Spoiler Space: You'll never guess what happens at the end of The Death Of Robin Hood

Surprise, Robin Hood dies.

Okay, fine, let’s say a little more about the ending of a movie that delivers exactly what it says on the tin. In direct refutation of the lying liars behind John Dies At The End, The Death Of Robin Hood allows us to watch the life literally drain from the legendary thief’s veins, as the suicidal folk hero effectively travels to an old-timey care facility like a tourist in Switzerland looking to exercise his right to die. Pushing the parallels to Hugh Jackman’s turn in Logan to their limits while also allowing Sister Brigid (Jodie Comer) to get a bit of direct revenge—Robin Hood burned her husband and children alive back in the day (he’s dark and gritty Robin Hood, you see)—the end of Michael Sarnoski’s film sees Robin atone for his sins with his life.

And his sins are legion. Really, pretty much everyone Robin Hood runs into has been negatively impacted by this prolific criminal. Little John (Bill Skarsgård), who quickly turns up for One Last Crime? Taken under the bandit’s wing as a child and turned into a killing machine, before being felled by a family he’d torn through. The friendly leper who chats with Robin at the priory? Robin cut his ear cut off in a brawl, once upon a time, before he acquired his illness. Brigid and a trio of children also pay the price for Robin’s savagery. It’s all a bit cartoonish when you stop and think about it—as hokey a fiction as the idea that Robin was a do-gooder robbing from the rich and giving to the poor—and The Death Of Robin Hood gives you ample time and quiet to do so. 

The more pressing matter, though, is that his legend was always going to outlive him, and, because he’s dying on his terms, that legacy can be consciously shaped so as not to freak out the young daughter of the late murderous madman Little John—as well as all the future children who’ll hear of his exploits. As the marketing says, “He was no hero,” but it might be better for everyone in the long run if Robin pretends that he was. A world with fantastical heroes is perhaps more hopeful than one with well-understood villains. After a long grim movie leading up to it, his deathbed decision to give into the hearsay is ultimately a kind one, though he never confirms one way or the other if he was actually an anthropomorphic fox the whole time.