WARNING: The following contains mentions of suicide, as well as spoilers for Master, now available on Prime Video.
Amazon Prime Video’s Master is a provocative psychological horror along the lines of Get Out and Us, playing on social inequity, racism and oppression. In this case, it focused on the fictional Ancaster University, where Regina Hall’s Gail became the first Black Master, aka head of the institute. However, Gail’s unsettling story intersected with a student, Jasmine (Zoe Renee), who seemingly became haunted by a spirit on campus.
Legend had it Margaret Millett, who was accused of witchcraft and hanged near the school centuries prior, took the lives of people in Jasmine’s dorm, Room 302. The curse was apparently targeting students of color, which started to wreak havoc on Jasmine’s mental state. This led to a very horrific finale filled with death, tragedy and a sad realization.
What Happened to Jasmine in Master?
Throughout Master, Jasmine was the victim of hate crimes on campus, with a burning cross and a noose by her dorm room plaguing her mind. She became a loner, sleep-deprived and bitter over a failed grade from another teacher, Liv, which furthered frayed her mental state. Sadly, a specter caused her to flee one night at the witching hour of 3.33 am, fall out her window and get injured.
Gail tried to get the staff to take action, but they were busy trying to placate the situation by ensuring Liv got tenure. Gail herself h pushed for this in the past, but it was now being used as a PR campaign because Liv was biracial. Unfortunately, Gail couldn’t prevent disaster from befalling Jasmine because after the teen got discharged, she committed suicide, thinking the ghost and all this trauma would follow her everywhere.
What Was Liv’s Supposed Secret in Master?
Gail felt like she failed the girl, although Master kept it vague on what was real and what was fictional. It blurred the lines by making it seem like Jasmine was hallucinating and that Gail got gaslit herself by finding racist relics in the house she was occupying. Thankfully, she had Liv, who, despite Jasmine’s issues with her teachings, still fought for social justice on campus and wanted more diversity and representation.
Things got darker when Gail finally decided to meet a woman who kept calling her house phone — the Puritanical Esther. Gail had seen their community around, praying and performing rituals in peace, so she was inquisitive. Shockingly, the white Esther revealed Liv was her daughter, who was pretending to be Black. Gail didn’t know what to believe after hearing how Liv fled the commune and adopted this new life, culture and identity, with Esther warning her that it was all a ruse to advance her station.
What Did Gail Do About Liv in Master?
Gail couldn’t prove anything, but in an emotional state, she confronted the staff at Liv’s tenure party, angered that they were celebrating after Jasmine’s death. She outed Liv in a heated argument while chiding the white staff for their tokenism, false platitudes and appropriation of Blackness. Liv left in a haste, making it clear Esther had lied. Sure, the story lined up with her telling Gail she abandoned her family in the past, but it was only because Esther’s camp deemed her a demonic bastard after a fling with a Black man.
Esther did say Liv had evil in her, so Gail calmed down, wondering if the cult was indeed racist and the true villain. But as she settled down, she started to see the current staff in old historical pictures around her on the walls. It might have been hinting that they were immortal and somehow profited off the dead souls as sacrifices or that this was Gail’s thoughts manifesting, accepting that white power wouldn’t go away at the school. She ended up leaving the party and admitted she wasn’t master; she was the “maid.”
Master‘s ending culminated in an officer on campus questioning her presence and asking for ID as she wandered around. This was a clear statement on police brutality and profiling, but rather than argue, Gail was exasperated and defeated from her ordeal. She said she didn’t work here, indicating she had resigned. Sadly, she left the compound thinking change would never come in an unjust world.
See how Gail and Jasmine’s tragedy plays out in Master, now available to stream on Prime Video.
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