The Maze Runner recap

Thomas wakes in a rising metal box with no memory but his name and is deposited in the Glade, a walled enclosure at the heart of an enormous, shifting Maze. Dozens of boys live there, each arriving the same way once a month for two years, surviving by farming the Glade and sending Runners to map the Maze, whose walls close at night and whose monstrous mechanical Grievers kill anyone caught outside. The day after Thomas arrives, a girl, Teresa, is delivered with a warning that she is the last newcomer, and soon everything changes: supplies stop, the walls no longer close, and the Grievers attack nightly. Thomas becomes a Runner, deliberately undergoes a Griever sting to recover fragments of memory, and, with Teresa, realizes the Maze is an engineered experiment hiding a code. The Gladers decode the Maze walls' movements into a sequence that can shut the Grievers down and open an exit. Fighting through the Maze at great cost, they escape into a facility, where Chuck is killed before armed rescuers appear to take the survivors away. A closing memo reveals it was all a controlled trial by an organization called WICKED, and that a second phase is beginning.

Thomas arrives in the Glade with no memory but his name, hauled up in a metal box into a walled compound full of teenage boys who all came the same way. He learns the harsh rules of their society: they farm and maintain the Glade, they never speak of the outside they cannot remember, and a huge Maze surrounds them. Its towering walls shift and close each night, and monstrous mechanical creatures called Grievers make it deadly after dark. Only the Runners are allowed into the Maze, mapping it by day in search of an exit no one has ever found. Bewildered and full of questions, Thomas feels an immediate pull toward the Maze and toward becoming a Runner, even as the hostile Gally treats him as a threat.

The day after Thomas arrives, the box delivers something unheard of: a girl, Teresa, carrying a note warning that she is the last newcomer, before she falls into a coma. Almost at once the Glade's fragile order collapses. Supplies stop coming, the sky changes, and the Maze walls no longer close at night, leaving the Gladers exposed to the Grievers, which begin attacking and taking a boy each night. When Alby and Minho are trapped in the Maze at nightfall, Thomas breaks the Glade's most sacred rule and goes in to help them, surviving the night and killing a Griever, an unprecedented feat that marks him as both a hope and a suspect among the others.

Thomas becomes a Runner and throws himself into understanding the Maze. He deliberately allows a Griever to sting him so he can undergo the painful Changing, which returns fragments of memory and reveals that the Maze is a deliberate experiment created by an organization, and that he and Teresa were somehow involved in it before losing their memories. Thomas and Teresa discover they can communicate mind to mind and begin piecing together clues, coming to believe that the Maze itself conceals a hidden code. As the Grievers keep killing and the Gladers grow desperate, the pair race to unlock the secret before the community is wiped out.

Working from the Runners' maps, Thomas and Teresa realize that the movements of the Maze walls spell out a series of words, a code hidden in plain sight. They conclude that the code can be entered at the Griever Hole, a passage the Grievers use, to shut the creatures down and open a way out of the Maze at last. With the Grievers now killing them nightly and no supplies left, the Gladers accept that their only chance is a mass escape through the Maze to the Hole, and they begin preparing for a desperate, likely deadly run for freedom.

The Gladers fight their way through the Maze to the Griever Hole, losing many along the way. Thomas enters the code and the survivors break into a facility, where they confront the people running the experiment. A mind-controlled Gally throws a knife at Thomas, and Chuck dies shielding him, a loss that shatters Thomas. Then armed rescuers storm in, take the survivors from the facility, and bring them to a dormitory that seems safe, telling them their ordeal is over. But a closing memo among the organizers reveals the truth: the entire Maze was a controlled trial run by an organization called WICKED, the rescue was staged, and the survivors are simply being moved into a second phase. Their escape is not freedom but the transition to the next stage of a larger, hidden design.

Having decoded the Maze, the Gladers make a desperate run for the Griever Hole, where the code can be entered to shut down the creatures and open a way out. Many die in the fighting through the Maze. Thomas enters the code and the survivors break into a facility behind it, where they confront staff and a woman overseeing them. A mind-controlled Gally hurls a knife at Thomas, and Chuck throws himself in front of it and is killed, devastating Thomas. Then armed people storm in, seemingly rescuers, and take the survivors away to a dormitory that appears safe, telling them the ordeal is over. But a final document, a memo among the organizers, reveals that the entire Maze was a controlled experiment run by a group called WICKED, that the rescue is staged, and that the survivors are being moved into a second phase of trials. The escape from the Maze is not freedom but the end of one test and the start of another, leaving Thomas and the others still trapped inside a larger design they do not understand.