FORBIDDEN FRUITS

*CUT TO THE CHASE*

NOTE: This spoiler was submitted by Alex

In Texas, Apple (Lili Reinhart) pulls up to the mall to park for her shift at work. A man pulls up and parks next to her and begins masturbating watching her. Apple motions for him to roll down the window – when he does she tosses hot coffee on him. Apple works at Free Eden, a women’s clothing store, where she and her co-workers Fig (Alexandra Shipp) and Cherry (Victoria Pedretti) are known as “the fruits” – the coolest girls in the whole mall. They are looked at by everyone else and always get their food for free in the food court. Apple is the clear leader of the group, and is annoyed that they have recently lost a co-worker and have a new opening to fill. Their new supervisor Sharon has recently been brought in to supervise, and Apple wants to be at the top.

One day in the food court they are approached by a girl named Pumpkin (Lola Tung) who works there; she offers them free pretzel samples. Fig seems excited to have some, but Apple insists that the girls not have any. Cherry listens to every word Apple says, completely desperate for her approval. Fig gets along with Pumpkin, and when she realizes she could be right for the job opening, tells Pumpkin to return later with cinnamon pretzels: Apple loves cinnamon. Pumpkin returns, and the other girls are delighted to know her name is also Pumpkin – another fruit. Apple gives Pumpkin an application and tells her to return after closing.

When she meets them after hours, they go into the backroom to begin one of their rituals: they are a coven. Pumpkin learns that Cherry is sober and that her family died in a fire, that Fig is applying for graduate schools, and that Apple’s father is dead. They join in a ritual circle to enter what they call paradise. The three rules of the coven are revealed: first, they always support each other and make other women shine. Second, the banish people who bring them down, feeling them to be demons. Third, they only text boys in emojis. They create a potion with juice and blood, and Apple has Pumpkin slap her to provide the last ingredient: tears. They tell Pumpkin to drink it, which she does.

Apple puts Pumpkin in the dressing room, and tells her that this is their form of confession: all confessions are addressed to the iconic Marilyn Monroe. Pumpkin makes her confession, but when she exits she finds the others gone and is locked inside the store all night. When the women return the next day to open the store, Pumpkin reveals herself, now made over, sexier and more fashionable. She quickly becomes a member of the group, and the four of them team up to sell merchandise to customers and rack up sales. Later, a woman begins banging her head on the front window of the Free Eden store – Pumpkin is confused as the other call a “Code Dill” into their radios.

Noticing that Apple is a fan of a Barbie-like doll, Pumpkin buys one for her – unbeknownst to Apple, there is a camera inside that Pumpkin can use to record and play back. Apple buys Pumpkin a matching friendship bracelets that all the girls have, each has charms of all the different fruits. The girls continue to bond and return to paradise, and Pumpkin learns about the others: she discovers that Apple is the one who got Cherry sober, and that Apple schedules Cherry’s entire life: including sex, which she’s only allowed to have on Wednesdays – a rule she breaks constantly by having sex with guys who work in the mall while telling the other girls that she’s at therapy. Pumpkin follows her and catches her in the middle of sex – Cherry begs her not to tell Apple, and Pumpkin promises to keep her secret. Pumpkin wants to know what the issue is; Cherry tells her that Apple had an abusive father.

One day after work, Pumpkin notices that Apple is still getting in trouble and brought into Sharon’s office – and later sees Apple n the back of her car. Apple tries calling her mother, who never picks up – unlike Pumpkin’s, who does. Next, Pumpkin finds out that Fig has fallen for a guy named Norman, and sneaks off to see him on a secret date, where he asks her to be his girlfriend. She is thrilled until she discovers Pumpkin has followed them. Fig pleads with Pumpkin not to tell Cherry, because she doesn’t want to end up like Pickle, the previous member of the group. Fig tells the story of Pickle: she was a full member of the coven until she started dating a guy and missing rituals and paradise. Apple led the girls in casting a hex on the snake among them; soon after, Pickle’s boyfriend fell into a coma – no one knew what caused it, maybe poison. Pickle then had a nervous breakdown which is why she wanders the mall banging her head on the window. Sharon was brought in due to the situation.

Pickle startles Pumpkin in the mall one day with an ominous warning; Pickle goes to Sharon’s office to talk, which Apple sees and is concerned by. She demands the coven meet for an emergency paradise. She again makes the girls cast the same hex that they cast with Pickle, one to go after the snake among them. The next day, while Pumpkin and Fig are at the food court, Pickle drops herself off multiple floors in the mall, killing herself. The other girls are horrified and devastated, but Apple barely reacts. The girls are all devastated wondering if they caused this with their hex, and Cherry goes into the confession and begins drinking again while she cries. Cherry, disillusioned, reveals to Pumpkin that Apple lives in her car and that she poisoned her father, saying she always hurts the ones she loves the most.

The next day, Apple brings the others cupcakes and says there will and emergency paradise meeting, no exceptions. The others want to leave – Fig has gotten into grad school and plans to leave the group, plus they are distraught over Pickle, but Apple won’t allow it. Pumpkin begins to get sick and vomit from her cupcake, causing the others to wonder if Apple poisoned her. During the ritual, Apple insists on using Cherry’s cat as a sacrifice, and she refuses. Fig admits that she is leaving the group and doesn’t want to do the sacrifice either – her real name isn’t even Fig, it’s Emily. Norman arrives, worried about Fig, and Apple realizes the women have betrayed her. Apple grabs a meat cleaver, which Cherry takes from her. Thinking Norman could be the snake among them, Cherry drives the cleaver into his face. Fig takes him away screaming.

The others want to leave too but there is a massive tornado warning, and all the doors to the mall lock. Cherry and Apple begin viciously arguing about Apple’s influence on her and Cherry brings up that Apple killed her father. Apple hits Cherry with a mannequin arm, and their fight goes out into the main area of the mall. Outside, Norman breaks up with Fig and she returns inside when Pumpkin calls for help. Cherry’s heel gets caught in a moving escalator – she starts to get dragged down. Pumpkin tries to help her, and Apple does too – but in the end, as Cherry is about to be taken down, Pumpkin takes the friendship bracelet off her hand and Cherry is gruesomely torn apart. Next, the storm causes glass from the skylight to fall down and cut Fig in half.

Stunned, Apple and Pumpkin enter the mall fountain to wash the blood off, Pumpkin bringing the camera doll to watch them. Pumpkin finally asks Apple if she knows who she is; Apple has been waiting for Pumpkin to ask her, seeming to know. Pumpkin confirms that they have the same father; she really came to Free Eden to try to get a confession out of Apple. Pumpkin says her father was a good man, infuriating Apple – she points out that he was a man who had two families, married two women, then left Apple and her mother to starve on their own. Apple insists Pumpkin is the snake, revealing Pumpkin faked sick with the cupcake earlier.

The two begin physically fighting, Apple filled with rage. She screams at Pumpkin for defending their father, and she wants to know why everyone hates her, including her sister Pumpkin and her own mother, for saving them. She screams that she’s tired of being abandoned for eliminating a monster, crying and deeply emotional. She strangles Pumpkin to death and leaves her floating in the fountain. She feels reborn and baptized, and asks Marilyn for forgiveness.

At a new mall, a group of women get pumpkin spice lattes and go to open up their almost open Free Eden store. Apple, dirty and disheveled, brings the leader of the group the cake pop she left. Pleased, she asks Apple if she’s looking for a job. In a mid-credits scene, Sharon (Gabrielle Union) is finally revealed: and she is an undercover homicide investigator who has been looking into Apple for multiple poisonings, presumably her father and Pickle’s boyfriend. She is shocked to discover Apple has killed her own sister, but finds that the doll Pumpkin left may have recorded everything giving her just what she needs.

Pumpkin (Lola Tung), a new employee, joins the group of women who work at the store Free Eden in their after work coven, led by Apple (Lili Reinhart). Fig (Alexandra Shipp) and Cherry (Victoria Pedretti) gradually reveal to Pumpkin that there was a former member of the coven was called Pickle who started dating a boy stopped showing up for rituals. Shortly after, Apple led the women in a hex on the snake among them. Pickle's boyfriend fell into a coma and she went insane.

Again suspecting a traitor among them, Apple leads them in another hex: shortly after, Pickle commits suicide in the middle of the mall. the coven begins fighting among themselves, wondering if they caused it. In the ensuing fallout, Cherry is crushed to death in an escalator and Fig is bisected by falling debris. Face to face, the truth comes out between Pumpkin and Apple: Pumpkin had infiltrated the group because she and Apple are half-sisters, and Pumpkin suspected Apple of murdering their father. Apple confesses, since the man had two families and abandoned hers for Pumpkin's, and then Apple's mother abandoned her for killing their father. Feeling completely alone, Apple drowns Pumpkin in the mall fountain.

Later, Apple goes to another Free Eden store and is offered a job, and previously unseen manager Sharon (Gabrielle Union) is revealed to be an undercover homicide detective investigating Apple; she finds a recording device Pumpkin left containing all the evidence she needs.