‘The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes’ Ending Explained: What Happened to Lucy Gray?

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is now streaming on Starz, which means even more people will be watching this new Hunger Games movie at home. And they may be pleasantly surprised to find that, despite the fact that Jennifer Lawrence doesn’t star—and despite the fact that it’s been over eight years since we were last in the arena—it’s an entertaining movie!

Directed by Francis Lawrence, who’s helmed all of the Hunger Games films since Catching Fire, this new movie is a prequel to the first four films, based on the 2020 novel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins. It tells the origin story of future Hunger Games villain, President Snow, played by newcomer Tom Blyth.

The book is over 500 pages long, which was a lot of plot to cram into a feature-length film. Even with a runtime of over two hours and twenty minutes, the last twenty minutes of the film are a whirlwind. If you got lost along the way, don’t worry, because Decider is here to help.

Read on for a thorough analysis of The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes plot summary and ending explained, including an explanation of what happened to Lucy Gray in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes book.

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes plot summary:

We meet our future villain, Coriolanus Snow, as a young, starving child. His once-wealthy family has been ruined by the war between the haves (the Capitol) and the have-nots (the Districts). Fast-forward to Coriolanus as an 18-year-old (now played by Tom Blyth), who is struggling to keep up appearances of wealth. He intends to pull his family out of poverty via a “golden ticket” academic scholarship at school—only to have the rug pulled out from under him when the school’s dean announces that, actually, this year the scholarship will be given to the student who can serve as the best mentor to a tribute in the tenth annual Hunger Games.

The tribute that Coriolanus is assigned to mentor is Lucy Gray (Rachel Zegler). Lucy is technically from District 12, but, as she explains in the film, is actually a member of a nomadic group of people known as the Covey, who were forced to settle in the area after the war. She’s a free-spirited folk singer, known for entertaining her people with her songs. Games creator and Academy dean, Casca Highbottom (Peter Dinklage) paired Coriolanus with Lucy because he believes it will set him up for failure.

At first, Coriolanus simply wants to win the Plinth Prize scholarship. Then a rebel attack bombs the arena, and rather than making her escape—as some other tributes do—Lucy Gray stays behind to save Coriolanus from the debris. After that, Coriolanus seems to care about Lucy Gray surviving. He gives her rat poison to use as a weapon, and tells her the best spot to hide in the arena. With this help, Lucy manages to survive the games.

But after one of the other tributes defiantly drags down the Capitol flag to cover the dead bodies, the sadistic gamemaker Dr. Gaul (Viola Davis) decides to punish the tributes by killing all of them with her poisonous, rainbow-colored snakes. Thanks to an earlier encounter, Coriolanus knows the snakes won’t bite someone if they are familiar with that person’s scent, so he slips his handkerchief with Lucy’s tears on it into the vat of snakes. Lucy survives, and is declared the winner of the game. But Highbottom and Gaul find Coriolanus’s handkerchief and know that he cheated.

As punishment, Coriolanus is banished from the Capitol and sent to work in the Districts as a Peacekeeper. Coriolanus bribes his way into getting sent to District 12. His best friend from the Capitol, Sejanus (Josh Andrés Rivera) also volunteers to join the Peacekeepers in 12. One night, while on leave, Coriolanus and Sejanus go to a bar where Lucy is performing. Coriolanus and Lucy reunite, and begin a secret romantic relationship.

Coriolanus’s superior officer informs him he’s been promoted to District 2, where he will train as an officer and have a good chance of returning to his family in the Capitol. Though upset to leave Lucy, Coriolanus jumps at the opportunity to return home. In a further bout of Capitol ass-kissing, he goads his friend Sejanus into revealing information about a rebel plan to free a rebel prisoner, secretly records him, and sends that recording to Dr. Gaul in the Capitol. When Coriolanus sees Sejanus disappear with some shady people at a bar, he follows him—and Lucy follows Coriolanus.

Coriolanus interrupts a meeting between Sejanus, a rebel leader named Spruce, Lucy Gray’s ex-boyfriend Billy Taupe, Billy’s new girlfriend, Mayfair. A conflict leads to Coriolanus shooting and killing Mayfair, who is also the mayor’s daughter. Coriolanus tells Lucy and Sejanus to keep quiet, while Spruce hides the weapons. However, because of Coriolanus’s secret recording, Spruce and Sejanus are both hanged for treason.

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes ending explained:

Coriolanus and Lucy flee north together. Coriolanus lets slip that he’s killed three people—a tribute in the arena, Mayfair, and Sejanus—but Lucy only knows about the tribute and Mayfair. When she presses him on the third person, he lies and says he was talking about his past self. But Lucy clearly doesn’t believe him, and realizes that she can no longer trust him.

Coriolanus and Lucy find a cabin in the woods, where Coriolanus discovers the weapons that Spruce hid. Lucy realizes that if Coriolanus can get rid of both the weapons and her, then there will be no more loose ends, and Coriolanus will be able to return to his old life without fear of discovery for what he did. Knowing that he will choose this option, Lucy disappears into the woods. She leaves a trap for Coriolanus by hiding a snake under his mother’s scarf, which he had gifted to her. The snake bites Coriolanus, and though the venom doesn’t kill him, it disorients him.

Coriolanus shoots into the woods, where he believes he sees and hits Lucy Gray. But when he looks for a body, or blood, all he finds is Lucy’s earring. He then hears her voice echoing in the forest. It’s not clear if this is real, or if it’s a venom-induced hallucination. Then he realizes it’s the mockingjay birds echoing her voice. He goes back to the Peacekeepers, and discovers drugs in Sejanus’s trunk.

Coriolanus has returns to the Capitol. Dr. Gaul has pardoned him, and will personally mentor Coriolanus at school. In the final scene of the movie, Coriolanus puts on the same costume that Donald Sutherland wore as President Snow in the original movies. He’s officially chosen the dark side. He meets with a strung-out Highbottom, who Coriolanus knows is addicted to “morphling.” Highbottom reveals that he only ever meant The Hunger Games as a drunken joke, but that Coriolanus’s father, Crassus, stole the idea, took it seriously, and made it a reality. Highbottom never forgave Crassus, which is why he never liked or trusted Coriolanus. Coriolanus gives Highbottom the drugs he found in Sejanus’s trunk. Highbottom drinks it, realizes it’s poison, and dies. And with that, the movie ends.

What happened to Lucy Gray in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes?

Lucy Gray’s fate is left as a mystery, and this is intentional. Did she die in the woods? Did she survive? Snow will never know. She vanishes without a trace. The entire movie is from Snow’s point of view, and the fact that he never knows what happened to Lucy Gray—that there is someone who might be out there who knows the real him—will drive him mad for the rest of his life.

Don’t believe me? Take it from The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes book. In the epilogue of the book, Suzanne Collins wrote, “Lucy Gray’s fate was a mystery, then, just like the little girl who shared her name in that maddening song. Was she alive, dead, a ghost who haunted the wilderness? Perhaps no one would ever really know.”