I Am Mother ending explained (Netflix movie)

I Am Mother ending explained. Yes, this article is all about explaining the ending of I Am Mother, so if you haven’t watched it yet, stop reading and go watch it on Netflix first. Read our review of I Am Mother here >

Do you want the I Am Mother ending explained? Well, then you’ve come to the right place. We’ll go over the ending itself along with a few other details necessary to explain the ending of I Am Mother which is out on Netflix now!

Warning: Since this article is all about explaining the ending of I Am Mother, it is full of spoilers.

If you haven’t watched I Am Mother on Netflix it yet, then maybe you should read our review of I Am Mother instead.

Are Woman and Daughter related or clones?

This segment is full of I Am Mother spoilers since it’s about the ending of the Netflix movie. Let’s get into it…

Already from the poster for I Am Mother (or cover image, if you will), there’s a huge clue about certain character connections.

You have Hilary Swank who plays “Woman” on one side and Clara Rugaard who plays “Daughter” on the other. They look very similar in terms of both their facial expression and even their hair.

In fact, on the poster, they look like clones at different ages with the “Mother” droid in the middle. And yes, that’s very much intentional.

When it comes to the ending of I Am Mother, we do actually get a very subtle but direct explanation as to why this is.

Who was Woman in I Am Mother?

We learn early on, that the “Woman” character (Hilary Swank) was an orphan. She was found by other surviving humans who raised her.

At the end of I Am Mother, a droid, who is also “Mother” (because all robots are Mother), finds Woman, she reveals something you’ve probably been guessing at already.

Mother asks Woman if she never wondered about where she came from. Or why she was able to survive and adapt so well when others around her couldn’t and died. The truth is, of course, that Woman is the first attempt Mother made at creating a superhuman.

Something went wrong and Mother decided to let the first child grow up with Humans instead.

“Daughter” (Clara Rugaard) is the third attempt at creating a human worthy of inheriting the Earth. The second attempt was somehow wrong as well and Daughter finds the remains (part of a jaw) in the incinerator.

All three embryos were taken from the same “strain”, which is why all three are essentially clones. Something a picture of the second attempt also confirms since she looks exactly like Daughter.

Why did Mother create the apocalypse?

Yes, the actual apocalypse was created by “Mother”. And the AI is actually every single robot. They share one supreme conscious.

The sole purpose of Mother was to save the human race. As so many AIs in movies before this one, she discovered that us humans are our own worst enemy. Something every single zombie movie and series also focus on!

We kill each other and we were destroying the Earth itself as well, which would leave us homeless and extinct.

That’s why Mother was the one to bring about the apocalypse. Before doing this, she built up a stock of more than 60,000 embryos. Her plan was to raise humans who were smarter and stronger with better ethics and morals.

Humans who would be and do better! After all, she was created with the one goal of saving the human race and that’s exactly what she’s doing.

Any humans who survived the apocalypse are living terrible lives and continue to fight each other. Something Woman also confirms which is why she has chosen to live alone with a dog rather than being part of a group.

I Am Mother ending explained!

With Mother’s third attempt, Daughter, she finally feels that she has succeeded. 

That’s why in the end, she agrees to leave Daughter to care for her new brother. Getting a sibling (and having another human being with her) was a wish Daughter had for a long time.

Mother also leaves Daughter in charge of bringing more humans into the world. And, of course, making sure that she raises them to be the superhumans worthy and able to continue the human race.

It only takes 24 hours from the embryo is selected until it’s ready to be “born” from the incubator in the compound.

After leaving Daughter at the compound, Mother (in the form of another droid since Mother is everywhere), goes to find Woman.

This is where she reveals to her (rather subtly) that she also comes from Mother, which is why she survived – until now. Then Mother enters the container, where Woman lives, and shuts the door behind her.

Of course, this indicates that Mother will now kill Woman since she turned out to be another human that failed instead of being the superhuman she hoped.

And that’s the ending of I Am Mother explained. Watch it on Netflix now!