wrote thousands of journals. He planned murders years in advance down to the exact dinner course. And his entire final act depends on… Mills losing his temper at exactly the right moment?
For a guy that meticulous, that’s a huge gamble — unless he had inside information that Mills would absolutely snap. And who in this movie understands David Mills’s temper better than literally anyone else?
Somerset.
He spends the whole film reading Mills like a book — impulsive, prideful, quick to anger, the type who chases suspects into storm drains and throws punches he shouldn’t. Somerset clocks all of this immediately. Doe, on the other hand, has known Mills for what, a few weeks tops? How does he know Mills will break instead of just arresting him and holding it together?
And then there’s the stuff that’s always felt slightly off to me:
Somerset conveniently falls behind during the apartment chase when Doe escapes

Somerset is the one Tracy confides in about the pregnancy — not Mills

In the final desert scene, Somerset instantly puts together that Tracy’s dead, that she was pregnant, that Mills doesn’t know — and still mostly just pleads instead of physically stopping him

Somerset and Doe’s worldviews are basically identical (society is rotten, people don’t care) — Doe just acts on it and Somerset intellectualizes it

I’m not saying Somerset and Doe had a secret alliance (the film gives zero evidence of that). But there’s a version of this where Somerset isn’t just a passive observer of the ending — he’s someone who, on some level, understood exactly what was about to happen and didn’t stop it as hard as he could have. Maybe because part of him agreed with the lesson being taught.
Or, thematically: Doe is what Somerset could’ve become if his cynicism ever turned into action instead of dartboards and insomnia.
“I’ll be around” hits very differently under that reading.
Curious what people think:
Is the Wrath plan actually a hole in Doe’s logic, or is he just improvising in the moment (mailing the head, taunting Mills in the car)?

Is Somerset’s hesitation in the finale just age/exhaustion, or something more?

Does the Somerset/Doe parallel mean anything beyond “two responses to the same despair”?

Not trying to say the movie is secretly a conspiracy thriller — more interested in whether Somerset’s passivity is meant to implicate him a little. Tear it apart.

I know, I know. Somerset’s the tired old cop who wants out, the moral center, the guy giving us the “world is bad but worth fighting for” ending. But the more I sit with this movie, the more the ending bugs me for a specific reason:
John Doe is way too controlled a person to leave the entire climax up to chance.
This is a guy who kept a man tied to a bed for a year to make a point about Sloth. He wrote thousands of journals. He planned murders years in advance down to the exact dinner course. And his entire final act depends on… Mills losing his temper at exactly the right moment?
For a guy that meticulous, that’s a huge gamble — unless he had inside information that Mills would absolutely snap. And who in this movie understands David Mills’s temper better than literally anyone else?
Somerset.
He spends the whole film reading Mills like a book — impulsive, prideful, quick to anger, the type who chases suspects into storm drains and throws punches he shouldn’t. Somerset clocks all of this immediately. Doe, on the other hand, has known Mills for what, a few weeks tops? How does he know Mills will break instead of just arresting him and holding it together?
And then there’s the stuff that’s always felt slightly off to me:
Somerset conveniently falls behind during the apartment chase when Doe escapes

Somerset is the one Tracy confides in about the pregnancy — not Mills

In the final desert scene, Somerset instantly puts together that Tracy’s dead, that she was pregnant, that Mills doesn’t know — and still mostly just pleads instead of physically stopping him

Somerset and Doe’s worldviews are basically identical (society is rotten, people don’t care) — Doe just acts on it and Somerset intellectualizes it

I’m not saying Somerset and Doe had a secret alliance (the film gives zero evidence of that). But there’s a version of this where Somerset isn’t just a passive observer of the ending — he’s someone who, on some level, understood exactly what was about to happen and didn’t stop it as hard as he could have. Maybe because part of him agreed with the lesson being taught.
Or, thematically: Doe is what Somerset could’ve become if his cynicism ever turned into action instead of dartboards and insomnia.
“I’ll be around” hits very differently under that reading.
Curious what people think:
Is the Wrath plan actually a hole in Doe’s logic, or is he just improvising in the moment (mailing the head, taunting Mills in the car)?

Is Somerset’s hesitation in the finale just age/exhaustion, or something more?

Does the Somerset/Doe parallel mean anything beyond “two responses to the same despair”?

Not trying to say the movie is secretly a conspiracy thriller — more interested in whether Somerset’s passivity is meant to implicate him a little. Tear it apart.