Async’s confidentiality is depicted in the ending through Mary (Renate Reinsve), the second main character in Backrooms. Async captures her after she escapes from Captain Clark and questions her on her experience. When Mary asks what will happen to her, Phil responds “That’s not up to me,” leaving an ambiguous ending for Mary as to whether or not she truly escapes or if she knows too much about the backrooms for Async to let her go.
Can the Backrooms Time Travel?
The aforementioned Peter Trench storyline in the web series episode Backrooms – Informational video represents Parsons’ interpretation of the backrooms complex time and space structure. We don’t know how time works in the backrooms but viewers of the web series can infer it operates differently because Peter Trench transported to May 8, 1990 during his expedition that took place on February 29, of that same year.
The backroom’s unnatural time rules are displayed in the movie as well through Clark’s rapid mental decline during his stint in the paranormal location. When Mary enters the backrooms to find Clark, it seems that Clark has only been in the backrooms for a couple days, but he nevertheless has fully acclimated to the environment, exhibited an altered mental state and a change of clothes. It is not confirmed how much time has passed for either of them, but time does seem to be moving differently between Mary’s outside reality and Clark’s backroom reality.
Similarly, the mural that Mary finds depicts the monster Captain Clark lifting someone up toward a window. This seems to foreshadow the remaining half of the movie. The person being lifted is theorized to be either Clark himself or Mary escaping Captain Clark through the window depicted at the top. Another widely accepted theory from fans on TikTok is that Clark or Captain Clark is the artist behind the mural. In the mural the words, “The floor plan changed again. Roof is wrong, roof is wrong. I don’t know who signed the plans but the handwriting looks like mine.” These words are likely in reference to Clark’s sketched floor plans of the backrooms that he shows to Mary earlier in the film. Clark may have painted the mural in the height of his confused mental state, or Captain Clark painted the mural through the backroom’s tendency to try to mimic reality.
A lot is left to interpretation from this mural, but many of the images depicted do seem to reveal coming events, meaning the future was reflected on the walls of the backrooms. How that is possible is not yet clarified but may be in coming sequels.
Missing Persons Tribute
When Clark is deep into his personal exploration and mapping of the backrooms he asks his employees at the furniture store to come with him. This exploration ultimately leads to both his employees’ deaths and his mental decline prompting him to stay in the backrooms because he finds he likes it better there.
