Mockingjay recap

Sheltering in the underground District 13, a traumatized Katniss agrees to become the Mockingjay, the symbol of the rebellion, in exchange for concessions including the rescue of Peeta. Filmed propaganda spots rally the districts as the war spreads. When Peeta and other captives are freed from the Capitol, Peeta returns brainwashed to kill Katniss, and only slowly recovers. The rebels win district after district and finally push into the Capitol. Katniss joins a squad meant to film the advance, but it is drawn into the lethal, booby-trapped streets and sewers, where many die, including Finnick. Reaching President Snow's mansion amid a crowd of Capitol children, Katniss watches parachute bombs kill the children and the rebel medics who rush in, among them her sister Prim. Badly burned, she survives; the Capitol falls and Snow is captured. Katniss comes to believe President Coin engineered that final bombing to seize power. Given the chance to execute Snow, she kills Coin instead. Snow dies in the chaos, Katniss is judged unfit and sent home, and years later she and Peeta build a quiet life together in the ruins of District 12.

Katniss Everdeen twice survived the Capitol's Hunger Games. In the first, she volunteered in place of her sister Prim, was mentored by Haymitch, and won alongside Peeta Mellark by threatening a double suicide with poison berries, an act that embarrassed President Snow and stirred rebellion across the districts. Forced back into a special Quarter Quell fought among past victors, she and Peeta struggled through a booby-trapped arena until Katniss destroyed its force field with a wire-wrapped arrow. She was pulled from the arena by a secret rebel plot led by the Head Gamemaker Plutarch Heavensbee and her mentor Haymitch: District 13, long believed wiped out, had survived underground and was leading an uprising. Katniss escaped, but Peeta was captured by the Capitol, and District 12 was firebombed into rubble in retaliation.

Katniss, injured and grieving, adjusts to life in the strict, regimented District 13 under President Coin. She visits the ashes of District 12 and confronts how completely her home was destroyed. Coin and Plutarch want her to become the Mockingjay, the living symbol of the rebellion, and after much resistance she agrees, on the condition that Peeta and the other captured victors be rescued and pardoned. Peeta, meanwhile, appears on Capitol broadcasts calling for a ceasefire, and Katniss cannot tell whether he is a traitor or a hostage. The rebels begin filming propaganda spots to rally the districts, and a Capitol bombing of a hospital full of wounded drives Katniss to speak out with real fury, giving the rebellion its first powerful footage.

The war spreads as district after district turns against the Capitol, and Katniss's broadcasts fuel the uprising. A daring raid frees Peeta and the other captive victors from the Capitol, but Peeta returns transformed: the Capitol has tortured and conditioned him to see Katniss as a deadly enemy, and he tries to kill her. His slow, uncertain recovery becomes a constant grief. Finnick, steadied by the rescue of Annie Cresta, marries her in District 13. The rebels press a hard campaign against strongly loyal District 2, capturing its mountain stronghold at great cost, which brings the Capitol itself within reach as the final push nears.

With the Capitol nearly encircled, Katniss talks her way into the invasion, ostensibly to film propaganda with a special squad rather than fight on the front line. The Capitol's streets have been rigged with deadly traps, the same kind used in the arenas, mapped on a device the squad must navigate. As they advance, the mission turns lethal: their trusted commander Boggs is killed by a trap, and Katniss, half-authorized at best, effectively takes the squad deeper toward Snow's mansion. An unstable Peeta is placed with the unit, and the group is forced underground into the sewers, where the danger only grows and the line between filming the war and fighting it disappears.

In the Capitol's sewers the squad is ambushed by monstrous mutts, and Finnick is among those killed. The survivors reach the surface, where Katniss presses toward Snow's mansion, now ringed by a crowd of Capitol children being used as a shield. Parachutes fall and detonate among the children, and when rebel medics rush in, a second blast kills them too, including Katniss's sister Prim. Katniss is badly burned and shattered. The Capitol falls and Snow is captured. He insists the final bombing was a rebel act, and Katniss becomes convinced that President Coin ordered it to seize power. When Coin proposes one last Hunger Games and Katniss is allowed to execute Snow, she kills Coin instead. Snow dies in the chaos. Judged unfit rather than tried, Katniss returns to a ruined District 12, and in time she and Peeta rebuild a fragile life together.

The rebellion takes the Capitol, but at the gates of President Snow's mansion a wave of parachute bombs kills a crowd of Capitol children and then the rebel medics who run to help, among them Katniss's sister Prim. Katniss is gravely burned and loses the person she had fought the whole war to protect. Snow, captured and awaiting execution, tells her the lethal bombing was not his but a rebel move, and Katniss becomes convinced that President Coin ordered it to break the Capitol's will and clear her own path to power. When Coin proposes a final Hunger Games using Capitol children and Katniss is granted the right to execute Snow, Katniss instead turns her arrow on Coin and kills her. Snow dies in the uproar that follows. Judged mentally unfit rather than tried, Katniss is returned to the ravaged District 12. Gale, whose ruthless tactics she can no longer separate from Prim's death, takes a post far away, and their friendship ends. Slowly, Peeta returns to her, and years later the two have married and are raising children, at peace but permanently marked by all they survived.