I Saw the TV Glow is streaming on HBO Max now, which means all the queer people who weren’t able to watch this buzzy A24 movie in theaters can now finally catch up to their artsy, movie-theater-going friends.

Written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun—who is also known for their 2021 horror film, We’re All Going to the World’s Fair—I Saw the TV Glow stars Justice Smith as Owen, a lonely, isolated kid growing up in the ’90s. When Owen meets a cool alternative girl named Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine), she introduces him to a supernatural TV show called The Pink Opaque. (It’s like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but even gayer.) Together, Owen and Maddy lose themselves completely in the show, finding a comfort in it that they can’t find in their oppressive, suburban real lives.

I Saw the TV Glow is a moody, bizarre, and at times horrific psychological journey that speaks to the trans experience, and it’s easily one of the best films of 2024. That said, the movie is rife with metaphors and imagery that may leave some viewers confused. Don’t worry, Decider is here to help. Read on for an analysis of I Saw the TV Glow plot summary and I Saw the TV Glow ending explained.

Owen (Justice Smith) is a lonely, isolated kid growing up in the ’90s. He bonds with a cool, older goth girl at his school over a fictional, monster-of-the-week TV show called The Pink Opaque, about two demon-slaying teenagers. Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine) lusts after her favorite badass, monster-slaying heroine of the show, Tara (Lindsey Jordan). Owen is drawn to the more feminine character, Isabel (Helena Howard). Together, both teens find a comfort in The Pink Opaque that they can’t find in their oppressive, suburban, real lives. Maddy admits to Owen that she is a lesbian. When she asks Owen about his sexuality, he replies, “I think I like TV shows.”

One day, Maddy proposes to Owen that they run away together. He chickens out. The Pink Opaque is canceled, after five seasons, on the same day Maddy disappears. The authorities find Maddy’s TV burning in her backyard after she vanishes—an indication that she is done using TV as an escape, and is ready to go live her life as her authentic self. But Owen just wasn’t brave enough to do the same.

Eight years later, Owen still lives with his stepfather in his hometown, and works at a local movie theater. One night, he finds a downed power line and a page from a Pink Opaque episode guide claiming to describe Season 6, even though the show was cancelled after Season 5. He runs into Maddy at a grocery store. With wild eyes, Maddy tells Owen that The Pink Opaque isn’t a TV show. It’s real.

Maddy insists her name is not Maddy, but Tara. Owen is not a man named Owen—he’s a woman named Isabel. Maddy says that the big bad in the show, Mr. Melancholy, wiped their memories. The Pink Opaque is the real world, and the “real world” that Owen thinks he lives in, is an illusion. We see shots of Owen as a teenager, wearing a dress. We see Maddy and Owen dressed as Tara and Isabel, walking on their school’s football field. Maddy tells Owen to rewatch the series finale, in which Mr. Melancholy imprisons Tara and Isabel in a pocket universe—turning them into Owen and Maddy. Confused and disturbed, Owen smashes his head through his TV set—perhaps trying to get into The Pink Opaque universe, or perhaps just trying to take his own life because he’s so unhappy. His father, Frank, saves him.

It’s at this point that viewers realize Schoenbrun has crafted a clever metaphor for the trans experience. Owen has never felt like the man that society tells him he’s supposed to be. His reality feels wrong—fake, even—because he’s repressed his true identity. Maddy wants Owen to wake up. She wants him to embrace a new reality where he can feel comfortable in his skin. But in order to do that, he must kill the old version of himself.

Owen meets Maddy at their old school, where she tells him that after running away, she paid a man to bury her alive. She says she suffocated to death, and then woke up as Tara in The Pink Opaque. She came back to what she claims is the “fake” pocket universe in order to save Owen; to help him become Isabel. Owen, too, must bury himself alive. But once again, he chickens out and runs away. He never sees Maddy again. Before she leaves, Maddy writes a message to Owen in chalk: “There is still time.”

Owen continues working at the movie theater, living in his childhood home, suppressing his true self. “Time moves fast these days. I just try not to think about it,” he says in a voice over.

Owen tells the camera he has a family of his own, now, that he loves more than anything. But in the same scene, he hauls a new LG TV into his house—indicating that he is still not really living his life, and instead escaping via TV. We don’t see the family, because they don’t feel real to Owen.

Twenty years pass. The movie theater has been turned into a family fun center, and Owen still works there, clearly miserable. His asthma has gotten very bad—an audio representation of the way he is suffocating. While he and the other fun center workers are singing “Happy Birthday” to a young child, Owen has a breakdown. He begins screaming that he’s dying, and the other workers shut down—as if, like Maddy once told Owen, this is not his real life.

In the last scene of the movie, we see that Owen has locked himself in the bathroom at work and ripped off his shirt. He takes a box cutter, slashes open his chest, and discovers TV static inside. He seems comforted by this. He puts his clothes back on and returns to work, apologizing to his coworkers for his behavior—and for his very existence. Nobody seems to care. And with that, the movie ends.

While there are different ways to interpret the meaning of I Saw the TV Glow‘s ending, my interpretation is that Owen feels suicidal because he is still suffocating himself, and not living his true life. He is stopped short of taking his own life, because he still finds comfort in TV and media—hence, the static inside of him. For now, based on the final scene where Owen apologizes for his existence, we can assume he will continue to live this miserable, suffocating existence. If you read this as the trans metaphor it’s clearly meant to be, that means Owen will continue to live as a man. It’s a cautionary tale—what can happen if a trans person never comes out.

However, though that may seem bleak, we can view this ending as hopeful, in a way. Don’t forget about the message that Maddy left for Owen: “There is still time.” Owen did not take his own life. Perhaps he even caught a glimpse of Isabel from The Pink Opaque—aka the woman he may someday become—still living inside him. It was enough comfort to make him smile, and keep him alive for another day. He still has time to live life as his true self. It’s never too late.