The Beasts (2023) Timeline Explained – Every Event in Order

Gabrielle volunteers for the DNA-purification process because it promises access to higher-status jobs in the AI-dominated 2044 world. With machines handling most work, the purification, which dampens emotions, is presented as the key to social advancement and better opportunities. However, she also seeks to understand her recurring fears and the strange connection she feels with Louis.

Foreshadowing: The film hints early on that Gabrielle's desire for purification goes beyond career ambition, she's also searching for answers about her lifelong sense of impending catastrophe.

• dna purification
• gabrielle
• emotions
• jobs
• ai
• volunteer
• 2044

Gabrielle and Louis share a deep, fated bond that spans multiple lifetimes. They first met in Naples in 1904, where Gabrielle confessed her lifelong fear of catastrophe. In 1910 France, they were drawn to each other again, as a married pianist and her lover, before drowning together in a factory flood. In 2014 LA, Louis became an incel stalker who ultimately kills Gabrielle. In 2044, they reunite, but Louis's purification has hollowed out his capacity for love, leaving their connection fundamentally altered.

Foreshadowing: The recurring medium figure and Gabrielle's persistent fear hint that their souls are trapped in a cycle of tragic encounters across time.

• louis
• gabrielle
• past lives
• connection
• fate
• reincarnation
• naples

In the 2014 timeline, Louis is portrayed as an incel who has been humiliated by women's rejection throughout his life. During the third purification memory, he breaks into Gabrielle's home with a pistol, declaring his intent to "revenge" himself on women. Despite Gabrielle's plea for him to trust her and find another way, the scene cuts to reveal her dead body floating in a pool, suggesting he ultimately commits the act, fulfilling the dark trajectory of his obsession and rage.

Foreshadowing: Louis's earlier videos about being overlooked by women and his violent resentment plant the seeds of this tragic outcome.

• louis
• gabrielle
• kill
• murder
• 2014
• incel
• stalking
• death

The failed purification is extraordinarily rare, occurring in only about 0.7% of cases. Gabrielle remains emotionally intact but is trapped in an unsatisfying job, denied the social advancement the procedure was supposed to provide. Yet the failure also preserves her ability to feel, unlike Louis, who underwent purification and lost his capacity for deep emotion, leaving their love impossible to reconnect in the same way.

Foreshadowing: Louis's earlier hesitation about purification foreshadows the devastating emotional consequences he would face.

• purification
• failure
• ai
• gabrielle
• job
• emotions
• outcome

The song Evergreen triggers an overwhelming emotional response in Gabrielle because it represents the inexplicable, soul-deep connection she shares with Louis across lifetimes. Hearing it in 2014 causes her to cry unexpectedly, and in 2044 it becomes the song they dance to, only for Gabrielle to realize Louis can no longer feel the same emotional weight. The song acts as a symbol of the love that persists through time but is ultimately destroyed by purification.

Foreshadowing: The recurring medium's uncanny readings hint at forces beyond ordinary memory that bind Gabrielle and Louis together.

• evergreen
• roy orbison
• gabrielle
• crying
• emotion
• song
• club

Louis undergoes DNA purification despite his initial hesitation, and the process fundamentally alters his emotional capacity. When he reunites with Gabrielle at the club, he reveals he now works at the Ministry of Justice and claims to still love her, but he admits the old, capacious way of feeling no longer exists for him. The purification has stripped away the emotional depth that defined their connection, making it impossible for them to love each other as they once did.

Foreshadowing: His earlier fear that purification would make him lose the ability to feel proves tragically justified.

• louis
• purification
• love
• feelings
• emotion
• ministry of justice

In the mid-credits scene, the medium's voice calls out to 2014 Gabrielle, warning her not to enter the 2044 DNA purification room. A gunshot then interrupts the warning, leaving ambiguous whether this is a premonition of danger, a reference to the 2014 murder, or a glimpse of fate that Gabrielle cannot escape. The moment reinforces the film's themes about memory, fate, and the cost of altering human emotion.

Foreshadowing: This scene ties together the medium's presence throughout all timelines as a figure who sees beyond linear time.

• mid credits
• medium
• gunshot
• warning
• fate
• 2014
• 2044

The medium appears across Gabrielle's past lives, delivering uncannily accurate readings that hint at the fated nature of her connection with Louis. In 1910, she accurately predicts their bond. In 2014, she manifests as a pop-up virus ad that still provides unsettling readings. In the mid-credits, she warns 2014 Gabrielle about the purification room. The medium serves as a narrative thread linking the timelines and suggesting that some forces operate beyond the physical realm of memory and technology.

Foreshadowing: The medium's consistent accuracy across different forms suggests she represents something transcendent about fate.

• medium
• psychic
• fate
• warnings
• 1910
• 2014
• memories

In the 1910 memory, Gabrielle invites Louis to her doll-making factory. A flood strikes the facility, and the water triggers the flammable materials to ignite, causing a massive fire. As they attempt to escape the burning factory, Gabrielle and Louis drown together in the flooding waters, fulfilling Gabrielle's lifelong fear of catastrophe and sealing their tragic fate in that lifetime.

Foreshadowing: Gabrielle's recurring fear of impending disaster, which she confesses to Louis in Naples, culminates in this devastating event.

• factory
• flood
• fire
• 1910
• dolls
• gabrielle
• louis
• drown

In 1910 France, Gabrielle is a married pianist running a factory with her husband Georges. Despite her growing attraction to Louis, she restrains herself from pursuing an affair due to her sense of moral obligation and her fear of the catastrophe she's always anticipated. Her fear keeps her from fully surrendering to the relationship, even as the emotional tension builds between them.

Foreshadowing: This moral restraint contrasts with the destructive passion that ultimately leads to their deaths together in the factory.

• 1910
• gabrielle
• louis
• married
• affair
• factory
• georges
• fear