Texas Chainsaw Maccare 2022 answers the mystery of what Texas Chain Saw Massacre Final Girl Sally Hardesty did since the original movie's ending.

Warning: MAJOR SPOILERS for Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2022 ahead!

Netflix’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2022 finally answered the mystery of what the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre’s final girl Sally Hardesty has been up to since 1974, retconning the franchise’s multiple sequels in the process. Ever since 2022’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre reboot was first announced, it was made clear that this direct sequel to 1974’s Texas Chain Saw Massacre would ignore the rest of the sequels, prequels, and remakes in the franchise. Sure enough, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2022 didn’t bring back Alexandra Daddario's Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D heroine and instead rebooted the franchise wholesale.

As part of following up director Tobe Hooper’s original Texas Chain Saw Massacre, the 2022 sequel offered a new answer for where original Texas Chain Saw Massacre heroine Sally Hardesty has been in the five decades since the movie’s events. Unfortunately, Sally’s original actor Marilyn Burns passed away in 2014. As a result, the role was reprised by actor Olwen Fouere in Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2022.

Related: Why 2022’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre Reboot Could Save The Series

According to the events of Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2022, after the original movie killed off the rest of her friends, Sally Hardesty dedicated her life to hunting down Leatherface. Or, more accurately, the Final Girl dedicated her life to trying to hunt him down, since she had no success and eventually retired from her job as a Texas Ranger after thirty fruitless years of searching. Much like Halloween 2018 made Laurie Strode a tragic former Final Girl whose life was defined by the events of the original slasher movie, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2022 confirms that Sally never recovered from the trauma of the original movie’s events. However, while Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2022 does say that Sally has spent the time since the original movie searching for Leatherface, an unfriendly gas station attendant notes in the movie’s opening, it’s not easy to hunt down someone wearing a mask.

As such, Sally had no success in her search (until the ending of Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2022, that is). However, this is still a less brutal fate than she endured in the multiple Texas Chainsaw Massacre sequels that Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2022 retcons. While 1986’s blackly comedic Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 stated that Sally became catatonic after ordeal in the original movie, 1990’s Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3 went one step further and reported that Sally Hardesty died in a healthcare facility in 1977. Burns also appeared briefly in Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation, playing an unnamed facility patient who is implied to be the catatonic Sally. However, in a brutal subversion of Halloween 2018's Laurie Strode return, Sally’s long-awaited face-off doesn’t go to plan in Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2022.

Instead, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2022 ensures that Leatherface gets the last laugh. While her sacrifice does mean that the sequel’s heroines Melody and Lila have a better chance at surviving the killer’s attacks, Sally herself suffers the fate that both Scream franchise’s Sidney Prescott and Halloween’s Laurie Strode avoided in their respective franchise returns. She is killed in the ending of Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2022, stabbed by Leatherface’s chainsaw, and left to bleed out decades after avoiding this fate in the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre's ending.

More: Texas Chainsaw Massacre's Best Reboot Would Follow The 2003 Remake

Cathal Gunning has been writing about movies and TV online since 2020. His obsessions include The Simpsons, Stephen King, the Scream series, and the horror genre in general. He has spent more time thinking about Stranger Things than the writers of Stranger Things, and he has never seen a Star War.