54 pages 1-hour read

The Clinic

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2024

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Chapters 82-115Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of substance use, addiction, death, mental illness, death by suicide, child sexual abuse, cursing, and graphic violence.

Chapter 82 Summary: “Meg”

Madeline reveals that Lutz offered her a free stay at the Clinic if she brought in Haley Banks; she accepted because she was desperate to recover from her addiction. She denies killing Haley. Sierra storms in, claiming to know who Meg is.

Chapter 83 Summary: “Cara”

Cara calls Captain Hanson to report Tom’s murder. Hanson explains that he cannot reach the Clinic until the following morning due to weather. He suggests that the Clinic staff consolidate everyone into a single dorm for safety.

Chapter 84 Summary: “Meg”

Jade and Dex enter as Sierra reveals to Madeline that Meg is Haley’s sister. The other patients are furious at Meg for continuing to lie to them, and Meg is devastated by their disappointment. Madeline also accuses Meg of stealing drugs. Meanwhile, Meg panics as the Clinic’s lobby is locked down, barring the exits.

Chapter 85 Summary: “Meg”

Devastated, Meg calls Harry to tell him that she is coming home. She briefly wonders if he has been sending her the texts from Haley but then decides against it. Harry reveals that Sierra was committed to a psychiatric hospital 10 years prior.

Chapter 86 Summary: “Meg”

Harry explains that Sierra was hospitalized to treat her intrusive thoughts. Meg shares her theory that Haley is alive and being held in the Clinic against her will. She lies to Harry, agreeing to come home, and then has a powerful hallucination of the woman in vintage lingerie saying that Harry can’t be trusted.

Chapter 87 Summary: “Meg”

Meg scales the Clinic’s walls and breaks into the treatment room via a skylight, nearly dying in the process. She is devastated to find that Haley is not in the treatment room. As a hallucination of the woman in vintage lingerie mocks her, Lutz enters, claiming to know her true identity.

Chapter 88 Summary: “Meg”

Lutz implies that he plans to keep Meg at the Clinic against his will. When Meg calls him a “psychopath,” he agrees, explaining that he diagnosed himself while in India. He claims that psychopathy is unfairly stigmatized and that Meg is the same as him.

Chapter 89 Summary: “Cara”

Max and Cara speculate on why someone might have killed Tom. Max argues that Tom was lured into Max’s office by a woman, possibly Madeline. He suggests that they not tell Lutz about Tom’s death. However, when the security system resets, Cara realizes that he already knows.

Chapter 90 Summary: “Meg”

Lutz reveals that a panel of experts has diagnosed Meg with “sociopathy,” more commonly known as antisocial personality disorder. Meg denies it, but his description of the disorder resonates with her. Lutz insists on another treatment, and Meg agrees, hoping he is bluffing.

Chapter 91 Summary: “Meg”

During the fugu treatment, Meg reveals that the house from her memories was the house next door and that she saw Haley lying nearly lifeless after her encounter with Mr. Priest in the bedroom. Lutz injects more fugu. As she remembers playing cards with Mr. Priest, her body goes into shock.

Chapter 92 Summary: “Cara”

When the security system rejects his attempts to log in, Max realizes that Lutz has shut down the system. All patients are redirected to cryotherapy. Max suspects that Lutz is trying to kill the patients to disguise his use of fugu, which dies in cold temperatures.

Chapter 93 Summary: “Meg”

During a hallucination featuring Max, Meg realizes that the woman in vintage lingerie was actually an illustration on Mr. Priest’s playing cards. She reveals that Priest taught her to play poker and that she feels like she’s lost everything.

Chapter 94 Summary: “Meg”

Meg wakes alone in the treatment room. She sees Mr. Priest enter the lobby on a security camera and watches in panic as he approaches the treatment room. She dislocates her shoulder to free herself, but he manages to corner her and addresses her by name.

Chapter 95 Summary: “Meg”

Mr. Priest asks Meg if she remembers coming to his house with Haley and learning poker. He apologizes for using inappropriate playing cards but explains that he needed to keep her distracted. When Meg looks confused, he reveals that Haley found their mother after a suicide attempt.

Chapter 96 Summary: “Meg”

Meg realizes that her memories of Haley and Mr. Priest in the bathroom are actually from the day of her mother’s attempted suicide and that Haley and Mr. Priest were trying to protect her. Priest explains that Haley tried to protect Meg even after Haley left home as a teenager. Meg vows to find Haley’s killer.

Chapter 97 Summary: “Cara”

Max argues that Dr. Lutz doesn’t value human lives and that he would risk the lives of the patients in order to save himself. Cara suggests that Max cut off power to reboot the system, granting them access. After Max leaves, Cara is confronted by Lutz. She formulates a plan.

Chapter 98 Summary: “Meg”

Meg calls Harry to tell him that she loves him. She then meets the other patients in the cryotherapy room and apologizes for lying, finally admitting to herself and them that she has addictions. As she says goodbye, she realizes that someone from her past is in the group. She leaves, knowing that she is followed.

Chapter 99 Summary: “Cara”

Stalling for time, Cara offers to team up with Dr. Lutz in his goal to sell the fugu drug to human traffickers. Lutz insists that he has a different plan for drugs. Before he can reveal it, he receives a call and makes plans to leave the Clinic with Cara.

Chapter 100 Summary: “Meg”

Meg goes to the medication room, where she is powerfully tempted to take an oxycodone pill to protect her from what she knows is coming. She decides against it as Jade enters. Meg realizes that her instincts were right the entire time.

Chapter 101 Summary: “Meg”

Meg realizes that Jade is her sister Haley in disguise. Haley admits to leaving the notes and attacking Meg throughout the hospital in order to dissuade her from investigating. Haley teases Meg for not recognizing her immediately.

Chapter 102 Summary: “Meg”

Haley reveals that Dr. Lutz is developing a procedure to help people fake their deaths using fugu and start new lives. She shows off her plastic surgery, explaining that she plans to start a career as an actress. She warns Meg that Lutz will not let her live unless she joins them.

Chapter 103 Summary: “Cara”

Lutz reveals that he plans to charge $10 million to fake clients’ deaths and provide them with new physical appearances. He claims to have seven clients ready to go once Haley/Jade is fully healed. Cara sees security camera footage of Max being held at gunpoint. Lutz aims a gun at her, threatening to kill them both.

Chapter 104 Summary: “Cara”

Lutz leads Cara to the cryotherapy chamber, with Max and the patients waiting inside. Lutz pushes her in at gunpoint. Max indicates that he has a plan and lies to the patients to explain his and Cara’s presence at what he describes as a therapy session. Lutz locks them in, and the room begins to cool.

Chapter 105 Summary: “Meg”

Haley explains that their mother deliberately drove a wedge between them and that Haley never wanted to leave. She asks Meg to join her and Lutz and to start a new life with her. Meg rejects her, explaining that she cares about the other patients and needs to help them. She has a withdrawal-related seizure, but Haley refuses to help.

Chapter 106 Summary: “Meg”

Meg wakes tied to a bench in the medicine room. Lutz demands that she submit to surgery, insisting that her personality suits his needs. He reveals that Haley killed Tom when he recognized her and threatened to expose her. As Lutz speaks, Haley disassociates.

Chapter 107 Summary: “Cara”

Max tells Cara that the cryotherapy room will power down after five minutes, regardless of what Lutz programs. The group struggles through the five minutes, with Sierra and Dez nearly dying of hypothermia. As the clock hits five minutes, the power is cut, locking them inside.

Chapter 108 Summary: “Meg”

Haley cuts a wire to stop power to the spa. Lutz reveals that he intentionally chose a cryotherapy chamber that would automatically lock if the power was cut. He tells Haley to kill Meg. Meg insists that she won’t do it, but Haley doesn’t stop Lutz from approaching Meg with the live end of the cut wire.

Chapter 109 Summary: “Cara”

Cara realizes that although the cryotherapy room is no longer producing cold air, the insulation will keep it cold for hours. At Cara’s urging, Max encourages the patients and helps them to keep warm. As he fails to find an escape, Cara fears that they will die.

Chapter 110 Summary: “Meg”

Lutz presses the live wire against Cara’s chest, triggering heart palpitations. He explains that her death will look like a heart attack, common in detox. Meg begs Haley to help her, reminding her that her new name, Jade, was the name of a television princess the girls idolized as children. Haley grabs the live wire and then touches Lutz, electrocuting them both.

Chapter 111 Summary: “Cara”

The power surges back on, allowing the patients to escape. As they attempt to warm themselves and recover, Meg appears to guide them out of the Clinic. Meg warns Cara not to let her feelings for Max cloud the fact that he aligned himself with criminals to secure a patent that would make him famous. Harry appears at the Clinic, and Meg kisses him.

Chapter 112 Summary: “Meg”

Harry explains that he had already flown to the Pacific Northwest when he last spoke to Meg. She asks him to take her home and for help with the rest of the patients. Captain Hanson and Officer Meyer appear and joke that they seem to have missed the party.

Chapter 113 Summary: “Meg”

A month later, Meg attends her first session with a new therapist, who explains that antisocial personality disorder is a spectrum and that Meg is in charge of how she sees the world. They work together on identifying her emotions and impulses. He reminds her that her childhood trauma had a deep impact on her personality development.

Chapter 114 Summary: “Cara”

Investors buy the Clinic after Dr. Lutz’s death and hire Cara to run it. Hanson and Meyer report that Lutz’s death was ruled an accident and that Max was arrested for smuggling fugu. Cara admits to them that she will overcharge insurers to provide better treatment for patients. She does not reveal that she kept a small stash of fugu and is developing her own secret treatment.

Chapter 115 Summary: “Meg”

It is revealed that Haley survived the electrocution by standing on plastic, which grounded her, preventing the electricity from harming her. She convinced Lutz’s criminal connections to help her forge a new identity as an actress from Iowa. Haley and Meg’s relationship remains distant. Harry asks Meg to marry him, and she accepts.

Chapters 82-115 Analysis

The resolution of the novel’s various mysteries brings its claims about trauma into sharper relief. While the novel frames Meg and Haley’s entire childhood as traumatic, two events in particular shape Meg’s current character: first, her mother’s attempt to die by suicide when Meg was 13, and second, her attack by gangsters in a warehouse. Throughout, the novel has mirrored the fragmented nature of traumatic memories by revealing information about these two traumatic events in fragments. For instance, the encounter with gangsters is mentioned vaguely in Meg’s opening chapters, as Sol tells Meg that “what happened to [her] with Saint-Clair’s men in the warehouse was fucked up” and implies that she’s “not over it” (24). Later, she reveals to Max that the men “tied [her] to a chair and soaked [her] in gasoline” (122). In the final half of the novel, Meg reveals to the group that she “nearly killed” one of her assailants after escaping. Though Meg herself has not repressed these memories, the slow drip of details creates a parallel effect for readers. 


Meanwhile, Meg herself learns that her memories of the “man with playing-card eyes” and the woman she calls the queen of hearts date to the day her mother attempt to die by suicide (85). Though Meg seemingly forgot this event, her life bears its imprint—and not only because of her choice of work. Rather, the novel attributes her antisocial personality disorder to her traumatic childhood; her therapist explains that she cut herself off from empathy in order to survive. This emotional compartmentalization mirrors her fragmented memories and is one of The Lasting Effects of Trauma.


The novel’s framing of “sociopathy” also plays a key role in its interest in The Difficulty of Discerning Character. When Lutz diagnoses Meg with antisocial personality disorder, he acts as if the diagnosis reflects an innate and objective character trait. Lutz tells Meg that a group of independent psychologists found that she has “twenty of the twenty-three traits of sociopathy [and] half the psychopathy traits” (351). This description of the diagnostic process suggests that it is an unquestionable science and that Meg is calculably immoral (as antisocial personality disorder is popularly conceived of in ethical terms). He later tells Meg that her diagnosis will lead inexorably to her ostracization and encourages her to reject her better instincts and “come join the winning team”—that is, his criminal enterprise (402). Lutz’s words are self-serving but reflect the popular understanding of Meg’s diagnosis as corresponding to an innate darkness in her character that can be measured and identified but never removed.


Despite Lutz’s diagnosis, Meg proves to be an empathetic person who risks her life to save the other patients, underscoring that personal morality is not cut and dry. Moreover, as a result of her therapy and commitment to abstaining from drugs and alcohol, Meg learns to feel a wider range of emotions and to connect more meaningfully with others, things Lutz’s diagnosis suggests are impossible. During a therapy session, Meg is surprised to find herself crying, noting that she “can’t remember the last time that happened” (336). Meg also feels intense disappointment when the other patients express disappointment in her for lying to them. Meg’s therapist tells her that she “could be a hero, with the right mentality” but that she could “also be a very good villain. It comes down to the choices [she] make[s]” (424). This reflects the book’s ultimate argument about morality: that it is a series of ongoing decisions rather than a stable trait.


At the same time, the novel acknowledges that decisions themselves can be ethically ambiguous. When Meg and Cara are reunited at the end of the novel, Meg challenges Cara’s rosy-eyed view of Max. Although Cara’s chapters have characterized Max as an idealistic, charming love interest, Meg argues that he is a fraud. She tells Cara that Max was pursuing the fugu treatment “so he could be the big man changing the world” and that he “put everyone at risk and allied with a really shady criminal to do it” (418). Cara decides not to pursue a relationship with Max, suggesting that she comes to share Meg’s perspective. This shift in the novel’s characterization of Max suggests the difficulty of fully understanding a person’s moral character. At the same time, Cara follows in Max’s footsteps by developing her own fugu treatment. She notes that the treatment could save lives, but as this was also Max’s rationalization, the novel ultimately leaves it to the reader to decide what Cara’s motivations are, whether they are justifiable, and how they contribute to her overall characterization.


By contrast, the novel’s ending complicates Haley’s moral characterization by rationalizing some of her more harmful actions. Matthew Priest explains to Meg that Haley’s decision to “leave the family home so young was about self-preservation” rather than strict self-interest (372). This frames Haley’s behavior as a survival mechanism and, like the depiction of antisocial personality disorder as a product of environment, marks the intersection of the novel’s interest in morality and trauma. Nevertheless, Haley remains an ambiguous figure. Haley’s intervention to save Meg’s life hints at a capacity for self-sacrifice, but this is complicated by Meg’s skepticism of Haley’s claim that she did not know she was grounded when she seized the cable. Moreover, the final chapter reveals that Haley has decided to continue working with Lutz’s criminal connections to obtain a new identity, implying that she remains motivated largely by self-interest.

blurred text
blurred text
blurred text

Unlock all 54 pages of this Study Guide

Get in-depth, chapter-by-chapter summaries and analysis from our literary experts.

  • Grasp challenging concepts with clear, comprehensive explanations
  • Revisit key plot points and ideas without rereading the book
  • Share impressive insights in classes and book clubs