Who is the Killer in Slasher Season 3: Solstice

The Druid holding a knife in Slasher season 3 Solstice

The third season of the anthology series Slasher has a killer dressed up as The Druid roaming an apartment building targeting all the residents. Who is it and what has caused this killer spree?

The Setting

The Setting is an apartment building called the Clayborn where a wide variety of people reside. Right in front of their building a resident named Kit was killed, after coming home from the Solstice party, while he was chased by The Druid in the building, while nobody did anything to help Kit.

Now exactly a year later, at the day of the Solstice party, there’s a murder spree killing all the residents one by one. Detective Roberta Hanson and Detective Pujit Singh are burdened with the case to solve these bizarre gruesome crimes. Do they have anything to do with Kit’s murder a year ago and is it the same killer? But there’s more to all the residents than meets the eye and while the day from 6 am to 6 am the next day unravels, bodies are piling up.

Read the full review of Solstice, here.

The Characters

In the building we get to know several families. Almost 18 year-old Saadia Jalalzai lives with her parents in the building since they have fled Afghanistan. Her parents fly to her brother who gets his master degree. So Saadia is all alone. She is best friends with Jen Rijkers who’s in class with her. That day they have to take their final exams. Jen has a brother Connor and a stepmother Amber Ciotti. Their mother and Amber’s wife/girlfriend Justine died 10 months ago.

Amy Chao is a game tester and lives with her partner/boyfriend Xander Lemmon who owns the coffee bar. Dan Olenski is a white power follower and has an almost 18 year-old daughter Cassidy who’s in the same class as Saadia and Jen.

Cassidy has many followers amongst them Erica who lives with her parents Frank and Kate Dixon. Saadia’s teacher is Mrs Kaili Greenberg.

Violet Lickers is a blogger and vlogger and is married to Joe who is cheating on her with Angel Lopez from next door and is secretly gay.

Let the killings begin

It all starts with the murder of Kit. And they all played some part in his final demise.

Death no. 1: Kit Jennings. Stabbed to death multiple times and finally hit by Amy’s car.
Death no. 2: Frank Dixon has his head cut off by an axe that is put on top of his car.
Death no. 3: Cassidy is drowned in the toilet with acid, burning her face off.
Death no. 4: Xander is first stabbed, then his mouth is smashed open with a glass tube through which the killer pours boiling water. Then he tapped his blood from his neck and poured it into the coffee can.
Death no. 5: Kaili is strapped to a table in biology class and dissected alive like the frogs hours before.
Death no. 6: Amy gets a hole in her forehead by a drill.
Death no. 7: Noelle was the girl who dated Kit at the Solstice party. Her throat is slashed while hanging upside down from a tree with a plastic bag over her head.
Death no. 8: Violet and Joe are overpowered and tied up. Joe is stabbed in his private parts multiple times while they have to watch one of Violet’s youtube videos.
Death no. 9: Violet is stabbed through the head after she was forced to read a note in front of the camera as her last video.
Death no. 10: At the Solstice party, Charlie a classmate of Saadia is stabbed through the mouth with a big knife.
Death no. 11: Detective Prujit Singh is thrust with his face into the blender.
Death no. 12: Detective Roberta Hanson’s head is smashed in with an axe.
Death no. 13: Amber is stabbed like crazy multiple times with a knife.
Death no. 14: Angel and Dan are lured into the basement and are sedated. When they wake up their faces are glued together. Angel sacrifices himself by burning himself in the furnace while killing the killer.

Victim’s connections with Kit’s death

Through flashbacks we learn that every victim had something to do with Kit’s death, not on purpose, but their actions could have made a difference and could have lead to another outcome saving Kit’s life. Kit was a very sexually free person. He had a relationship with Angel. But Angel wanted more and wanted it to be exclusive. Cassidy also slept with Kit on a regular basis. That night they both saw Kit fooling around with everyone but them and especially with Noelle.

When Kit walked home he asked a ride from Kaili who earlier was rebuked by Kit for being presumptuous. Now she lets him walk home alone. While Kit is attacked, Xander is inside his apartment looking for prove that Amy is sleeping with Kit and doesn’t let him in, and has also taken Kit’s key from the door frame. Angel and Cassidy do not respond when Kit bangs at their door for help. When Kit runs outside again he is being watched by Frank who doesn’t help him, although he has a gun and the killer only a knife. When Kit runs across the street Amy hits him with his car while texting with Xander.

In the aftermath when Kit is lying dead everybody is watching. While Violet films the whole thing. But it is Justine who takes a picture and posts it online with the text: you reap what you sow.

The Twist: another death while everybody watched

Justine’s act generates so many hate reactions that the Rijkers didn’t feel save anymore. They were harassed online, while Detective Roberta Hanson couldn’t do anything about it, for they couldn’t track down all those people. They didn’t even have proof who besmirched their door with hateful words. Justine couldn’t handle it anymore and went outside, poured herself over with gasoline and set herself on fire. While everybody watched and did nothing. It was even too late for Connor and Jen to stop her.

The Original Druid unmasked

So we’re dealing with more killers than one and with two different motives. The first and original Druid turned out to be Wyatt. He was Noelle’s ex and was jealous of Kit and killed him. Simple as that. When a year later the new Druid rises to kill, he adapted and saw an opportunity after Kit’s wake to kill Noelle too. Not that special really.

Victim’s connections to Justine’s death

This new killer has a whole new extreme way of killing that is appropriate to their crimes according to the Druid. Although it looked like it’s revenge for not helping Kit, it was actually revenge for the death of Justine.

Frank beat his wife and when Connor tried to help, he was sent away for causing more trouble, due to Justine ‘The Reaper’. Cassidy called Saadia a terrorist. Xander started a petition to get the Rijkers evicted. Kaili also was very presumptuous in her help. Amy couldn’t help them with removing Justine’s post. Violet filmed everything while Justine set herself on fire, and did so laughing. Joe did nothing to stop Violet. Charlie is harassing Saadia. Detective Roberta Hanson did nothing to help the Rijkers and detective Prujit is new on the case and just has back luck. Dan was harassing them the most and painted the hateful text on their door. Angel kept too quiet. While Amber blamed Connor.

The Other Druid unmasked

This drove Connor over the edge, almost literally. After Justine killed herself he wanted to jump off the building killing himself. But Jen talked him out of it, and that’s when a new plan surfaced. Connor acted out his revenge on all the people who wronged them, who did nothing or who harassed them. Helped by Jen who made up the whole plan. While Connor killed almost everyone, it was Jen who killed Cassidy and Charlie to protect Saadia and Amber who drove her mad and wanted to expose them.

Part of the whole plan was Saadia. They used her as an alibi. With Saadia as the good girl who’s always nice, they would believe her. But when Amber told Saadia that Jen and Connor were drugging her, things seemed not right. Sitting in the Rijkers apartment, Saadia smelled something weird and later in bed she recognized the smell as burning bodies, which reminded her of her horrific nightmare in Afghanistan. That’s how she knew that Connor was the killer, who as the caretaker just went to the basement and the furnace.

However, Jen overpowers her and ties her up, but Saadia escapes. Locked up in the basement Dan and Angel found the furnace room and Dan sees Connor killing Roberta. Together they try to overpower Connor. Angel succeeds in holding Connor into the furnace, but is deadly wounded himself. When Jen finds out she’s going berserk, but then Saadia arrives ordering Dan to flee. She wounds Jen in a fight and flees herself catching up with Dan. While Jen chases them with her big knife, she lashes out, but Saadia takes the fire extinguisher to defend herself, making Jen slashing her own throat accidentally in the process.

Saadia and Dan make it out alive, wounded but alive, supporting each other.

The other two survivors were Kate and Erica who already left the building to stay with Kate’s mother.

The End

While social media can connect people, it can also divide people even more. It can generate hate and aggravate egotistical behavior, for the consequences are not visible. Hiding behind doors and windows, not helping others who are in need, can indeed be deadly. Now however, it was very visible and people weren’t anonymous. In the end when everybody had to work together to fight a crazed killer, they found some similarities to overcome their differences.

Ironically it was Saadia who added the first comment to Justine’s post criticizing her for being insensitive, which set in motion the other comments. So even if it’s well-meant and justified and a feedback comment, you never know what it amounts to. And even the nicest girl wasn’t eventually innocent, or being Jen’s friend by not actively helping her, which was forbidden by her parents. So, in the end everybody was to blame, nobody is perfect.