The Exact Moment Each Person Became Assimilated In The Thing

And so we come to one of the most discussed closing segments in all of film history: has Childs been assimilated come the end of The Thing?

The answer, as with nearly every other question posed for this film, isn't an easy one to pin down as there are multiple reasons for and against Child's being an imposter. In fact, we detailed this in full in its own separate video on ThatFilmTheory (which I totally recommend by the way).

However in short, the evidence for Childs being infected is as follows: He left his station to "chase Blair" which was observed by Nauls, despite this being the last thing a human would want to do given the dire situation. The room that he left also contained the generation which just so happened to go out moments after he left, and finally he's not wearing the same clothing as when we last saw him, implying he was assimilated and shredded his original clothes.

Then there are smaller details such as the limited steam coming from Childs when he speaks in the freezing cold, which makes this all seem pretty watertight right? Well, let's cement things even further with MacReady's final action of passing Childs a bottle to drink from.

If Childs was human, he'd know that infection could be spread through fluids like saliva and would refuse to accept the drink, which could mean that MacReady is laughing because he now knows the truth. Or it might be the fact that this isn't alcohol at all, but rather gasoline he's just passed to Childs.

After all, he was seen using molotovs to blow up the base just moments before, and we never see MacReady actually take a swig of the stuff. By passing this to Childs and witnessing him drink it, MacReady then laughs as again he knows he's truly alone.

So when would Childs have been infected? Well, if you look at the scene in which Childs is shown guarding the interior section of the outpost, there's an open door behind him. It's likely therefore that Blair-Thing snuck in, assimilated him, changed his clothes, and planned to let Childs freeze as another means of infecting humanity when they came to recover the bodies.