'Seven' Ending Explained: Seriously, What's in the Box? (2024)

The Big Picture

The ending of the film Seven goes beyond the shocking reveal of the severed head in a box, reflecting the movie's themes of cynicism, violence, and fear of the world.
Detective Mills' act of killing John Doe can be seen as either vengeance or being dragged into the murderer's twisted game.
Somerset, the veteran detective, is forced to witness the downfall of his friend and pupil, leading him to make a decision to stay behind and fight for the world instead of retiring.

David Fincher’s 1995 thriller Seven has perhaps one of the most memorable endings in film history. The line “What’s in the box?” uttered numerous times by Brad Pitt’s Detective Mills, has been repeated to the point of becoming memeable. And, of course, we all know the correct answer to this question: it’s Gwyneth Paltrow’s head — or, rather, the head of Tracy, Paltrow’s character in the film. Killed by the serial killer John Doe (Kevin Spacey), Tracy has her head put inside a box that is then delivered to Detectives Mills and Somerset (Morgan Freeman) in a field in the middle of nowhere. The revelation of Tracy’s murder prompts Mills to fall into despair and rage, shooting John Doe and thus wrapping up his seven deadly sins-themed killing spree.

But, in the grand scheme of things, can we consider what Mills does as a form of vengeance? Has he really gotten back at John Doe by killing him or did he merely allow himself to be dragged into the murderer’s twisted game? What happens to Somerset after he is forced to witness the downfall of his pupil/friend? The ending of Seven is so much more than a beheaded woman packed up for delivery, even though time has certainly done its job of reducing the film’s conclusion to this one thing. Se7en is a movie about cynicism, violence, and fear of the world out there, and its final moments reflect its philosophy perfectly, no matter how you find yourself thinking about it.

'Seven' Ending Explained: Seriously, What's in the Box? (1)

Se7en

Crime

Mystery

What Is ‘Seven’ About?

Superficially speaking, Seven is a movie about an unlikely pair of detectives who team up somewhat reluctantly to find a serial killer who has been leaving a trail of bodies with references to the seven deadly sins: gluttony, greed, sloth, lust, pride, envy, and wrath. In an unnamed metropolis evocative of early '90s New York, Mills, a newbie at the local homicide department, and Somerset, an elderly cop on the verge of retirement, first find the body of a man forced to eat until his insides burst. Then, on the following day, a defense attorney is discovered dead in his office, forced to self-mutilate, with the word “greed” written in blood on his carpet. It doesn't take Mills and Somerset long to realize that the two murders are connected, especially after they find “gluttony” written in fat behind the first victim’s refrigerator.

They also find a message behind a painting on the wall of the defense attorney’s office: a cry for help written with someone’s fingers. The fingerprint analysis quickly points the detectives to a known mentally unstable drug addict with a history of sexually assaulting minors, but it turns out that he is not the one responsible for the crimes. As a matter of fact, he is a victim: tied to his bed for a year, fed through tubes, he’s somehow still alive when the cops find him in his apartment with the word “sloth” written above him. The killer, Somerset concludes, has a message to deliver — a message that he spells out in his bloody crime scenes as well as in the notes that he leaves behind with passages from books heavy with religious overtones, such as John Milton’s Paradise Lost.

How Do Mills and Somerset Find Out Who John Doe Is?

How 'Se7en's Use of Color Foreshadows Its Ending

These colors represent the two most fateful sins to the ending.

Inside John Doe’s apartment, Mills and Somerset find pictures of victims known and unknown, as well as a photograph that shows that the killer was also disguised as a reporter in one of the previous crime scenes. They also find writings that offer an insight into Doe’s mind, though they are way too disorganized to understand or even read in full. Still, they show a deep misanthropy and an obsession with what he sees as purging the world of sin.

While at John Doe’s home, the detectives are alerted to the discovery of a new body in a nearby brothel. A prostitute has been killed brutally when her customer was forced at gunpoint to have sex with her wearing a strap-on with a knife. It’s clearly the lust killing. Shortly after, they come upon the body of a woman “punished” for her so-called pride by having her face completely slashed and her nose cut off. She was given the choice of calling for help or ending her suffering with sleeping pills and chose the latter.

The Final Act of ‘Seven’ Begins With John Doe Turning Himself In

Less than a week has gone by, and John Doe shows no sign of stopping. Worst of all, he still has two sins left to go: envy and wrath. Mills and Somerset grow worried, but their plight seems to come to an end when a man covered in blood enters the police station claiming to be John Doe and asking to turn himself in. He immediately lawyers up and comes to the detectives with an offer: he will plead guilty to all charges, but first, he will take them — and only them — to the last two bodies that complete his gory sermon.

It’s a long drive to the empty field in which John Doe claims to have hidden the bodies. On the way, Mills unsuccessfully tries to provoke him, but he remains mostly calm, talking to Somerset about how rotten humanity has become. It’s a speech that Somerset knows all too well, for he has said the same thing, albeit in other words. Completely disillusioned with a city that he believes has become too violent, Somerset is no stranger to the kind of disdain for people shown by John Doe, and it is clear through Morgan Freeman’s performance that the character is somewhat shaken by what he hears.

Mills, Somerset, and Doe eventually arrive at the location indicated by the killer, but there’s nothing there. Shortly after, however, a delivery truck stops by, and the driver gives Somerset a box. As the detective prepares to open it, John Doe tells Mills that he went to his house and tried to play husband for a while, for he has always envied that kind of normal life. Finding himself unable to perform this role, though, he chopped off Tracy’s head, killing both her and Mills’ unborn child. That’s when Somerset opens the box, and Mills utters his iconic line.

What Is John Doe’s Final Plan?

'Seven' Ending Explained: Seriously, What's in the Box? (3)

Tracy, however, did not represent any of the seven deadly sins. She was simply a means to an end. John Doe’s goal is to have Mills kill him, thus atoning for his own envy and forcing the detective to become wrath, the last of the sins. Somerset tries to stop Mills from killing John Doe, arguing that he will merely do the will of a murderer. However, Mills is too lost in his own despair to listen to his partner. He shoots John Doe in the head and then throws in a few more bullets as a way of letting off his rage. Other cops arrive at the scene and take him in. Before going away, Somerset tells the police captain that he will be around, indicating that he has given up on his retirement plans, which involved moving to the countryside.

“Around. I’ll be around.” These are Detective Somerset’s words, and it’s in these words that we are left to look for the meaning of Seven. Throughout the whole film, Somerset has made it clear that he doesn’t have it in him anymore to be a detective. He doesn’t think there’s any point to his job and believes violence has become so ubiquitous and out of control that he has been reduced to nothing more than a paper pusher, writing down forms and collecting evidence for trials that will never happen. He stands in contrast with Mills’ typically youthful idealism: the two seem almost taken from different kinds of crime novels, with Somerset being the classic noir detective and Mills, the more modern gun-toting kind.

With all that in mind, we might infer that, upon seeing Mills’ idealism and entire mindset destroyed by John Doe, Somerset finds himself in a position of having to fight for what his friend believed. That is one possible interpretation for the end of Seven. However, it is perhaps not the most interesting. Another possibility is that having seen the extremes to which his misanthropy might lead him in his conversation with John Doe, he has decided to fight against his own impulses. Hence the final quote of the movie, taken straight from Ernest Hemingway: "The world is a fine place and worth fighting for." “I agree with the second part," adds Detective Somerset.

Seven is a movie with an incredibly pessimistic view of the world. The sheer fact that its killer is called John Doe and has no fingerprints — he chopped off the tips of his fingers — is enough to tell us that the film believes anyone can be a killer. There’s no way of knowing who in our midst might have these kinds of impulses. Somerset agrees with this, at least to an extent: he looks at the crime reports piling up on his desk and sees nothing but despair and horror. Through his retirement, he hopes to get away from all that. But, upon seeing what John Doe is capable of, he decides to stay behind and fight for the world instead of running away from it.

Seven is available to stream on Max in the U.S.

Watch on Max