Who Were We Running From? follows the story of a mother-daughter duo that spends their lives hopping from one hotel to another, trying to run away from the mother’s past. The series is now streaming on Netflix.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot summary
Bambi and her mother check into a luxurious hotel and immediately catch the attention of the hotel’s staff and the people around them. While many adore how beautiful Bambi is, they wonder about her mother, who looks the opposite of her daughter.
Apart from this, there were several other reasons why everyone noticed them. For starters, Bambi’s mother dressed all in black while she made Bambi wear colorful clothes like a little girl, though she is a teenager now.
They always arrived at hotels with minimal luggage, stayed there for months, and never allowed the staff to enter their room. On top of that, Bambi’s mother often offended many people at the hotel.
Bambi’s mother wanted them to be private, and she always taught her daughter to not get attached to people around them. She says all these people are evil, and they should not be a part of them.
Through Bambi’s narration, it is revealed that they have been living like this all their lives. They have made hotels their temporary homes. Bambi even questioned her mother once why they can’t live like a normal family and own a house of their own.
Clearly, Bambi’s mother seemed to inherit a lot of money, owing to how luxurious the hotels they stayed at are. Her actions suggest that she is running away from something that she doesn’t want Bambi to know.
Bambi’s mother’s true nature comes out when Bambi insists they have dinner in front of everyone for once. The head waiter gives them a comparatively smaller table than others, and this infuriates Bambi’s mother.
Bambi apologizes to her mother, but her mother says it’s not her fault. After observing this quarrel, the hotel manager not only threatens to kick the mother-daughter duo out of the hotel, but he also insults Bambi.
The insult stays in the mother’s mind as she leaves the hotel with her daughter after murdering the hotel manager. This wasn’t the only thing they were running from. A distant relative at the hotel had recognized Bambi’s mother, which became another reason for them to leave.
During their stay at the next hotel, a doctor tries to sexually assault Bambi while her mother is away. Though Bambi doesn’t tell her mother about this harrowing experience, the mother finds out when she comes across the doctor’s ID card in their room.
She had an eye on the perverted doctor for a while and knew he was not the right person to be around them. Bambi’s mother murdered the doctor too for forcing himself upon her daughter.
An investigation began into these two murders, and the cops started hunting down Bambi and her mother, who are now dubbed ‘the Hotel Killers’.
At their next destination, Bambi learns that her mother is behind the hotel murders. She remembers the ‘Bambi promise’ that her mother made to her when she was little. She had promised her daughter that she would never let anyone make her cry.
Slowly, Bambi is also told about her mother’s past. Bambi’s mother came from a noble family. Bambi’s mother had Bambi with an auto-mechanic who worked for her father.
Bambi’s grandmother believed that her daughter had embarrassed their family by having Bambi. Her family planned to get rid of the baby, but Bambi’s mother never allowed them to do so.
She meddled with her parent’s car, and the next day, while they were on their way to someplace in the same car, they died in an accident. Bambi’s mother herself wasn’t sure about having Bambi, but she didn’t give up on her daughter. Bambi’s mother wanted to give her all the love that her heartless parents never gave her.
Learning this side of her mother only made Bambi grow attached to her. She started picking up her survival instincts, believing that her mother is making these choices to protect her.
Bambi and her mother began working together. Unfortunately, a mishap at a bank resulted in them losing the money they inherited from Bambi’s grandmother. The cops also arrived, leaving Bambi and her mother no option but to make reckless moves to escape.
Bambi’s mother later remembers a property her mother had that she never sold. They planned to sell it, not realizing that the buyer they are selling it to is none other than Bambi’s grandfather, who actually survived the car accident.
Who Were We Running From? ending explained in detail:
Does Bambi kill her grandfather?
Bambi’s mother has been protecting her child for a long time now. She smells threats and cops from afar. Therefore, before meeting the realtor who is helping them sell this land, Bambi and her mother observed the place they were going to meet him at.
Only this time, instead of Bambi’s mother, Bambi notices the problem when she sees the black car her mother hates, which belongs to Bambi’s grandfather. Bambi’s mother assesses that they should back out of this for now.
Later at night, Bambi and her mother visit Bambi’s grandfather, who shows concern for his granddaughter. He even offers them money to run away. Bambi’s mother doesn’t fall into his trap. She figures out that cops are involved in this and throws away the money offered by her father, which has a tracker on it.
After leaving the money behind, she goes back to kill her father, who, unlike her victims, is always alert. He fights his daughter back. When Bambi hears her mother struggling, she enters the room. Bambi not only saves her mother but also kills her grandfather brutally.
What happens to Bambi’s mother?
Bambi and her mother knew they needed money to survive. Bambi’s mother planned to rob a store to ensure that they have some cash, but she doesn’t allow Bambi to join her in this robbery.
After watching Bambi kill her grandfather, Bambi’s mother realized that she is turning out to be like her. She doesn’t want any blood on her daughter. She has always tried to make sure that her daughter’s childhood is not like hers, and she doesn’t want to ruin it.
Bambi and her mother read the 1923 book Bambi, a Life in the Woods all their lives. It is more or less like their prayer book, according to them. Bambi wished that her mother would not leave her alone in the forest, as Bambi’s mother in the book did.
Here, Bambi’s mother does come back with money and valuables but is heavily injured. Just like how Bambi’s mother took care of her her whole life, Bambi started taking care of her mother from this point on.
She raced to the nearest medical store and brought everything she needed to patch up her mother’s wounds.
Does Bambi’s mother die?
The receptionist at the motel where Bambi and her mother are staying gets suspicious of them. He does some research of his own and learns about the Hotel Killers, which leads him to contact the cops.
Bambi and her mother had escaped several times, and Bambi’s mother had committed a string of murders because her victims made her daughter cry. Therefore, the cops stopped trying to catch them alive and planned to assassinate them.
They made their way to the hotel while Bambi and her mother escaped through the backdoor. They sense the cops from afar. Bambi’s mother is hardly able to walk with her injuries. To save her daughter, she instructs Bambi to run, while the cops shoot Bambi’s mother down.
While Bambi’s mother watches the cops circle around her, Bambi disappears into the crowd like they always did. That night, the cops made a thorough search for Bambi, but they never found her. She just vanished into the darkness.
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