Summaries

Synopsis

Diane Sherman gives birth prematurely to an infant whom she later sees lying in an incubator surrounded by a team of hospital staff.

Seventeen years later in Pasco, Washington, Diane home-schools and serves as sole caretaker of her wheelchair-using daughter, Chloe, who is chronically ill with arrhythmia, hemochromatosis, diabetes, and paralysis. Chloe, skilled in technology and engineering, awaits an acceptance letter from the University of Washington. Diane insists she is eager to see Chloe leaving home to begin college, yet repeatedly stops Chloe from seeing the mail before her.

Chloe finds green capsules prescribed to her mother while looking in a bag of groceries. Diane later gives one of these pills to Chloe in her daily medication, claiming it is Trigoxin prescribed to Chloe. Chloe secretly checks the pill bottle and finds a pharmacy label with her name covering the label with Diane's name. She tries to look up Trigoxin online, but their home internet no longer works. She dials a stranger and asks him to look up the drug for her. He tells her Trigoxin treats heart conditions and is a red capsule.

Chloe asks to go to the movies with her mother. During the film, she sneaks across the street to the pharmacy and asks about the green pill. The pharmacist says it is a muscle relaxant for dogs, prescribed to Diane's (non-existent) dog, which may cause leg paralysis if ingested by humans. As Chloe has an asthma attack, Diane locates her, asks the other customers to move aside, and injects her with a sedative without being seen.

Chloe wakes up alone in the house, locked in her bedroom. Although Diane has sabotaged the phones and mobile stair-lift, Chloe manages to escape the house. Badly injured, she flags down the mailman. Diane arrives shortly after and, after failing to convince him to let her take Chloe, kills the mailman.

Chloe awakes in the basement with her wheelchair chained. She discovers her college acceptance letter in the trash as well as a box of photos and documents that show Diane's real daughter died two hours after birth and that Diane stole baby Chloe, who could walk as a small child.

Diane enters and offers to start afresh with Chloe. Chloe accuses Diane of committing factitious disorder imposed on another and asks if she was ever genuinely sick. Diane denies the accusations and insists she did everything to help Chloe. Diane fills a syringe with the poisonous black substance she was cooking in a beaker, after previously being shown to research household neurotoxins. Chloe escapes into a storage room and drinks from a bottle of organophosphate, forcing Diane to hospitalize her.

Chloe awakes in a hospital bed, weak and unable to speak while intubated. Diane creates a Code Blue emergency off screen and kidnaps Chloe before she can be questioned about her "suicide attempt". When Diane pauses at the top of a stopped escalator, Chloe moves her feet to stop the wheelchair. Meanwhile, a nurse has discovered Chloe is missing and alerts security, who reaches Chloe and Diane. Diane threatens them with a gun and is shot. She falls down the stairs.

Seven years later, Chloe still uses a wheelchair but has partial use of her legs. She regularly visits Diane, who is bedridden in prison. Chloe updates Diane about her marriage, child, and career: she is developing prosthetics for children. As she is about to leave, Chloe spits out the canine muscle relaxants she smuggled into the prison, same as the ones Diane gave her, and says "I love you, Mom; now open wide."