Owen's 'TV static' scene from 'I Saw The TV' Glow ending is about one's inner struggles (& it also symbolizes self-acceptance)

Watching too much TV can seriously mess up people's minds—or it can open them up, as seen in I Saw the TV Glow (2024). This movie falls into the category of films that can seriously make you question your reality. Yeah, The Matrix films aren’t the only ones.

There are a couple of individuals in the film’s reality, Owen (Justice Smith) and Maddy (Jack Haven), and there are a couple of individuals in this TV show called The Pink Opaque. These two bond over the show in the film. The protagonists in it, Isabel (Helena Howard) and Tara (Lindsey Jordan), go through experiences that feel real to our pair of fans.

But it’s a twisted movie, with the biggest twist coming at the end. Owen cuts open his chest. And instead of his lungs, we see a TV static-like glow emanating from inside him. Now, maybe he’s really lost it—cutting open his chest and dying, now seeing hallucinations in his consciousness, which I Saw the TV Glow never clears up, by the way. But in that moment, he accepts himself as he is.

Why is there a TV static-like glow coming out of Owen's now split-open chest?

Not everyone can be Christopher Walken from Seven Psychopaths, doing whatever they want. If he doesn’t want to do something, he just says in that childish voice, “I don’t want to.” Does that make sense? Well, “too bad.”

This part of Owen emerges during the I Saw the TV Glow scene, following his outburst at a birthday party. He is stuck in his dull routine, working as part of a hired group for a kid named Charlie’s birthday party. We can clearly see he has no interest in it, but it’s his job, so he has to do it.

Owen certainly doesn’t seem okay—in fact, quite the opposite. As the "normal" people go about their deeds and the birthday song picks up pace, Owen appears to have had enough.

Like an overinflated balloon that finally bursts, Owen reaches his breaking point. Everyone around him enters a zombie-like state. This scene exposes how empty and robotic society can be when we look at their expressions. He runs to the bathroom and cuts his chest open, revealing the TV static inside.

That glow is what’s left inside him—the show that was always there for him, through thick and thin, eventually becoming as dull as his life. This gives us another hint about what Maddy told him: that the show is real, a reflection of their lives. In that moment, he accepts his reality and goes back to apologizing to those lifeless people who don’t even care if he’s there. His self-worth is lost.

How does Jane Schoenbrun explain this I Saw the TV Glow ending?

The film was distributed by A24. (Image via Youtube/A240)

Part of the answer comes from an interview with I Saw the TV Glow director Jane Schoenbrun. Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Schoenbrun said:

"After half a lifetime of resistance, when Owen finally sees that glow inside himself — and to do so, he literally has to open himself up and see the heart that's been taken from him, and see that it's been replaced by this signal that could be something beautiful, but also carries the ambivalence and sinister nature of the emptiness of glow."

I Saw the TV Glow currently holds an impressive 84% critic approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of writing.