The Meaning Of Noah’s Birthmark and 6 Other Reveals

The Meaning Of Noah’s Birthmark and 6 Other Reveals


Warning: This article contains MAJOR SPOILERS for Before episode 6 and all previous episodes.



Apple TV+’s Before episode 6 shows the increasingly deteriorating mental state of Eli, leading to multiple flashbacks that could explain central mysteries about Noah. The psychological thriller starring Billy Crystal continues to weave together strange events, focusing on the mysterious connection between Eli – a child psychologist – and his young patient Noah. Thus far, the show has failed to answer any of the big questions about what’s happening to Noah.


Before puts the viewer in the shoes of Eli, making them learn information at the same time as the child psychologist. However, the show has continued to provide new reveals that provide hints as to possible explanations. Some of the biggest reveals thus far take place in Before episode 6 when Eli tries to figure out more about Benjamin Walker, a man with a possible paranormal connection to Noah.


7 Noah Becomes Able To Move Again After Eli Cuts Into His Forehead To Remove The Worm

Eli’s Unconventional Treatment Gives Noah Back His Ability To Move And Speak

Eli cuts into Noah's forehead with a scalpel in Before episode 5

This episode of the Apple TV+ show picks up shortly after the ending of Before episode 5, which involved Eli hallucinating the worm under Noah’s skin and trying to cut it out with a scalpel. After the incident, Noah had to get six stitches on the forehead, but he regained the ability to move and talk. There are two main ways to interpret this outcome.


The most psychological explanation is that Noah experienced conversion disorder because he thought a worm was behind his eye. Even though Eli didn’t remove an actual worm, Noah perceived the incident as such, so he regained his abilities when the believed cause disappeared. This explanation doesn’t fully explain why Eli also hallucinated the worm, though, since Noah never specified what was behind his eye. Alternatively, something supernatural could be going on, though it’s unclear what precisely at this point in the story.

In either case, his recovery is positive, and it also allows other students who collapsed to recover from their psychogenic symptoms. As Eli explains in Before episode 6, with shared psychosis, the secondary individual’s symptoms usually clear up when the primary individual recovers.

6 Eli’s Job Is In Limbo After The Scalpel Incident

The Disciplinary Board Is Trying To Decide Whether Eli Should Be Fired

Eli (Billy Crystal) with a blank expression on his face in Before
Image via Apple TV+


Though Noah recovers because of Eli’s intervention, the child psychologist doesn’t get off from the situation scot-free. He still cut a gash into a child’s head with no preparation, approval, or explanation. Eli had to come up with a reason after the fact, leaving out the fact that he was hallucinating the worm, too. He later chalks his hallucination up to either exhaustion or transference countertransference when talking to Cleo, his assistant.

When asked to explain his actions, he tells them that Noah’s paralysis came from the belief that a worm was behind his eye. Even though there was nothing to take out, Eli did a radical treatment by tricking Noah into believing the worm was gone so that he wouldn’t be paralyzed anymore. The explanation is obviously flimsy and a lie, but his boss backs his explanation to the disciplinary board. However, she sends him home, providing two explanations.


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Firstly, he doesn’t look like he’s well, and she thinks his hand might be infected. Secondly, she tells him that she has to do damage control to see if he can even stay on Noah’s case, let alone keep his job. By the end of the episode, there’s still no answer about whether the child psychologist still has a job working at the hospital. The fact that he sneaks in to see Noah at the end of the episode despite being barred from seeing him until the decision is made could further his chances of getting fired.

5 Eli Starts Hearing Hallucinations Of Archaic Dutch

The Hallucinations Could Be Connected To Benjamin Walker

Eli looks up while wearing his glasses in Apple TV+'s Before
Image via Apple TV+


Throughout episode 6, Eli starts hearing shouting in his head in the 17th-century Dutch language that Noah spoke back in Before episode 1. He first hears the voices when he’s in the elevator, and they seem to distress him. However, he doesn’t tell anyone about the hallucinations. They pop back up again a few times in the episode.

Only one of the voices he heard is the sentence that Noah had said; however, the other voice is revealed by the end of the episode to be Benjamin Walker. Future episodes of Before will need to explain why exactly he’s taking on so many of Noah’s traits, like the worm hallucination, the visible breath, and the archaic Dutch.

None of these can be fully explained by the transference countertransference explanation that he’s posited thus far. Unfortunately, because the series has continued to drag on at a maddeningly slow pace, it’s hard to think that the show will offer any explanations that will feel satisfying to viewers who have continued to watch the Apple TV+ original show week after week.


4 Eli Tries To Get More Information About Benjamin Walker

Eli Speaks To Benjamin Walker’s Brother About The Man’s Past

Barbara talks to Eli in Apple TV+'s Before
Image via Apple TV+

In Before episode 5, Eli finally figured out what the “B.W.” on the photo of the farmhouse meant. The initials stood for Benjamin Walker, Lynn’s ex-boyfriend. After he’s sent home, Eli decides to research Benjamin to learn anything he can about the worms, the farmhouse, and his possible connection to Noah. Cleo finds information about his living relatives after searching for information at the request of Eli.

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The main character of Before goes to the home where his relatives lived last and meets Benjamin’s brother. The pair were estranged before his death, despite having a close relationship when they were younger. The brother explains that Benjamin stole his prized collection of baseball cards so that he could sell them for drugs, the incident that drove them apart.

During the visit, the brother confirms that Benjamin used to experience night terrors, but he doesn’t know anything about him having hallucinations. He also responds to Eli’s question about whether anyone spoke Dutch with the hilarious answer, “Dutch? Are you f*kin’ with me right now?” which implies that Noah’s 17th-century Dutch didn’t come from his mysterious connection to Benjamin Walker. He also asks his daughter Barbara while they are out ice skating if Lynn ever said anything about Benjamin to her, and she doesn’t know much other than the fact that the ex used to do drugs.

3 A Flashback Shows How Eli Met Benjamin And Lynn

Benjamin Died In The Hospital The Day That Eli And Lynn Met


Prior to Before episode 6, it seemed like Eli had never met Benjamin, let alone knew anything about Lynn’s ex. However, the show makes a shocking reveal about how Eli and Lynn became acquainted. Years earlier, Lynn brought Benjamin into the emergency room when he had a seizure while driving to photograph a farmhouse. When they arrived, Eli was the psychiatric doctor on shift. Because of Benjamin’s substance use disorder, it’s implied that either substance overdose or withdrawal from substances triggered his seizures and hallucinations.

Eli goes out to the waiting room to talk to Lynn, and she has an anxiety attack while explaining what happened. They emotionally connect after he helps her calm down, and he offers to buy her food from the vending machine. When Noah is called back into the emergency room, Benjamin is in crisis, and his heart is not beating. In one of the most unrealistic parts of this bizarre psychological thriller, nobody but Eli thinks of doing CPR on Benjamin. As such, Benjamin dies while Eli is doing chest compressions on him.


2 Denise Sees Eli’s Wall Of Papers About The Noah Conspiracy Theory

Denise’s Confidence In Eli Is Shattered After Seeing His Wall

Papers of eyes, worms, and Noah are on a wall in Apple TV+ Before

Throughout Before, Denise has granted Eli a lot of confidence, but she starts to worry about how he’s treating Noah after the scalpel incident. She asks him to assure him that he has a plan before he leaves the hospital early in Before episode 6. However, she decides to go to his office to speak to him about Noah’s treatment plan. When she gets there, only Cleo is present, and she says she can pass a message along. Before Denise gives Cleo a message, her eyes are drawn to the wall full of papers.

Because she sees Noah’s photo, she knows that this has to do with her foster son. She gets freaked out and decides she doesn’t want to talk to Eli anymore, rushing out of the office. Denise’s discovery of the conspiracy theory wall could very well factor into Eli’s job at the hospital. She has been a strong advocate for her son, and she could very well speak to the people in charge about getting Eli removed from Noah’s case.


1 Noah Realizes Noah’s Birthmark Matches A Wound On Benjamin’s Chest When He Died

Noah’s Birthmark Hints At A Possible Explanation For The Strange Events Of Before

A closeup of Benjamin's chest shows a mark in Apple TV+ Before

After Eli is flooded with the memory of Benjamin dying, he remembers that he cracked the patient’s ribs while administering CPR, flooding his chest with blood. The place, shape, and color will look familiar to Before’s viewers. Noah has always had a peculiar birthmark on his chest. Eli sneaks into Noah’s hospital room and lifts the child’s shirt to find that Benjamin’s injury is identical to Noah’s birthmark.

This revelation furthers the theory that Noah is Benjamin reincarnated. It’s a widespread belief among communities that believe in reincarnation that birthmarks match the injuries or the cause of a person dying in their past life. The idea is so widespread that scientists have even done studies on the phenomenon. The reincarnation story would explain why both Noah and Benjamin experienced hallucinations of worms under their skin in Before and why the little boy keeps drawing the farmhouse.




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