Adapted from Rumaan Alam’s book of the same name and directed by Sam Esmail, Leave the World Behind is a drama thriller film with Julia Roberts, Mahershala Ali, Ethan Hawke, and Kevin Bacon in prominent roles. The Netflix film follows a couple, Amanda and Clay, who, frustrated by their mundane lives, decide to go on a family vacation to Long Island. The family rents a luxurious villa on the outskirts, but their vacation mood is soon ruined by an uninvited stranger named G. H. Scott and his daughter Ruth. The father-daughter duo arrive at their doorstep in the middle of the night and claim to be the owners of the house. They also bear the news of a blackout, causing a massive power outage. During the situation, it becomes really difficult for Amanda and Clay to trust G. H., who is also struggling to accept the messed-up circumstances. However, it is evident from the start that G.H. may have an idea about the disastrous situation going on, but lacking a depth of information, he remains silent. Let’s see what G. H. knew about the apocalyptic situation in Leave the World Behind.
Spoilers Ahead
Who Was G. H. Scott?
G. H. Scott worked in the stock market as an investment banker and met a variety of people as his clients, some of whom were affiliated with the military, while others were straight-up the most powerful and wealthiest businessmen. From the very beginning of the film, since G. H. shows up at Amanda’s holiday house and claims the residence to be his property, Amanda develops a trust issue against G. H. But G. H. is a soft-spoken gentleman who is easygoing and sensible enough to understand why Amanda was reacting in a certain way.
The weather was stormy when G. H. and his daughter drove back to his house in Long Island, especially after hearing the news of a blackout. G.H. usually stayed at his apartment in the city, but due to having knee surgery, he couldn’t climb up to the 14th floor, and as there had been a blackout, he couldn’t even use the elevator. G.H. explained to Amanda and Clay that the knee surgery was the actual reason why he decided to come back to Long Island. Moreover, G.H. also clarified that they wanted to stay somewhere safe and chose to come to Long Island as it was their house. Even though the knee surgery could work as an excuse, it seemed like there was something more to the story. Soon, every TV channel began to broadcast the news of the blackout and announce it as a national emergency. Meanwhile, Amanda and Clay didn’t pay much attention to the blackout and thought that it would be over in some time, but G. H. didn’t share the sentiment as he had an eerie sense about the disaster, which was something more than just a blackout.
Why Did G.H. Come Back To The House On Long Island?
Amanda was curious if G.H. had a wife. G.H. said that his wife, who was an art dealer, was out on a trip to Morocco. His wife’s flight was supposed to return to Long Island the next morning. Ruth didn’t have any idea about what could go wrong, but G. H., imagining the potential danger, went out to his neighbors, at the Huxleys’, to get a heads up about the situation. G. H. looked for anyone in Huxley’s residence but couldn’t find anybody, finding the broken glass windows of the house and all the stuff from the house scattered here and there. In the search for a sign of life, G.H. walked towards the abandoned beach, where he shockingly discovered the debris of an airplane and the dead body of the pilot, which frightened him to the core. The man tried to grasp the gravity of the situation and pull himself together while another airplane crash-landed into the ocean, almost killing G.H. Luckily, G.H. survived the accident and quickly drove back to his house, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that his wife might be one of the flight passengers who lost their lives due to the fatal crash. Even though G.H. couldn’t find his wife’s dead body to be sure enough, he had already imagined the worst had happened. That’s why, after coming back home, G.H. decided not to discuss it with Ruth, who wouldn’t be able to handle the news. Amid such a difficult time, G. H. wanted to protect his daughter as well as Amanda’s family, who were also victims of these circumstances.
G. H. was also surprised and couldn’t believe his own eyes at what he just witnessed in the morning, but coming back home to forget the tension, he tried to enjoy the moments with Amanda. Amanda gradually believed that G. H. was not a conman but the actual owner of the house. She also realized that G. H. wished them well, so both of these families eventually decided to be there for each other in such a trying time. In the evening, when Amanda and G. H. opened the bottle of wine, they opened up about themselves, which helped us to know that the knee surgery was a mere excuse and the reason behind G. H. showing up at this house was something else.
Amanda knew the knee surgery wasn’t the actual reason, so she asked G. H. to tell the truth. As an investment banker, G.H. Scott was friends with some of the most powerful business tycoons in the industry, and sometimes those businessmen invited G.H. and his wife to their gatherings. G.H. didn’t mention any specific name but recalled that this famous business personality once cracked a joke about his affinity with the “evil cabals” who were running the world. It sounded like a joke or a conspiracy theory to Amanda, but G. H. clarified that it was not a mere joke, but his client, the businessman, was already aware of these upcoming occurrences taking place right at the moment. G.H. further explained that before he drove back to his house in Long Island, his client had called him and asked him to move around a significant amount of money, which was hefty for even a wealthy man like him. Not only that, but the businessman was also planning to leave the city for a while, so he told G. H. to take care of himself. G. H. initially didn’t have a clear idea of what was going to happen, but he was frightened about the warning and couldn’t get the negative feeling out of his head. Amanda was confused and terrified, but G.H. didn’t have any intention to scare her, so he explained what he believed regarding the authoritative figures in the world. G.H. said that he didn’t believe anyone had any control over this world because, even in such a dire situation, even the most powerful people could feel helpless, like his client, the business tycoon, had felt. G.H. sensed that something big was about to take place, so wasting no time, he decided to move back to his house, taking his daughter with him. G. H.’s explanation freaked Amanda out, but to calm her down and ease the situation, G. H. decided to have some fun. He took Amanda to his music library and decided to play jazz music to forget the worries; however, Amanda’s music sense didn’t align with his, so she played some hip-hop and loud music to keep themselves distracted from what was going on out there. Both G.H. and Amanda felt sexual tension towards each other but chose not to take it any further, knowing that both of them were married and had a family. However, during this time, G.H. also missed his wife, but deep in his heart, he knew that he would probably never be able to meet her again. G.H. expressed his vulnerable side to Amanda, who hugged him and tried to comfort him with kind words, but G.H. knew that the situation wouldn’t come back to normal ever again.
What Did G. H. Know About The Disaster?
The next morning, more bizarre things took place in Amanda’s family when she found out her son Archie’s teeth were mysteriously falling out. Meanwhile, Amanda’s little daughter, Rose, who was frustrated at not being able to watch the last episode of Friends, was suddenly missing from the house. G. H. advanced his helping hand and took Clay and Archie to his friend and contractor, Danny’s, house. Danny was the guy whom Amanda had seen earlier in the marketplace. She found him buying and stacking a lot of stuff and foods in an unusual amount. G. H. also clarified about Danny, who was keeping those foods and stuff in store because he also knew about the upcoming disaster. So Danny could be the one who could help Clay’s son with his condition by providing him with medication. However, unlike G. H., Danny wasn’t a very helpful guy and was a bit selfish. He initially didn’t want to help Clay by providing his son with medicines, but after some persuasion, he finally agreed to help. But the conspiracy theorist Danny told them about Korean people trying to invade America. G. H. also had some ideas about some powerful people leading this mess, as he had explained before, but he had a pretty clear explanation that he eventually shared with Clay.
While Danny told them about the Korean people, Clay showed him confetti that he collected from a drone. That confetti consisted of Iranian words, translated into “Death to America,” which explained that it was an all-out invasion by the enemy countries of the US. G. H. explained that to Clay, saying that the bunker Danny talked about actually existed. He continued that he had apprehension about an all-out invasion, but he wanted some information to be sure about it. He said that one of his clients spent a lot of time studying the cost-benefit analysis of military campaigns, but in one of those programs that he studied, he got very terrified. It was a simple, three-stage maneuver aiming to destroy a country’s government. The first stage is isolation; the second is synchronized chaos; and the third is civil war, which would eventually lead to collapse. G. H. didn’t want to scare anyone, but he believed that they had already suffered through these stages. First, they had been isolated, and secondly, through covert attacks and misinformation, they had suffered through chaos, which was causing them to mistrust each other. And lastly, all of them gradually turn against each other due to a lack of trust and unity, just like G.H. and Danny argued earlier. According to G.H., this was one of the most cost-effective ways to destabilize a country from within by manipulating and using the country’s people to turn against each other, which would eventually lead to the collapse of the existing government. Although the assurance wasn’t enough at that point, G.H. asked Clay and Archie to trust in him, as it would be better to stick to each other in such dire circumstances.
Will G.H. Scott Survive?
G.H. Scott’s character was the strongest and most calm of all of these characters. But he also had his fear, which he wasn’t able to express outwardly. Given his understanding and knowledge about the invasion, he thought it was his responsibility to help others and bring them to safety. Even though he probably had never imagined such a conspiracy theory would turn into a reality, it finally opened his eyes and made him believe that even with the most powerful technology, the most advanced and strong nation can be destroyed if the citizens don’t stand united.
As Scott was informed of the bunker, he would probably take Clay and Archie to the Thorne’s mansion, where the bunker was located. At the end of Leave the World Behind, we see Rose, who had no idea about the bunker, wandering around until she ends up at Thorne’s house, where inside the bunker Rose finds a DVD player and, surprisingly, the CD of Friends, which finally brought a smile to her face. Rose would probably meet the rest of her family when Amanda and Ruth eventually arrived there looking for her. Similarly, taking the information from Danny, G. H. would also end up there with Clay and Archie and manage to save themselves from the invasion. But it’s up to speculation if any of these two families would manage to survive the apocalypse. The food and stuff would eventually run out, or the terrorists would find them in the underground. The inevitable tragic fate of Amanda and Scott’s families is not shown in the film, leaving it up to the audience to imagine what could go wrong with them.
