How A Quiet Place: Day One connects to the previous movies (2024)

A Quiet Place: Day One ending spoilers follow.

As we wait for A Quiet Place 3, new prequel movie A Quiet Place: Day One has arrived to terrify us in the meantime.

Moving the action to New York City, it follows Samira (Lupita Nyong'o) and Eric (Joseph Quinn), along with Samira's cat Frodo, as they try to survive and get out of the city before it's too late.

Even though the Abbott family are not involved, you might still expect some connection to what's come before, especially in terms of where these new characters are at the time of the first two movies.

So let's delve into the events of A Quiet Place: Day One and its ending to explain how it connects to the previous two movies, especially the sequel A Quiet Place Part II.

Major spoilers ahead.

In case the title didn't give it away, A Quiet Place: Day One starts on the very first day of the alien invasion, with events taking place roughly over the next four days.

It means that the movie takes place more than a year before the majority of the events of A Quiet Place and A Quiet Place Part II.

There is one exception as the sequel opened with day one of the invasion, before jumping ahead to day 474 immediately after the events of the first movie. However, that Part II opening was set in Millbrook, New York and not New York City, so don't expect any crossovers.

We do see one Part II character in A Quiet Place: Day One though: Djimon Hounsou's Man on Island, who we now know is called Henri. He's in New York City with his family when the invasion starts and crosses paths with Samira, before playing a major role later.

So let's delve into that major Part II connection in A Quiet Place: Day One's ending. Final warning for major spoilers ahead.

It's revealed in the opening scene that Samira is living with terminal cancer and once the invasion starts, she has one goal in mind: head back to the pizza place she went to with her father for one final slice of pizza.

After meeting Eric, she tries initially to get him to go away and head to the harbour to get on the boats that are evacuating people from New York City. He refuses to leave though, so he tags along on the journey to get some pizza.

She's grateful for that in the end as after her medication is destroyed during one of the alien attacks, Eric heads out on a dangerous mission to get her some pain-relief medication while she rests up in a church with other survivors.

Eric returns with her medication and the next day, they head out to find the Patsy's Pizzeria. Unfortunately, when they get there, it's been destroyed in the attacks and any pizza is long gone.

They go to the nearby jazz club that Samira used to go to with her father and, in a beautiful sequence, Eric gets some random pizza from a nearby restaurant that's still in one piece, scribbles Patsy's on the box and they enjoy a slice of pizza from 'Patsy's Pizzeria'.

From the jazz club, Samira spots that boats are just about to leave from the harbour and they head out to get on them. When they're cornered by aliens though, Samira creates a distraction so that Eric – and, more importantly, Frodo – can get to the boats.

Luckily for them, Henri is on one of the boats that's about to leave and, spotting the commotion on the dock, he stops the boat in time for Eric to be able to swim to it with Frodo.

Samira then heads to the burnt-out Patsy's Pizzeria. After one final look at a photo of her with her father (who is wearing the same yellow cardigan that she wears in the movie, which she gives to Eric before leaving him), she heads into the street.

As she listens to 'Feeling Good', Samira purposefully takes out the headphones of her iPod and an alien lands behind her as Day One comes to an end.

Before that happens though, we see Eric safely on the boat with Frodo. He finds a letter in the pocket of the cardigan that Samira wrote to him, thanking him for "bringing me home" and asking him to take care of Frodo.

This is where the Part II connection comes in because, as luck would have it, Eric and Frodo end up on Henri's boat. We know from the sequel that Henri made it to an island where he set up a sanctuary for survivors.

Henri's boat was one of only two to make it, so Eric chose wisely. While, of course, we don't see Eric (or Frodo) in Part II as Day One didn't exist then, we can assume that he also made it to the island in one piece.

Whether he survived the alien attack that took place on the island at the end of Part II is another question. But since that was day 477, Eric did at least enjoy more than a year of peace before having to fight for his life again.

And after everything he's been through, we think he deserves it.

For more on A Quiet Place: Day One, check out:

• A Quiet Place: Day One review
• How long is A Quiet Place: Day One?
• Does the cat die in A Quiet Place: Day One?
• Everything you need to know about A Quiet Place 3

A Quiet Place: Day One is out now in cinemas.