Just Go With It Ending Explained: What Happens With Danny & Katherine

Adam Sandler’s character in Just Go with It gets the girl in the end, though not the one he was initially going for. The 2011 romantic comedy stars Sandler as Danny, a plastic surgeon whose heart was broken when he found out his fiance was cheating on their wedding day. He called the whole thing off, but this ultimately led to his realization that wearing a wedding ring and pretending to be stuck in a horrible marriage made it easier to pick up girls. Danny used this method for decades until he met the much younger Palmer (Brooklyn Decker) and fell in love.

After spending a fantastic night with Palmer on the beach in Just Go with It, Danny confessed the seriousness of his feelings. However, when Palmer found Danny’s fake wedding ring in his pants pocket, things quickly fell apart. In a panic, Danny told Palmer that he was married but that he was going through a divorce. When Palmer demanded proof, the big outrageous deception of Just Go with It‘s characters took off. Danny convinced his assistant Katherine (Jennifer Aniston) and her kids to pose as his fake family on a vacation to Hawaii, all for the sake of covering his lie. However, the trip didn’t turn out as he had expected.

Why Danny Chose Katherine Over Palmer In Just Go With It’s Ending

Danny Chose To Be Honest With Himself In The End

Once Palmer was wholly convinced that Katherine was Danny’s ex-wife Devlin, she was all set to get married. However, by this point, Danny had already begun to have second thoughts. He and Katherine had spent a night out together pretending to be husband and wife for the sake of Katherine’s old college rival, the real Devlin, and they wound up having a great time. The chemistry was palpable, and the pair even came close to a real kiss. However, just as Danny was about to go to Katherine’s room to confess his feelings, Plamer returned to the hotel and got in the way.

Unlike in most romantic comedies, the “wrong” girl in Just Go with It wasn’t a horrible human being. Palmer was genuinely sweet and kind, if not a little too young and naive. This places Danny in a tough position. He had convinced himself that he wanted to be with Palmer and had put a lot of effort into making it happen. However, Danny realized that Katherine was the person he could be himself around. He didn’t have to create a complex lie for her to accept him. So, Danny called off his wedding with Palmer at the end of Just Go with It and wound up marrying Katherine instead.

Danny & Katherine’s Full Deception In Just Go With It Explained

It Was An Outrageous & Complicated Plan

The focal point of this Adam Sandler movie is the complex deception that Danny and Katherine constructed. Danny couldn’t admit to Palmer that he used a fake wedding ring to pick up girls, and Palmer refused to date him unless she knew for certain that he was no longer married. So, Danny got Katherine all dressed up and had her pretend to be his ex-wife Devlin, who was named after the woman Katherine had been frienemies with in college. Katherine and Palmer were only supposed to have a single meeting, but when Danny’s assistant unthinkingly answered a call from her daughter, the lie was forced to grow.

Since Danny and “Devlin” now had kids together, it was no longer a simple matter of Katherine pretending to be his wife and then disappearing. After the Hawaii vacation, Danny would have to pretend that his family—plus Nick Swardson’s Eddie—was killed in some accident. It was almost too much for Katherine, but she changed her tune once she ran into the real Devlin (Nicole Kidman) in Hawaii. Not wanting to admit that she was a divorced single mom, Katherine pretended that Danny was her husband. The lie was doubled up, and everyone was forced to just go with it.

Katherine & Devlin’s Final Confessions Explained

Devlin Ended Up Being Important To Katherine’s Finding Happiness

The big lie Katherine and Danny had constructed first came unraveled during the former’s morning conversation with Devlin. Katherine had been lying to this woman since college because the pair was so competitive with one another. However, the pain over Danny marrying Palmer inspired Katherine to be honest with her old nemesis for the first time. She told Devlin that she and Danny weren’t really married while also confessing that she hadn’t had as high a GPA in college as she had once claimed. Katherine even told Devlin that she had been telling her kids to name their poop after the woman for years.

Katherine’s confession went surprisingly well, and Devlin wound up confessing a few secrets of her own. She admitted that her husband, played by Dave Matthews, was actually gay, they were getting a divorce, and he had not, in fact, invented the iPod. The realization that they had both been needlessly competitive and deceptive was hugely cathartic for Katherine and Devlin. Still, the greater consequence of this moment was that Danny had overheard Katherine admit her true feelings for him, and this allowed the romantic-comedy pair in Just Go with It to be honest with one another as well.

Andy Roddick’s Cameo & Palmer Romance Twist Explained

Palmer Found The Perfect Person After All

We never see the moment in Just Go with It when Danny tells Palmer that he isn’t going to marry her, but she seems to have taken it well. Danny told Katherine that Palmer had taken the kids to get ice cream immediately after, so it’s presumed that the sweet woman had completely understood that Danny just wasn’t over his ex-wife. At the end of the movie, Sandler’s voice-over narration explained that Palmer met a Tennis pro on the flight home who was just as much an NSYNC fan as her. The accompanying scene reveals that this was none other than real-world professional tennis player Andy Roddick.

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Anny Roddick happens to be Brooklyn Decker’s husband, so his cameo in Just Go with It was a fun nod to the couple’s relationship. This also works perfectly for Decker’s character since Palmer was never a malicious or unlikable person. She deserved love and really didn’t deserve all the lies and manipulation that she unknowingly got all caught up in. Thankfully, Just Go with It ensured that Palmer got her happily ever after as well.

Where Each Character In Just Go With It Ended Up

Everyone Ended Up Exactly Where They Should Have

The ending of Just Go with It revealed that everyone had a happy ending. It looked as if Katherine and Danny continued their vacation for a while, where Michael (Griffin Cluck) got his wish to swim with dolphins (something he was capable of since Danny had taught him to swim earlier in the film). It was also revealed that Maggie (played by Bailee Madison) got her wish of getting a three-week acting class (with the actual Dolph Lundgren).

Katherine and Danny eventually got married, and the final scenes of Just Go with It show everyone, including members of Danny’s family his ex-fiance had mocked, dancing happily at the reception. In the final moments of Just Go with It, Sandler’s voiceover notes that, from then on, when he tells people about his wife, he won’t have to say all the horrible things that he used to. He could finally be honest with himself and others about his life and who he loves.

Just Go with It is a romantic comedy starring Adam Sandler and Jennifer Anniston that follows a plastic surgeon named Danny Maccabee and his office manager, Katherine Murphy. Danny, who uses his first failed marriage as a cover to meet new women, runs into one that infatuates him. After accidentally lying about his marital status, he jeopardizes his chances with the new woman. To fix it, he enlists the help of his office manager to pretend to be his wife in the midst of a divorce – opening the door for some romantic hijinks.

Director

Dennis Dugan

Release Date

February 11, 2011

Distributor(s)

Columbia Pictures , Sony

Writers

Dennis Dugan

Runtime

117minutes

Budget

$80 million

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