The Pale Blue Eye: Are Landor And Poe Dead? What Happens To Them?

Sunny Anderson
Jan 07, 2023
Jan 07, 2023

Netflix’s The Pale Blue Eye is an artist origin story with a difference. It brings the historical noir – set in a beautifully rendered wintry Hudson Highlands, New York – imagines what might have happened if the young Edgar Allan Poe (Harry Melling) had ingratiated himself into the investigation of the apparent suicide of one of his fellow cadets at West Point Military Academy. The ending of the movie left us with more questions than answers. What happens to Landor And Poe in the end?

1. What is The Pale Blue Eye about?

are Landor and Poe dead Source: The conversation

The Pale Blue Eye is a 2022 American mystery thriller film written and directed by Scott Cooper, adapted from the 2003 novel of the same name by Louis Bayard.[1] It tells the story of veteran detective Augustus Landor who, in 1830 West Point, New York, investigates a series of murders at the United States Military Academy with the aid of Edgar Allan Poe, a young military cadet. The film features an ensemble cast that includes Christian Bale and Harry Melling as Landor and Poe respectively, along with Gillian Anderson, Lucy Boynton, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Toby Jones, Harry Lawtey, Simon McBurney, Timothy Spall, and Robert Duvall.
Related: Netflix 'The Pale Blue Eye': The Real Story Behind You Don't Know

2. Are Landor And Poe Dead? What Happens To Them?

are Landor and Poe dead Source: Salon

In the ending of the movie, after returning to his cabin, Landor sees that Poe has come to meet him despite not being fully fit yet. What Poe reveals is a new turn of events, which perhaps is not too surprising but is a revelation, nonetheless. During their initial investigation, Landor had left a small, handwritten note for Poe, asking The Apprentice to go meet him at the icehouse. The writing on this note matched exactly with that written on the torn piece of paper found in Fry’s hand. After all, it was detective Augustus Landor who had committed the two murders. Poe then goes on to explain the reasons for it, which are directly linked to the disappearance of Landor’s daughter Mathilde.
Landor lost his beloved wife after settling in the Hudson Valley, and his daughter Mathilde became his only love in life. However, on one particular night two years ago, while returning from the Academy Ball, the young woman was forcibly picked up and raped by a few Academy cadets. The girl had ripped a locket from one of her assailants' necks, and this locket remained with Landor. Mathilde was never able to recover from the attack, and a few days later, she committed suicide by jumping off a cliff. Landor had probably been planning his vengeance since then, and he told everyone that his daughter had fled the house. Landor had then tracked down the cadet whose locket Mathilde had brought home that night, and this was Fry. From Fry’s personal diary, which his mother gave to Landor at his funeral, the detective learned of the participation of his two close friends, Ballinger and Stoddard, in that horrific act against Mathilde. It was for this reason that he then murdered Ballinger and would have done the same to Stoddard had he not fled.

are Landor and Poe dead Source: Time Out

However, Landor had no idea that a plot of occult rituals was also brewing in the Military Academy, and this was a sheer coincidence. On the night of the first murder, the man had strung Fry up to a trial and was hanging him to bring out information about his friends. He had lured the cadet to the place by sending him a hand-written note through his female accomplice who runs the pub. This interrogation was cut short as another cadet, who found the body, came their way, and Landor left the scene with Fry still hanging. Once Fry’s body was cut loose and taken to the hospital ward, Artemus Marquis, who was in need of a dead human corpse to harvest a heart for her sister’s ritual, decided to make use of this chance. When Landor committed the second murder of Ballinger, he knew that he had to copy the heart extraction in order to tie it to the first murder. Everyone suspected that the same person had killed and taken out cadet Fry’s heart, and Landor used this suspicion to protect himself. After his second murder, he carved out Ballinger’s chest and took out his heart, only to make it seem like it was the work of Artemus.
In the end, when Poe confronts the detective, he confesses everything, but the young poet leaves in tears because the man he had trusted had kept all of this from him. Poe would have probably supported the detective if he had told him earlier, but now he decides to burn the handwritten note that Landor had left him. This could have been the only proof of Landor's crime, and now that it's gone, the detective's secret is only known to himself and Poe. The man then goes to the cliff where Mathilde jumped, and as a final farewell, he lets go of a ribbon belonging to his daughter, which he had dearly held on to until now.

are Landor and Poe dead Source: People

While "The Pale Blue Eye" ends with this shot, it is possible to imagine Landor, like his daughter, jumping to his own death. The man had undoubtedly spent his entire life seeking the men who had wronged Mathilde, and the vengeance was now complete. Landor has little motivation to continue working and living, and he may now wish to reunite with his daughter in the afterlife by jumping off the high cliff.
Related: ‘The Pale Blue Eye’: Who Is The Real Murderer At The End?
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