Continuing the trademark of the series, Beginning of the End is divided into eight segments presented in an anachronistic order, each titled after a character central to that segment. The eight chapters unfold in the following order: Yui, Nanami, Kayako, Yayoi, Rina, Aoi, Naoto, and Toshio, with the synopsis tracing a rough chronology of the events.
Among the central figures are Nozomi Sasaki as Yui Shono, Reina Triendl as Nanami, Misaki Saisho as Kayako Saeki, Yuina Kuroshima as Yayoi, Miho Kanazawa as Rina, Haori Takahashi as Aoi, Sho Aoyagi as Naoto Miyakoshi, Yasuhito Hida as Takeo Saeki, and Kai Kobayashi as Toshio Saeki. The story begins in 1995 Tokyo, where a report of possible child abuse at the Yamaga household prompts authorities and the family’s son’s teacher to search the residence, eventually uncovering Toshio dead in a bedroom closet.
Nine years later, a group of high school students — Reina Triendl as Nanami, Yuina Kuroshima as Yayoi, Haori Takahashi as Aoi, and Miho Kanazawa as Rina — visit the former Yamaga house, now owned by Aoi’s older sister. Nanami feels trepidation about entering, haunted by rumors of the house’s hauntings. The others poke fun at the eerie drawings of themselves that they discover, while Nanami encounters a sinister, black liquid and a revenant closely tied to the house’s dark past. Despite Nanami’s fear, her friends leave her to face what she’s sensed. Yayoi is later pulled away by Toshio in the infirmary, and Nanami and Aoi soon find that Rina has fallen into madness since the visit. Rina herself is claimed by Toshio’s ghost, seemingly materializing inside a refrigerator. In the meantime, Aoi’s sister’s family connection brings Kyosuke into the picture — Yoshihiko Hakamada as Kyosuke Takeda — as he grows concerned that Aoi has revisited the house. In the bathroom, Toshio claims Aoi’s life by tearing off her mandible and leaving the grisly sign for her sister to discover. Nanami is haunted by the spirits of her dead friends on a train, and she, too, is dragged away and killed offscreen.
Meanwhile, Aoi’s sister has sold the house to a new couple, Takeo and Kayako Saeki. Ten years on, an elementary schoolteacher, Yui Shono, is assigned to replace Mr. Konishi as a homeroom teacher. Nozomi Sasaki as Yui Shono becomes unsettled when one of her students, Toshio Saeki, has been missing for a week, prompting her to visit the Saeki household. There she encounters Kayako, whose behavior is bizarre, and she notices the bedroom closet is taped shut. Yui is shaken when she’s told that Mr. Konishi has died, and she experiences hallucinations of Toshio while discovering Kayako’s diary. Sho Aoyagi as Naoto Miyakoshi reads the diary with her, revealing that Kayako could not bear a child with Takeo and that she became pregnant only after a dreamlike encounter with a boy in white. He later speaks with the widowed Kyosuke to learn about the curse that has claimed the lives of his wife and her sister, discovering that Toshio Yamaga and Toshio Saeki are connected through the same mystery. Naoto is eventually killed by Kayako when she snaps his neck.
Recovered from the earlier traumas, Yui returns to the Saeki household with a resolve to uncover the truth. She opens the closet to reveal a box of tapes documenting the Saeki family history. One tape confirms Kayako’s pregnancy did not come from Takeo but from the spirit of Toshio Yamaga. Yui’s memory floods back of Takeo murdering Kayako after learning he is not Toshio’s father. She finds Kayako’s body, which crawls toward her and is eventually cornered by both Kayako and Toshio before the scene shifts again. When she awakens, she’s back in her own apartment, only to confront Naoto — head snapped in a grim walking figure — and Toshio sitting on the kitchen table, leaving Yui’s fate unresolved.
