Troll 2 recap: Ending explained and what the post-credits scene means for Troll 3

Three years after the events of Troll, the sequel arrives with unusually high expectations.

The first film remains Netflix’s most viewed non-English movie worldwide, so the return to Norway’s mountains comes with an obvious sense of pressure. Troll 2 responds with a story that widens its mythology, reframes the history behind Olaf the Holy, and turns its final act into a commentary on sacrifice and inherited violence.

Spoiler warning:
This Troll 2 recap covers the full plot and the ending in detail. If you want to experience the twists for yourself, bookmark this page and return after watching the film.

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Before reading this Troll 2 recap, you can watch the official Netflix trailer here to get a quick sense of the film’s tone and setting:

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Troll 2 Recap: The Story So Far

The film opens with a memory from Nora’s childhood. Her father tells her the story of the troll massacre, tracing a time when humans and trolls lived side by side. That peace ended under King Olaf the Holy, whose attempt to Christianize Norway left no space for primordial beings. Trolls were driven into the sunlight and turned to stone. Children were killed along with adults. The tale ends abruptly when Nora’s mother sends her to bed, promising they will visit the Troll Wall one day.

The story jumps forward thirty years. Nora now lives alone in her late father’s cabin when Andreas arrives with classified news. He brings her to the Vemork Power Station, where Professor Moller and Wangel reveal a secret project built around a hibernating troll discovered centuries ago. The creature, named Jotun, shows signs of a pulse. His DNA has no match on Earth.

A109C008 Oskar Dahlsbakken Netflix — Troll 2. (L to R) Kim Falck as Andreas Isaksen, Ine Marie Wilmann as Nora Tidemann, Jon Ketil Johnsen as Professor Møller and Duc Mai-The as Professor Wangel in Troll 2. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2024

The project’s leader, Marion Rhadani, resents Nora’s involvement but needs results. While exploring the facility, Nora reaches the troll’s face and, almost instinctively, sings the lullaby her mother taught her. Jotun wakes, panics at his restraints, and destroys the lab. Casualties follow. Nora and Andreas escape with Rhadani, Siggy, and a small team.

Before leaving the lab, Professor Juton pockets a small fragment of the rock and takes it with him.

They report to the military base, where Major Kris returns from the first film. As officials debate protocol, Nora argues that trolls behave according to an internal logic rather than simple aggression. Rhadani pushes for containment, the Prime Minister orders termination.

Troll 2 recap: Netflix sequel ending explained and full story breakdown

A Second Troll Emerges

A military strike fails when the troll resists their light-based weapons. Amir, Kris’s friend, dies in the attack. Rhadani and Nora disagree again, but the evidence is clear: this troll behaves differently from the one in Oslo.

Searching for answers, the group travels to Dovre Mountains, where legend once spoke of a troll king lured into a death trap. Nora suspects the king’s child survived. She taps the rocks with a pattern from her father’s stories, and a younger troll emerges from the cave. She calls him Beautiful. The creature responds to her lullaby, calm and curious, and agrees to help.

Searching for answers, the group heads to the Dovre Mountains, where legend once spoke of a troll king lured into a death trap. Nora already encountered the Troll king’s young child, whom she calls Beautiful. She leads the team there and uses the familiar tapping pattern from her father’s stories to draw him out. Beautiful steps forward, wary at first, but calms when he hears Nora’s lullaby. She shows the others that he can understand her and convinces him to help them face the older troll.

What follows is brief but devastating. The two trolls clash on a frozen lake. Beautiful is thrown under the ice.

Nora watches helplessly, grieving a creature she had finally reached.

In the quiet that follows, she tells Rhadani that Beautiful never felt safe outside the cave. He feared the open landscape and only stepped out because she asked him to. The guilt settles quickly. She blames herself for pushing him into a world he wasn’t ready to face.

While studying the route on Nora’s map, Rhadani notices the troll’s path mirrors the old pilgrimage road to Nidaros. The pattern is exact. Nora understands what that means. The troll isn’t wandering or lashing out at random. He’s following a route tied to Saint Olaf, and the destination signals something closer to revenge than instinct.

A Hidden History Changes Everything

At Nidaros Cathedral, historian Esther Johanne Tiller guides them underground. Frescoes hide a crypt sealed off for centuries. Inside lies Olaf’s body, his silver sword, and the missing half of the troll law discovered earlier by the team.

Once the fragments are placed together, the meaning becomes clear. Olaf did not want to exterminate trolls. He meant to grant them a protected land in Jotunheimen, a pact broken when the church rejected his decision and killed him for it.

The troll marching toward Trondheim is not seeking Olaf’s remains. He wants revenge against the institution that betrayed him.

As the city evacuates, Nora pieces together a strategy. Trolls are weakened by sunlight and holy water. Rhadani and Kris rally the civilians, filling weapons and tanks with water blessed at the cathedral. Esther and Andreas prepare the bells to distract the troll when the time comes.

Troll 2 Ending Explained

The troll reaches Trondheim. The holy-water explosives slow him, but cannot stop him. As chaos grows, Beautiful arrives and attacks the older troll, fighting for Nora and the team. The moment is brief. The older troll overpowers him again.

Andreas identifies a final possibility: if they drop an explosive device directly into the troll’s mouth, the holy water may reach the heart-like system that keeps him alive. During the flight, the detonator slips from the helicopter. Someone must jump with the explosive and pull the grenade pin at the last second.

Andreas does it. He calls Siggy one last time, then leaps. The troll swallows him. The blast kills the creature from within. Beautiful rises once more, tears out the older troll’s heart.

The film closes on a mournful note. Esther debuts a new exhibition reexamining Olaf’s legacy, shaped by the team’s discovery in Trondheim. Back at Nora’s cabin, Kris, Rhadani, and Siggy gather with Andreas’s newborn while Nora reads from Andreas’s book. His narration lingers on loss and the way new life takes hold after it.

A soft thump pulls her outside. Beautiful walks past the cabin in full view, no longer afraid of the open world. He pauses for a moment, as if confirming that Nora is safe, then continues toward the mountains. The moment suggests he has found his way back to the only place where he can move freely, a place he can finally call home.

Troll 3: What the Post-Credits Scene Reveals

In the post-credits scene that sets up Troll 3, Professor Möller calls a military general to report that the specimen he smuggled out of the lab has begun to develop. He asks for more time, promising results.

The camera then cuts to a tiny troll enclosed in a glass containment box, a quiet but unmistakable signal that Troll 3 is already in motion.