Manipulated Dead
Gretchen Ross
Played by Jena Malone
The new girl at Middlesex Ridge, hiding from her violent stepfather under an assumed name. She becomes Donnie's girlfriend and, on the final night, the Ensurance Trap that guarantees he returns the Artifact.
Gretchen arrives in Ms Pomeroy's class on a rainy morning and is seated next to Donnie. "Donnie Darko - what kind of name is that? It's like some sort of superhero or something." Her mother has moved them to Middlesex to escape a stepfather who stabbed her.
She is Donnie's only real ally in the Tangent Universe. She goes to the cinema with him, meets him at the flooded school, and comes with him to Roberta Sparrow's house on the night of October 29. There, after Seth and Ricky attack, she is hit by Frank's car and killed.
Her death is the Ensurance Trap: it leaves Donnie with nothing left in the Tangent Universe worth staying for. In dying inside the Tangent Universe she also becomes a Manipulated Dead, though the universe ends before she can act. In the film's last scene, in the Primary Universe, she cycles past the Darko house, hears that a boy was killed by a jet engine, and waves to Rose Darko without knowing why.
What happens to this character.