While Sam is dragged back into porter duty at Fragile’s behest near the very beginning ofDeath Stranding 2: On the Beach, the game’s inciting incident is arguably the death of Lou, former Bridge Baby and now Sam’s adoptive daughter. Lou, short for Louise, is at the center of a veritable miracle at the conclusion of the originalDeath Stranding, having died and apparently been brought back to life by Amelie. Freed from her pod,Lou is taken by Sam to be raised in Mexico, away from the United Cities of America, which would likely want to conduct research on her.
[Warning: Major spoilers for Death Stranding 2: On the Beach.]
Lou’s apparent death is the start ofDeath Stranding 2’s incredibly emotional journey, which sees Sam join Drawbridge in an expedition across Australia, connecting the continent to the Chiral Network as they go. Mysterious, red-clad figures attack Sam’s shelter while Fragile is there looking after Lou. When Fragile’s motorized, high-tech unicycle crashes while she’s trying to flee, she attempts to jump her and Lou away from danger, despite her recently developed Jump Shock Syndrome. Fragile is ultimately unable to bring Lou with her, but tries to send Lou alone as Fragile is shot, and we see the infant’s body slump lifelessly on the ground.
Higgs Claims To Kill Lou In Death Stranding 2
He Came For Revenge On Fragile & Sam
When Sam arrives at West Fort Knot, the first major city you visit in Australia, he encounters his first Ghost Mech, a massive, hostile, octopus-like machine. This is also where we get our first good look at Higgs inDeath Stranding 2, and he gloats about his attack on Sam’s shelter.He wants revenge on Sam and Fragile, the latter especially for stranding him on the Beach at theend of the first game.
Sam is a Repatriate, though. The power granted to him by DOOMS is an inability to die, thus the respawn mechanics when you’re defeated in combat or caught by a BT and trigger a Voidout in-game. Since Higgs can’t kill Sam,he’s decided to emotionally torture the porter instead, by taking away his adoptive daughter.
Part of Sam’s grief manifests as extreme denial. He won’t accept Lou’s death, and thinks of the expedition through Australia as another adventure with his beloved Bridge Baby, bringing Lou’s pod with him despite the fact that she has been free of it for months at that point. It’s later revealed thatDrawbridge indulged Sam’s visions of BB Lou in an effort to help him heal; Dollman was asked by Fragile to serve as Sam’s therapist during the journey, thus providing the many opportunities to process recent events with Dollman in Sam’s private rooms.
Time Is Weird On The Beach
Tomorrow, the young woman rescued from the first “Nirvana” level where you fight Neil, turns out to be Lou. This ends up being similar to the Bridget/Amelie reveal from the first game. During the attack on Sam’s shelter, the bullet that Higgs fires at Fragile hits her at the exact moment she attempts to jump Lou away. Because of how time flows differently on the Beach,Fragile’s Ha (body) and Ka (soul) experience death at a different rate.
Fragile’s Ka is rapidly deteriorating on the Beach, so she does the only thing possible, entrusting Lou to the BTs that surround them. Fragile’s Ha has a short time to live, and she decides to spend it on one final expedition with Sam. During the revelatory cutscene,Lou is shown being carried by BTs and confined to a golden chrysalis, the one Tomorrow is found in after first encountering Neil.
Neil Protected Lou, Sam’s Daughter, On The Beach
Neil’s Final Promise To Lucy
The nature of Tomorrow/Lou’s chrysalis isn’t exactly clear, but it’s implied that she was brought to Neil’s Beach to be placed under his protection.Neil was originally under the impression that Lou was his daughter, as initially told by his therapist, Lucy, when she was pregnant. Lucy was Sam’s wife (and previously his therapist), but had an affair with Neil. Sam was told the same thing, resulting in his comments early in the game about Lucy’s lies and infidelity.
Tomorrow’s chrysalis is reminiscent of a BB pod, which the Doctor for the Motherhood believes can be used as an incubator for fetuses suffering from Still Baby Syndrome. The chrysalis likely kept Tomorrow alive, like her old BB pod, while she rapidly grew on the Beach.
Lucy realized that Lou, as the daughter of the world’s first and only Repatriate, would be of the utmost importance to Bridges and the UCA, soshe publicized her affair to make everyone believe it was Neil’s daughter. Regardless, Lucy felt she had to leave the UCA to ensure Lou’s safety.
Neil was in therapy to process the nature of his work.He was primarily responsible for smuggling brain-dead pregnant women across the Mexican border into the UCAso the Bridge Baby experiments could continue. Lucy eventually comes clean, telling Neil that Lou is Sam’s baby, but asking him to keep the secret so he can essentially perform his job in reverse: smuggle the live, pregnant Lucy across the Mexican border out of the UCA.
Neil eventually agrees, but Bridges has already caught on, shooting Lucy and killing Neil during their attempted escape. Lou is prematurely birthed via cesarean section, and placed into a BB pod. Like Sam before her, Lou became the prime candidate for the Chrial Network’s lone sacrificial Bridge Baby, designated BB-00. Bridges later altered its plan to utilize nine sacrificial BBs, butinstead of Lou being decommissioned, she was placed in storage, eventually taking over the designation BB-28 from a different, decommissioned Bridge Baby.
It’s implied to have been the machinations of Bridget/Amelie, to eventually reunite Sam with his biological daughter. It’s also possible that Bridges' original plans for Lou were scuttled because of her parentage.Sam was removed from Bridge Baby candidacy because of his ability to Repatriate, so Lou’s DOOMS may have similarly influenced the organization’s altered Chiral Network plans.
With time’s different flow on the Beach, Lou rapidly grew into Tomorrow, spending her entire young life there, being watched over by Neil, who continued his obligation to Lucy even in death. Fragile does not initially know Tomorrow is Lou because the last time Fragile saw Lou, she was an infant being taken into the hands of BTs.Death Stranding 2’s final scene shows that Lou has taken after her father and become a porter, getting ready to step through a Plate Gate, potentially setting upKojima’s idea forDeath Stranding 3.
Death Stranding Fans Figured Out The Lou Twist A Long Time Ago
“Tomorrow Is In Your Hands”
Months ago, when it was revealed that Elle Fanning’s character was named Tomorrow, various discussions online posited the idea that she was actually Lou. Once you beat the originalDeath Stranding, the in-game time rewinds two weeks so you can keep playing and finish the orders you didn’t complete, beginning"Episode 15: Tomorrow Is In Your Hands."
Death Stranding’s naming conventionsare exceedingly on the nose, so fans immediately latched onto the idea that Tomorrow’s name was a direct reference to the final episode title. With you playing as Sam,Tomorrow is literally in your hands inDeath Stranding’s final moments, when Lou is freed from her pod. For some, that means the Tomorrow/Lou twist inDeath Stranding 2will be very obvious, but it’s an effective and emotional saga regardless.
Being saved by the chrysalis, Lou has now escaped death arguably three times. First, she avoided being decommissioned as BB-00, then she was brought back to life by Amelie at the end ofDeath Stranding, and finally delivered by Fragile to the BTs, who shepherded her to Neil, who seems to have protected her from Higgs. Growing up on the Beach gave Lou exceptional DOOMS abilities, but her story of resurrection throughoutDeath Stranding 2: On the Beachclosely follows that of her father, Sam.
