Never Saw Me Coming

Chloe Sevre, a diagnosed psychopath with an IQ of 135, arrives at John Adams University in Washington, DC, with a carefully concealed agenda. She is one of seven students in the Multimethod Psychopathy Panel Study, run by psychology professor Dr. Leonard Wyman and his doctoral student Elena Torres, which provides a full scholarship in exchange for her participation as a research subject. She wears a smartwatch that monitors her biometrics and periodically logs her mood and location. Chloe chose Adams for a single reason: Will Bachman, a junior in the SAE fraternity, attends the school. When Chloe was 12 and still went by her real name, Michelle, Will raped her while his friend Brett Miller filmed it. She has spent six years planning to kill Will on October 23, a date selected to coincide with massive protests that will overwhelm DC's police resources.

Chloe moves into Brewser Hall and immediately cultivates relationships across her dorm hallway, identifying anyone connected to SAE. She secures an invitation to a fraternity party, where she begins gathering intelligence on Will's habits. She also meets Charles Portmont, an SAE member whose father is a powerful Republican political figure, and is immediately attracted to him.

Meanwhile, Andre Jensen, a Black freshman from Northeast DC, arrives at Adams harboring his own secret. Andre's older sister Kiara died from an asthma attack after an ambulance took over 40 minutes to arrive, sending Andre into a downward spiral. He was diagnosed with Conduct Disorder, a childhood behavioral diagnosis involving persistent antisocial acts. When the psychopathy study recruited him, his older brother Isaiah suggested he fake the psychopathy diagnosis as a joke. Andre answered questionnaires using internet research, and Isaiah impersonated their father during a phone interview. The resulting full scholarship moved his parents so deeply that Andre cannot bring himself to confess, so he invents a cover story and attends Adams under false pretenses.

The first crisis strikes during Andre's first evening experiment. He hears screams from a nearby room and finds Michael Boonark, a fellow student, dying from multiple stab wounds. Andre calls 911, but Michael does not survive. Before making the call, Andre spots a bystander in the hallway who shrugs dismissively and walks away. That night, Andre researches Wyman and discovers the professor appeared on the true-crime show Forensic Files as the psychologist who interviewed Gregory Ripley, the CRD (choke, rape, dismember) serial killer, and argued against Ripley's death sentence.

Chloe advances her plan at a party at the Portmont family estate in Virginia. She drugs Will's drink with Rohypnol and leads him to a secluded guesthouse to interrogate him about the video of her assault. Will unexpectedly recognizes her and calls her by her real name. Enraged, Chloe strikes him in the forehead with an agate geode, a heavy decorative rock, knocking him unconscious. Charles walks in on the scene but does not call the police, revealing that he, too, is in the psychopathy program. He arranges for his father's bodyguard to tend to Will's injuries. The next morning, Will appears to remember nothing, though he is later seen frantically searching the SAE house, suggesting he still possesses the video.

Weeks later, a second program student, Kellen Bismarque, is killed in the psychology building's MRI room. Someone force-feeds Kellen buckshot pellets, and when the MRI activates, the magnetic force tears the metal from his body. Charles and Elena discover the body. Charles overhears Elena's panicked voicemail to Wyman and confirms that both victims were program members. He confronts Chloe, who denies involvement, and they form a tentative alliance.

The investigation expands when Chloe and Andre independently discover each other while breaking into Wyman's office. They verify each other's alibis and agree to share information. Charles joins them, forming a trio. Through stakeouts, they photograph other program members and follow Wyman to a private dinner with Emma Dufresne, another student in the psychopathy program. They discover Emma has an identical twin, Megan, who attends American University.

Andre uncovers John Fiola, a former graduate student of Wyman's who had been writing a book about the CRD case before dying in a car accident. Andre and Chloe recover Fiola's unpublished manuscript, which reveals that Ripley had a wife who died by suicide and twin daughters whose identities were concealed. Andre also learns from Elena that Wyman was CRD's therapist before Ripley was arrested, not merely a post-arrest evaluator. Charles meets with Emma and discovers that Wyman covers Megan's tuition in exchange for her serving as a non-psychopathic control subject. The first murder occurs on the 20th anniversary of CRD's first known killing, suggesting a copycat element.

A separate threat emerges in Trevor Koch, another program member who posed as a research assistant. Trevor has hacked Chloe's webcam and gives her a fabricated file claiming Charles drove a student named Daisy Crosby to die by suicide. Charles explains the truth: Trevor was the cyberattacker who terrorized both him and Daisy the previous year, ultimately driving Daisy to jump from a campus building. Trevor retaliates by distributing intimate footage from Chloe's hacked webcam.

Chloe pursues the video through every channel, ultimately finding Will's old iPhone in a box of donated phones at the SAE house. With the video in her possession, she executes her plan on October 23, luring Will to the McMillan Sand Filtration Site, an abandoned underground cavern in DC. She strangles him, burns his body, and plants hair and DNA collected from public locations to contaminate the forensic scene.

The next day, an anonymous Instagram account called Pinprick52 posts a photo of Chloe near the McMillan site. The account has been documenting the killer's activities with photos taken near each victim. When Chloe notices the account accidentally favorites a photo from a personal account linked to Megan, she contacts Megan through direct messages. Megan confirms she knows about Will's murder. Chloe proposes a deal: She will deliver Charles and Andre in exchange for her own safety. Megan agrees, but Chloe's real intention is to set a trap.

Megan moves first, however. She lures the entire group to the McMillan site using spoofed text messages, making each person believe someone else has summoned them. Andre, receiving the messages on the subway, senses something is wrong and calls the police. At the cavern, Megan holds everyone at gunpoint with Charles's stolen pistol and reveals her motivation: She believes psychopaths are irredeemable monsters like her father, Gregory Ripley, and that Wyman's program is dangerously misguided. She has been killing program members to remove them from society. When Wyman and Elena refuse her demand that they kill one of the psychopaths, and Charles provokes her, Megan shoots him in the chest.

Chloe, whose wrist bindings Charles has secretly chewed through, grabs a loose brick that Andre silently directs her toward and attacks Megan, bludgeoning her to death. SWAT officers, summoned by Andre's call, arrive moments later and discover Will's charred remains nearby.

In the aftermath, Charles survives and is hospitalized. Chloe visits, and he gives her Megan's phone, which he grabbed before the EMTs arrived. Chloe deletes Megan's Instagram account and her own, eliminating the photographic evidence linking her to Will's murder. She gives Detective Bentley, who has worked with Wyman for decades, a fabricated statement that subtly frames Will's disappearance as another of Megan's crimes. Andre, deeply shaken, is picked up by his family and resolves to continue concealing the truth about his enrollment. In the final scene, Chloe lies beside Charles in his hospital bed, noting that she still has unfinished business with Trevor but resolving to take the day off. There is always time for new schemes tomorrow.