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In the gory thriller The Platform 2, a woman named Perempuán (Milena Smit) fights for her life in a vertical prison that feeds its inmates once a day via a moving concrete table filled with decadent foods … except, there are hundreds of floors and twice as many people living among them. How will they ration? By fairness or by force? Read on to find out what happens in the second installment of The Platform, from director Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia. (And for everything else you need to know, check out this guide.)

How does the Pit work?

The Pit, aka the Vertical Self-Management center, is a vertical prison with 333 levels. People elect to be imprisoned there as penance for their self-proclaimed sins. Before entering, each person must declare what their “I’d eat this everyday if I could” favorite food is. They’re also allowed to bring one item each into the prison. A single moving platform brings food to each floor once a day. The platform is full of food at Level 1, the highest floor, and it’s up to each prisoner to self-ration so that the lower levels don’t starve. Prisoners are moved to different floors each month — which means, depending on the month, they’re either on a higher floor where the food is abundant, or on a lower floor where not a single crumb remains.

Who are the Anointed Ones? Who’s the Master?

Perempuán learns from her fellow prisoners about the Anointed Ones, called as such because they were “lucky” enough to meet the Master. The Master — who, according to the prisoners, may or may not be still alive — created the Law in the Pit. The Law dictates that each person can only eat the food they designated as their favorite before entering the Pit. These people are called the Loyalists. Those who do not follow the Law are called the Barbarians.

The strictest Anointed One is Dagin Babi (Óscar Jaenada). Perempuán’s second cellmate, Sahabat (Natalia Tena), tells Perempuán that when she and a former cellmate, Kekasih, fed a malnourished man, Babi punished them by cutting off Sahabat’s arm. In rebellion, Kekasih gouged out his eyes, then he punished her by tying her to the platform and sending her down the Pit. The people on the lower floors, who were starving, ate her alive.

Is The Platform 2 a sequel or a prequel?

Viewers go into the film believing it’s a sequel, but it’s revealed toward the end of The Platform 2 that it’s set before the events of The Platform.

Does Zamiatin die?

Yes. When Perempuán’s cellmate, Zamiatin (Hovik Keuchkerian), falls ill, he lights himself on fire with the lighter he brought to prison. He falls through the Pit to his death.

Is Goreng in The Platform 2?

Yes, Goreng (Ivan Massagué), the main character from The Platform, makes an appearance at the end of the film.

How does The Platform 2 end?

After Babi and his followers descend the platform, he orders the Loyalists to cut off Perempuán’s arm, because she let Zamiatin break the rules (he ate the chosen food of a deceased prisoner) and, later, staged a coup with Sahabat. Like he did with Sahabat’s former cellmate, Babi orders his followers to tie Sahabat to the platform naked and send her down through the Pit — a death sentence.

Perempuán then becomes cellmates with Trimagasi (Zorion Eguileor), who shared a cell with Goreng in The Platform — which is how we find out that The Platform 2 is actually a prequel. Perempuán and Trimagasi form a group of Barbarians to fight against the Loyalists. In the battle, nearly everyone dies, including Babi. Trimagasi kills an inmate who’s choking Perempuán, saving her life.

After dumping all the bodies killed in the battle down the Pit, Perempuán asks Trimagasi if he’ll be escaping with her. He says no, that this was the best month of his life (presumably setting up his plotline for The Platform). Then, Perempuán eats a painting to poison herself with the ink temporarily, so when the Pit workers make their rounds, they’ll think she’s dead and remove her from the prison with the other corpses. When she comes to, she’s floating downward floor by floor while tied to a bundle of corpses. It’s now the interval — the time each month when prisoners are knocked unconscious with gas and moved into their new cells. During this period, as Perempuán realizes, there’s no gravity.

Elsewhere, an unknown woman picks a boy out of a room full of children in prison uniforms and leads him away. The Pit workers place the child in a room near where Perempuán’s hiding. Here’s where Perempuán’s backstory comes into play: Before her imprisonment, she was a sculptor. One of her sculptures, a beastly dog with sharp claws, impaled and killed a young boy who was running toward it. She’s never recovered from her guilt. Now that she sees an innocent boy in the Pit, she’s determined to save him.

Perempuán unties herself from the corpse pile and removes the unconscious boy from his bed — hitting her head twice on concrete while doing so — then takes him via the platform to the bottom of the Pit. At the very bottom, there are tons of people, all of whom appear starving and desperate. A woman prisoner tells Perempuán that they have to send the child back up the platform. The woman insists the child will be safe, but that Perempuán can’t go with him — that her journey is now over. The injured Perempuán is then led away into the darkness.

During the end credits, we’re shown scenes of solo adults taking individual children with them on the platform, like Perempuán did. Then we see Goreng, the main character from The Platform, doing the same, except he’s with an unconscious Perempuán. When they land at the bottom of the Pit, Goreng sees Trimagasi. Trimagasi tells him, “She’s the message.” In a final vignette, Perempuán walks out of the darkness and sees Goreng. She asks what he’s doing there, and they hug.