The Submarine Kid (2016) Timeline Explained – Every Event in Order

Spencer is drawn to Thunder Lake because it represents both his trauma and his escape from it. After crashing his car into the lake, he discovers that Alice only appears during underwater moments, when he holds his breath or nearly drowns. The lake becomes the place where he can see the ghost of Alice, making him believe he can be with her if he stays submerged. His friends and family find him there multiple times attempting to drown himself, unable to break free from this destructive cycle.

Foreshadowing: Earlier at the party, Alice tells the story of the Submarine Kid, planting the idea that the lake is a threshold between worlds.

• thunder lake
• spencer
• alice
• drowning
• suicide attempt

Alice is revealed to be the ghost of the Submarine Kid's girlfriend, someone who died tragically years before Spencer met her. She exists only in Spencer's mind during moments of extreme trauma, suffocation, or when the line between waking and dreaming blurs. When Spencer wakes in the hospital after the crash, no one can identify Alice because she was never a real person in his present life; she is a manifestation of his guilt and grief, appearing when he is submerged in fear or near-drowning.

Foreshadowing: At the party, Alice introduces the unsettling Submarine Kid story, hinting that her connection to the legend is more than casual storytelling.

• alice
• ghost
• submarine kid
• spencer
• psychological

The Submarine Kid is a local legend tied to Thunder Lake, the story of a young man who died in the lake under tragic circumstances. Alice reveals this tale during the party, weaving it into Spencer's own narrative. The legend serves as a mirror for Spencer's own trauma: the Submarine Kid represents someone who couldn't escape his past and became trapped in the water. Alice herself is later revealed to be the ghost of the Submarine Kid's girlfriend, making her connection to Spencer deeper than a simple love interest.

Foreshadowing: The legend is introduced early in the film, establishing the lake as a symbolic place where the dead linger.

• submarine kid
• legend
• thunder lake
• alice
• ghost story

Spencer isn't simply trying to die, he's attempting to escape his unbearable PTSD and guilt by joining Alice in whatever afterlife she inhabits. He believes that if he can hold his breath long enough to drown, he can be with her permanently. Alice tells him that she exists when he suffocates or when reality blurs, so he associates the underwater experience with being with her. His suicidal behavior is driven by survivor's guilt over killing a woman during his deployment and a desperate desire to escape his traumatic memories.

Foreshadowing: After the car crash where he almost drowns, he first experiences Alice appearing to him underwater, creating the dangerous pattern.

• spencer
• drowning
• suicide
• alice
• ptsd
• trauma

During a sharper flashback after his discharge, Spencer relives a chaotic moment in the foreign country where his squad operated. Radios failed and orders became unclear. He believed he was being ordered to shoot militants but was told not to. In the confusion, he shot and killed a woman who was being used as a human shield by a militant. This act, killing an innocent civilian, becomes the core of his trauma and the hallucination that haunts his waking life. The guilt from this moment fuels his desire to escape through death.

Foreshadowing: Throughout the film, brief flashes show a ghostly woman appearing to Spencer, representing the civilian he killed.

• deployment
• flashback
• war trauma
• killing
• ptsd
• guilt

After sharing an intimate moment with Alice on the shore where he declares he never wants to leave her, Spencer attempts the same driving maneuver along the road skirting the lake. This time, he loses control of the vehicle, crashes through a fence, and plunges into Thunder Lake. This accident is the turning point that sends him to the hospital and triggers the revelation that Alice may not be real. The crash represents his inability to control his descent into trauma and delusion, he cannot master the boundary between reality and his hallucinations.

Foreshadowing: Earlier, he performs the same maneuver successfully, but his mental state is deteriorating rapidly.

• crash
• thunder lake
• spencer
• alice
• car accident

Alice is a psychological manifestation of Spencer's trauma, not a real person. She appears specifically during moments of extreme psychological distress, when he holds his breath, nearly drowns, or experiences flashbacks. This ties directly to his guilt over killing the civilian during his deployment. Alice tells him directly that she appears when he suffocates or when the line between waking and dreaming grows thin. The underwater setting represents his emotional submersion in trauma; the more he retreats into that space, the more real Alice becomes to him.

Foreshadowing: After the car crash, he wakes in the hospital and first realizes Alice only exists in these liminal states.

• alice
• underwater
• hallucination
• trauma
• ptsd
• spencer

In the final scene, Spencer surfaces from the water holding the Submarine Kid's goggles, a symbolic relic of the dead Marine. He emerges from his trauma and returns to the living world. Rather than keeping this relic as a trophy or continuing to drown himself, he places the goggles on the shore, releasing them. This act allows Alice's ghost to finally move on alongside the Submarine Kid, and represents Spencer's own choice to let go of his fixation on death. The ending is bittersweet: he doesn't achieve perfect healing, but he chooses to remain in the land of the living rather than chasing escape through drowning.

Foreshadowing: The goggles appear as a symbol throughout the film, connecting Spencer's identity to that of the Submarine Kid.

• goggles
• ending
• closure
• submarine kid
• spencer
• acceptance

Alice is revealed to be the ghost of the Submarine Kid's girlfriend, someone who died tragically years ago in connection with the Submarine Kid's own death at Thunder Lake. When Alice appears to Spencer, she is waiting for the Submarine Kid, not Spencer. In the climactic scene, she appears in a wedding dress beneath a boardwalk, waiting for the Submarine Kid. This connection reveals that Spencer's obsessive attachment to Alice is a repetition of the original tragedy, he is trying to force a union that cannot work because she belongs to another man's ghost. Understanding this breaks his illusion and helps him let go.

Foreshadowing: Alice tells the Submarine Kid story at the party early in the film, establishing her deeper connection to the legend.

• alice
• submarine kid
• ghost
• girlfriend
• connection

Spencer's rapid deterioration stems from untreated PTSD and survivor's guilt. Returning home from deployment doesn't grant him peace because the memories of what he experienced follow him constantly. He cannot reconnect with ordinary life, his friends, his girlfriend Emily, or daily routines feel foreign and meaningless compared to the trauma he lived through. The weight of killing a civilian during his deployment creates unbearable guilt. When Alice appears, she offers a seductive escape: by drowning himself, he believes he can join her and leave behind his painful memories. His mental state worsens as he chooses increasingly dangerous acts to reach her underwater world.

Foreshadowing: From the very first scene, his struggle to reconnect with civilian life establishes the foundation for his collapse.

• ptsd
• mental health
• trauma
• spencer
• veteran
• guilt