Cure ending explained · Cinespective

What happens

Takabe shoots Mamiya, but the killings carry on, and Takabe seems to have caught the same influence. In the last scene a waitress cuts something ordinary in a restaurant, and you realize the violence has already moved on.

The last image

An ordinary moment in a restaurant, with a waitress cutting something, quietly signals that the next killing has already begun.

Two readings

1 · Takabe has been infectedMamiya's questions took hold, so the detective now carries the influence forward.

2 · Violence needs no carrierMamiya was only a trigger; the violence was always waiting in ordinary people.

What it says

Killing Mamiya solves nothing, because he was never the real source. The film refuses a culprit or a reason, and ends on a casual scene to suggest that the danger lives in everyday life and could pass to anyone.