I am VERY confused!


Forgive me if this is stupid! Ok...the last scene,Taylor breaks the window at Helena's place at the Institute. You can CLEARLY see Helena, in bed, startled, and immediately gets out of bed and runs out of her room.
She goes down the same stairwell (that goes around the elevator) that Berlin went up several days earlier (, when he and his partner Ross were checking out the Institute on Christmas eve.) Once again, you can clearly see it's Helena (Uma).
And then Taylor catches up to Helena in a hallway and says something like,"say goodbye, bitch" or something like that, and then Helena turns around, only it's NOT Helena, it's Margie Ross, the now-deceased Sgt Ross's wife!!
I've tried, repeatedly, watching that last scene, to see where Helena would bow out and Margie (disguised as Helena) started running, to fool the killer...I can't see it. Where does she enter the scene? Don't tell me the beginning, cos the woman in bed is CLEARLY Helena!!
I love this movie, but this inconsistency has been bothering me for over 10 years, and would love to have someone clear this up for me (preferably without telling me "how stupid" I am or something like that, ok?)

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I will solve your dilemma.

There is a moment where Taylor gets to the bottom of the winding staircase after chasing Helena and is momentarily unsure of which way she went. It's obvious she goes left. Taylor makes down that way but hears a loud bang, assumes it can only be Helena and goes right, towards where a waiting Margie is ready and willing to lead him down the corridor and away from Helena, where she turns and shoots him. Watch it again, see Taylor's indecision at the bottom of the stairs and how Margie, with misdirection of a simple noise, leads him towards her, where she kills him.

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Very good answer! I love this movie, too :)

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I was wondering the exact same thing, thanks.

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I saw it the first time.
And that development was set up earlier when Berlin/Garcia runs out of Ross' house heading to Oakland. Uma and Baker/Ross's widow are watching him go from the porch. The grieving widow sez: "John call me if you find him. I want to know his name."

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Wow you're very good with getting these hints, thanks!

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This reply is 100% accurate, however, it is still kind of a ridiculous plan of their part.

It's like....OK lets assume that a sighted guy with a flashlight will be unable (or unwilling) to kill a legit blind girl. Rather than killing her, he is content to just kind of follow her, no big rush. And of course there is no way he would kill or catch up to her until they get several floors down, and of course there is no way he wouldnt lose sight of her OF COURSE he would lose sight of her at the exact right moment that their plan called for him to lose sight of her. The loud bang which was Margie would hardly been effective if he had been shining the light right on the real helena at the time.

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Not to mention he very well might have just blown away the girl he was chasing, long before he took the time to say what he did and wait for her to turn around. But I guess the killer in movies is always extra verbose like that.

Still a great ending - I didn't see it coming.

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Taylor couldn’t just “blow away” the girl because then it would prove Berlin was right about the existence of a serial killer. He had to make it look like an accident by maybe pushing her down the stairs (which is what Berlin warns about right before rushing to the institute). So, Taylor had to get close enough to her to grab her and set up a mortal accident

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