Until Blog - Ms. Samantha Giddings

Our girl Sam got such a fucked up last name. RIP

I got into horror as a genre after I first experienced Until Dawn, so Sam was actually my first final girl. I say this with nothing but affection: Sam is boring, but she’s so likable. I don’t mean she’s boring as a character–like everyone, she’s been through enough shit to be interesting by default–but as a person, she would be boring. Especially in this group of assholes who prank each other to death. But she is also their heart and their conscience, so they need her desperately.

I honestly think it’s really cute that Sam lacks humor but is obviously the kindest and most caring person in their group. There is truly no way in hell that she is close friends with any of the popular kids in their group (you know, the ones who were most directly responsible for killing her best friend?), but I bet they all know that they can come to Sam for anything if they really need to.

It means something that Hannah was Sam’s best friend, not anyone else’s. It tells you about Hannah, even though we barely see anything of Hannah’s character aside from her big crush on Mike. If Hannah was Sam’s best friend, that means she must have been kind. That means she must have cared about things, because Sam wouldn’t be best friends with someone superficial or mean. We get to see how caring Beth is during the prologue, which is why you immediately understand what a loss it is for her to have died. It’s different with Hannah, who you only get to know through sad journal entries that aren’t even really about herself as much as they’re about Mike and Josh. A lot of Hannah’s personality is understood through her connection to Sam.

I always appreciate how clear-headed Sam is, even when faced by terrible terrible news. She’s always known who was at fault for Hannah and Beth’s disappearances; she may even have forgiven them, for all we know. At least she doesn’t seem to hold a grudge, which is impressive. She doesn’t freak out about Emily’s bite. When she realizes Mike is in danger, she goes after him. She saves him from a Wendigo attack (twice). Honestly, I think the emotional work is harder than fighting off monsters in a lot of ways. 

Knowing that Sam is a final girl and knowing that she can’t get physically hurt in a way that matters until the very end of the game, Sam kind of has it easier than most of the group over the course of the game. It’s still incredibly physically exhausting to run around scared and have to climb huge ass rock walls, but at least she’s never at risk of getting her eyes gouged out or her jaw ripped off. But the night at the lodge is the end of “easy” life for all of them, 

Some of the most brilliant scenes in the game are Sam scenes. The entire final sequence with the Wendigos is an absolute masterpiece from start to finish, and that’s a big part of what makes the game so good and so memorable. But as far as acting goes, the single best moment in the entire game is Sam’s first section of the credits where she talks about Josh and not needing therapy. It’s just a few lines, but it says so much about the year before and the state of her mind. The way she talks about Josh is full-on tragic; she’s in mourning, she’s been betrayed by someone she loves, and she believed that she was getting closer to him the entire time that he was plotting this whole revenge scheme. It changes her, and the consequences of that are immediately clear.

There’s nothing that beats the execution of Sam’s “I said I’m fine” line. It’s so obvious that she’s not fine, and it really sets up what the rest of her life with PTSD is going to be like. Initially, Sam doesn’t seem like the type who would refuse therapy if she needed it, but she also doesn’t seem like the type of person who would stoically take a monster (who used to be her best friend!!!!) screaming in her ear over and over while she slowly makes her way to safety. Sam contains multitudes.

It’s not like she’ll stop being the conscience of the group, but she goes straight into burying her trauma with the kind of commitment that only Sam can manage. And because it’s Sam, you know she’s going to be successful in burying her traumas and pretending she doesn’t need help, which is only going to affect her negatively. She seems like she would be too smart to fuck up her life this way, so everyone is going to believe that she’s carrying on the way she is because it’s actually better for her. And they are going to be so very wrong to believe that.

I think that Sam will be okay eventually. But I also think that Sam will have a lot of really hard, self-sabotaging months or years ahead of her while she’s in mad denial about how bad her PTSD is. Of all the cast of Until Dawn, I most believe in Sam’s ability to have real friends who actually care about her. That said, I hope those friends are able to be there for her in the way she’ll need them to be.