Make My Day (2023) ending explained: Do Jim and the others survive the swarm?

Make My Day is an animated survival sci-fi series following Jim, a young prison guard who fights back an alien uprising along with a ragtag group of survivors. The series is streaming on Netflix.

Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers

Plot summary

Humanity has been mining a resource called Sig on the planet Coldfoot where Jim Mirror works as a part-time prison guard at the “White Prison”. Coldfoot is an ice planet with inhospitable conditions and everyone stays inside.

The prisoners at the White Prison are tasked with mining the Sig from underground caverns so that they can knock off time from their sentence.

Jim lives with his grandfather, Ed, at a settlement called the Dustbox. Their neighbors are Serena and her 3 children, Marnie, Connie, and Pete. Marnie is a surrogate mother, pregnant with someone else’s child.

One day at work, Jim and the other guards are asked to head toward the cavern because of some threat. The rescue team is led by Captain Bark, who orders everyone to head into the cavern and look for survivors.

Jim is pulled in by an unknown creature and when he awakes, he’s in a deep part of the cave with no communication. There’s a mound of flesh nearby with soldiers embedded within and one of them is still alive.

Jim reduces the man who turns out to be one of the prisoners transported earlier. He introduces himself as Walter and together with Jim, they get their hands on some useful equipment and activate the sensors to attract a rescue.

Walter points out a valve in the wall with something glowing inside and he says that it’s the creature responsible for all the carnage. Soon, Captain Bark arrives with the two other soldiers, but as they’re helping Walter and Jim the creature wakes up and attacks them.

It’s a parasite-like larvae creature that floats through the air and it extends tentacles out of its mouth to consume the other soldiers as Bark, Walter, and Jim escape. They head to the prison which is overrun by more creatures.

Bark doesn’t care about the prisoners and leaves with the only transport, leaving Jim and the others behind. Jim and Walter activate a robocast and get themselves a vehicle to escape the prison. Jim figures out that the creatures are only after the Sig.

They head to the Dustbox so that Jim can rescue Ed and the others. When he gets there, he finds that Serena, Connie, and Pete are dead while Ed’s Sig-powered prosthetic legs are being eaten by a creature. Marnie is in an insulated covering to keep her safe from infection.

Ed sacrifices himself to save Jim and Marnie and soon Captain Bark arrives with a squad and a Dr. Hadson. They escape with Walter’s help with Jim also rescuing Dr. Hadson after she falls behind.

Walter takes advantage of the fact that Bark is connected to the same system as them and hacks in to get information. He shows Jim what he found and they discover that the higher-ups knew about the creatures and a researcher named William Boyd studied them, calling them the Swarm.

When Bark has Jim alone, he arrests him for insubordination and tells him that he’s doing this for the greater good. He is knocked out and when he gets up, he’s in a prison cell at a nearby military base.

He escapes his cell and immediately realizes that the base is also overrun by the swarm. He heads to the medical bay where Dr. Hadson is with her assistant, Robert Howard, and Marnie. Dr. Hadson tells him where he can find Walter and the robocast that has developed a liking for him.

He finds Walter in the prison cells along with William Boyd and his assistant, Rachel Wise. He frees them all and they first search for some Sig to power up the robocast. Once they do, Jim names it Casper because it has been a loyal support.

They get back to the medical bay and get ready to head to the escape shuttles when Robert reveals that Dr. Hadson was using Jim to get her to the big cruiser meant for elite officials only. While they’re arguing, Marnie’s water breaks and she has to deliver the baby.

They set up the room for the delivery and Jim delivers the boy as everyone marvels at the miracle of childbirth. The shuttles have all left and the group has to look for another way to get off the planet.

As they’re headed to the nearest facility, they see a ship crash nearby and head toward it. The ship contains Bark and Cathy Beck, the face of the operation on Coldfoot. They tell the others that they have a plan to escape the planet and need help to do it.

Make My Day ending explained in detail:

What is Jim’s plan for the swarm?

Cathy and Bark tell them that they have contacted the neighboring star system for help and they just need to get their lifeboat in space with a boost from the mass driver in the Sig depot.

There is an entire horde of sleeping Swarm near the facility and Jim comes up with a plan for them to escape, assigning everyone jobs to do. William Boyd and Rachel make formations with storage containers filled with Sig between them and the horde.

Bark and Jim watch the frontline to hold back the swarm for as long as possible while Walter and Casper clear the corridor so that they can transport the lifeboat to the launchpad.

What obstacles do they face?

The swarm wakes up and Bark, Jim, and Walter begin firing to keep them at bay while William comes up with formations for the storage containers to maximize the resistance.

Jim loses contact with Marnie and when he goes to check up on her, he sees Robert holding a gun at her. He says that he doesn’t care about saving anyone else and is only concerned with his own survival.

He overrides Casper’s programming along with the other robocast but Casper fights back and the two robocasts combat each other until the others show up and take control. They take Robert prisoner and get onto the lifeboat.

Do they escape Coldfoot?

They get into position on the launchpad just as the swarm engulfs the entire depot. Their trajectory puts them at risk of hitting debris in space and they have no counter since they’ve lost both robocasts.

Giant worm-like creatures burst out of the ground and one of them pushes the launch tower off course, making their trajectory safe. Just as another one is about to consume the tower, they’re launched into space.

As they reach the outer orbit, they see the rescue ship nearby and plot a course for it, ready to start new lives following the difficulties they have faced here.


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