Mountainhead Ending Explained: Do Jeff and Venis Turn Against Randall?

HBO’s ‘Mountainhead’ begins as a reunion of four friends, Venis, Jeff, Randall, and Hugo, all of whom are going through some significant changes in their lives. A lot of that has to do with the fresh rollout of new tools in his social media app, Traam, which has already been causing trouble all over the world for becoming the hub for fake news. The film focuses on the quartet’s reaction to this massive development in the world, how they view the death and suffering of common people from their ivory tower, and most importantly, how they find the opportunity to elevate their status and power even further. It is a very bleak portrayal of what could be called the worst of humanity, but its realism makes it even more horrifying. SPOILERS AHEAD.

Mountainhead Plot Synopsis

Hugo has arranged a weekend at his mansion, called Mountainhead, to spend some time with his close friends, Venis, Jeff, and Randall. While the other three have already crossed into the billionaire category and don’t seem to be slowing down at all, Hugo is the only one still stuck in the category of “multimillionaire.” Meanwhile, Venis’ app, Traam, is causing chaos and violence worldwide, but he is not fazed by it. Or at least, he acts like he isn’t. Jeff, on the other hand, is revolted by what his friend’s work has done, but his conscience rests easier because he has created an AI tool called BILTER, which aims to help people differentiate fact from fiction.

Venis has his eyes on BILTER, but no matter how much he tries negotiating a deal with Jeff, he refuses to give in. This is partly because he knows that the worse things get because of Traam, the more BILTER will be in demand, and partly because he doesn’t like Venis very much. The tension between the duo is evident and fuelled further in the evening. Meanwhile, Randall has cancer, and he is looking for anything that will save him. Venis convinces him that if he gets Jeff’s creation, it will only take five years for him to find a way to transfer human consciousness into the cloud and cheat death.

Meanwhile, Traam’s new rollout causes even more spread of hate and misinformation. As almost all countries are plunged into chaos, the quartet starts discussing the possibility of orchestrating coups and taking over the control of the said countries, believing that they can do a much better job of running them because they have all the power and the resources. The discussion takes them from Haiti and St. Barts to Argentina (which Hugo is eyeing) and even the United States. Before that, however, they need a key piece to finish the puzzle, and it all comes down to Jeff.

Does Jeff Die? Why do the Others Want to Kill Him?

The more Venis, Randall, and Hugo talk about coups and whatnot, the more excited they are about the prospect of having unmitigated power. Randall even starts reaching out to his connections and sets up a meeting with the Argentinians. However, Jeff doesn’t seem too keen about the whole thing. At first, he takes it as a joke, but as his net work takes a sudden hike (making him wealthier than Randall) and the noose around Venis’ neck starts to tighten (courtesy of his board and the President of the country), he begins to think about orchestrating a coup of his own. He knows that Venis wants BILTER, but Jeff has no intention of selling it.

Instead, he believes his friend has lost his purpose in Traam and starts thinking about ousting him from the company. He takes this plan to Randall, considering that Randall is the eldest and most respected of all four of them and has the connections to influence the result against Venis. When he clarifies that he will never sell BILTER to Venis and instead wants to give it to the US government, he doesn’t realise how much Randall wants that deal to happen because he is so desperate to stay alive. Randall immediately seeks out Hugo and Venis and tells them about Jeff’s plan.

He knows they need to get Jeff out of the way, not just to prevent Venis from losing everything he has worked for, but also to get their hands on BILTER. The discussion starts with the possibility of killing Jeff in the metaphorical sense, but soon, the trio decides that the killing should be literal. Venis loves this idea because he can have what he wants. BILTER will solve many of his problems and make him even wealthier than his current net worth of more than 200 billion. Randall wants it because he thinks that getting Venis BILTER is the only way to ensure that the tech he needs is ready right on time to transfer his consciousness and save him from death.

They justify it by saying that Jeff is becoming a massive hurdle in the world’s progress, that their quest is more about making the world a better place and uplifting humanity, rather than their selfish causes. Hugo’s initial reluctance is completely cleared up when he is told they will use BILTER to enhance his lifestyle app, Slowzo, and help him cross into the coveted billionaires’ club. The trio makes several attempts to kill him, but fails. In the end, they trap Jeff in the sauna and throw gasoline through the door. They are ready to burn him alive when he pleads with them to negotiate a deal, following which the trio calms down a bit and decides to have the contract made up and signed immediately. To keep himself from dying, Jeff agrees to all of it.

Does Jeff Sign Over BILTER to Venis? Do They Patch Up?

Jeff’s decision to make a deal with Venis, Randall, and Hugo saves his life, giving the three of them exactly what they want. The next morning, after an awkward conversation at breakfast, where the other three don’t even pretend to be sorry for their actions, the weekend comes to an end, and the four friends are ready to say their goodbyes. Jeff is the first one out of the house and is glad to be reunited with his girlfriend, Hester, whom he thought was going to have sex with someone else at the sex party that he was attending in Mexico. Their conversation about his invasion of her privacy and what the future holds for them is cut short by Venis, who finally tries to be civil to his friend.

Jeff brushes off his apology, saying that the weekend was fun, even though his closest friends almost killed him. As for the deal, he assures Venis that he will find a way to wriggle out of it no matter how long it takes. And then he will come after everything Venis has got. His frenemy is not fazed by this, but he does want to avoid causing any more trouble, so he tries to negotiate with him. Jeff clarifies that even if he agrees to the discussion, he will not get involved if Randall is a part of it. And, unsurprisingly, it doesn’t take Venis one moment to agree to send Randall “out to pasture” if it means he and Jeff will finally see eye to eye.

At the same time, Randall passes by, and Venis tries to assure him by saying that he and Jeff aren’t talk about anything in particular, but he can see that the ice between Venis and Jeff has thawed and they are making plans behind his back. As he drives away from Mountainhead, the expression on his face reveals that he knows what is going to happen next. Jeff and Venis had been the major players with Traam and BILTER since the beginning, and with them finding a common ground, Randall is redundant. He thought that by getting Venis BILTER, he would ensure his survival, but now that Venis and Jeff seem to have shaken hands, it won’t take long for them to make their move. It is his turn to fight for his life now.

As for the duo being on shockingly good terms again, it is clear that this is not the first time they have tried to hurt each other, and it won’t be the last either. Venis knows that Jeff is not joking about coming for him, but rather than being worried about the threat, he welcomes the challenges because it validates their friendship in some weird way. Perhaps Jeff doesn’t hold any bad blood against his friend because he knows that if the places had been reversed, he would have done the same thing. And he will not hold back when the time comes to put Venis in the ground for good, metaphorically or even literally.

Why does Hugo Smile?

Of the four friends, Hugo is clearly the odd one out. To begin with, he is just as multimillionaire at the beginning of the film, while the other three are billionaires. The three of them have something new on the horizon, with Traam and BILTER and the coups and whatnot, but Hugo is struggling to keep his lifestyle app afloat and worries that soon, he will lose his status as a multimillionaire as well. It seems that he has nothing new, exciting, and purposeful left in his life, so rather than resigning himself to the fringes, he agrees to whatever plans the other three, especially Randall, come up with.

While he is intimidated by their plans and ambitions, he also knows that this is the only way he can keep up with them, by becoming their pawn, if that means he will get to be on the same board as them. So, he agrees to help topple governments, help kill one of his closest friends, and help make the world an even worse place, but that doesn’t mean it won’t weigh on his conscience. Jeff isn’t the only one horrified by the worsening turn of events out there. Jeff expresses his concerns over it, too, but no one really pays attention to what he thinks. Similarly, it takes a bit of time for him to develop a stomach for murder.

He is horrified when Venis and Randall step back, leaving him to push Jeff off the stairs, but this only confirms that they see him as a means to an end, someone to do the dirty work for them. Eventually, when Jeff signs the deal, Hugo, too, profits from it significantly. To begin with, it makes him a billionaire as his lifestyle app is bought out for two billion, which he had been dying to have. At the same time, the thing with the Argentinians is also on the move, and it seems he might get something out of that, too, no matter if he succeeds or fails at the task.

His smile at the end reflects his conflicting emotions. He is happy about how much things have progressed for him in the span of a day, but he must also consider what it took to get there and what it means for him as a person. Perhaps, he has finally realised why he couldn’t crack the billionaire-code all this while. He was too tame, too hesitant to do what needed to be done, even if it meant turning into a murderer. Perhaps, he had been holding on to his fractured sense of morality for too long. But now, things are much clearer, and now that he is finally in the billionaires’ club, he will not only learn their language but become fluent in it, no matter what it takes and what it turns him into.