The Dutchman ending explained: What happened to Clay?

The Dutchman is a 2025 American thriller directed by Andre Gaines, who also co, wrote the script with Qasim Basir. It is based on Amiri Baraka's seminal 1964 play of the same name. The film reinterprets Baraka's incendiary subway altercation for today's world, mixing psychological realism with increased symbolism.

With Andr Holland playing Clay and Kate Mara playing Lula, the movie uses race, desire, power, and emotional repression as its themes and tells a story that gradually moves from a realistic domestic drama to something more abstract and disturbing.

The Dutchman, which debuted at the 2025 South by Southwest Film & TV Festival, will be followed by a theatrical release on January 2, 2026.

Note: The article contains ending spoilers for The Dutchman; viewer discretion is advised.

In the end, Clay is fatally stabbed by Lula on the subway after finally confronting her racist provocation, and his body is discarded as the cycle of violence immediately resets with her targeting another Black man.

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What happens in The Dutchman?

The story opens with Clay and his wife Kaya attending couples therapy after Kaya's unfaithfulness. Kaya tries to save their marriage, but Clay remains emotionally distant, as he is still shocked, tired of all this, and put under pressure by the necessity to help his friend Warren run for city council in Harlem.

Clay's life is a struggle with himself: the man he sees himself as versus the man society keeps reminding him of.

After the therapy session, Clay's doctor hands him a copy of Dutchman, promising that it will change the way he views the world. From here on, the film takes on a surreal tone. Some scenes look like they could happen in real life, but they are increasingly separated, as if Clay is having some kind of emotional fever dream. This change in mood is very obvious when Clay meets Lula on a subway train.

Lula singles out Clay with an unbelievable directness, combining flirting with provocation. Her manner is a mixture of the following: playful, invasive, mocking, and, at times, even cruel.

As the train moves forward, Lula's remarks get more and more ruthless, attacking Clay's race, masculinity, ambition, and self-control. The subway car turns into a secluded arena where Clay's emotional defenses are taken away from him, while there are other passengers who see but never help.

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What happened to Clay in The Dutchman?

The Dutchman (Image Via Rogue Pictures)

The climax of The Dutchman is the moment when Clay finally releases the rage he has kept for so many years. After enduring Lula's relentless manipulation, he delivers an impassioned monologue about Black identity, suppressed rage, and the illusion of assimilation.

Significantly, Clay does not call for violence against white people; instead, he reveals how heartbreaking it is to always have to keep quiet and calm to survive. Clay, thinking that he has regained control, tries to get off the train. Lula, however, stabs him in the heart quietly and directly at that moment.

The killing is abrupt and without feeling, showing that the power that has been unbalanced between them all the time is the one that has been controlling their interaction from the very beginning.

According to Lula's instructions, the other passengers take away his body as she orders them while she watches. Their silence here is an indication of a wider social complicity in his death. The last scenes of the movie, in fact, reveal that the violence is going to be repeated again and again.

Another young Black man gets on the subway, and Lula immediately directs her attention to him. A conductor tipping his hat to her is the way he lets her know that this is not the only time, but one of many times this ritual is going to be repeated.

The death of Clay is not depicted as a single tragedy but rather as a part of a system that keeps going and coming back.

The title The Dutchman evokes the legend of the Flying Dutchman, a ghost ship doomed to sail the seas without ever finding relief. The concept is used in the film to point to the terrible racial exploitation and violence that are going around again and again without an end.

Clay's demise is a demonstration of how anger that has been repressed and the system's pressure meet, and Lula is a character who represents a society that incites, punishes, and disappears.

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The Dutchman was released in theatres on January 2, 2026.

Edited by Sakshi Singh