Fast X ending and post-credits scene, explained

Not every movie ending needs explanation, but judging by the theater-wide “Whaaaaa?” noises and subsequent buzz of bewildered conversations that greeted the end Fast X in the screening where I saw it, Vin Diesel’s latest Fast and Furious sequel might require a little more research than the average explosive action flick.

Buckle up and we’ll try to figure it out together, starting with the post-credits scene and then moving backwards to the final mystery shot of the film.

[Ed. note: End spoilers for Fast X ahead, obviously.]

What’s happening inside Fast X‘s post-credits scene?

Remember the big, loud public feud between Fast and Furious franchise star Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson, where Johnson said he was never going back to the series, and Diesel publicly tried to guilt him into returning, and Johnson said that was a jerk and there was “no chance” of him coming back? Well, he came back. His Fast and Furious character Luke Hobbs pops up in a post-credits cameo that makes it clear he’s on the hook for Rapid XIor Fast X: part two, or whatever the next movie in the series ends up being called. (I am hoping for Fast XXso the rumored third installment of this final arc may be Fast XXXwhich will both brutally tie the Fast and Furious franchise to Vin Diesel’s short-lived XXX film series, and seriously mess with Google’s rankings of pornographers who thought they’d have a field day with Fast X.)

The clip actually comes midway through the credits – there’s no end-credits clip, so after Hobbs appears, you can go home. Hobbs’ clip has that “shot much later than anything else in the film, on an unrelated set thrown together at the last minute” atmosphere known from films that are edited afterwards, such as Snakes in an airplane and that of Joss Whedon Justice League. In the scene, Hobbs follows some sort of law enforcement leading to an abandoned warehouse-like space.

Over there, Fast X villain Dante Reyes (Jason Momoa) has set up some monitors to show clips from previous Fast and Furious movies – and one clip that wasn’t in those movies at all. While Dante has spent the entire movie up to that point torturing Dom Toretto (Diesel) by attacking his Fast family for killing Dante’s father, Hernan Reyes, in Fast Five, his video clips reveal that Dom and co. took down Reyes, but in a surprise retcon, Hobbs actually fired the bullet that killed him.

Why is a State Department agent of the Diplomatic Security Service casually killing criminals in public in broad daylight? (Real, Real casually kill them. In the shot where Hobbs shoots Reyes, he doesn’t even break the stride – there’s no sign he even watched to the man he executed.) In Fast Five, Reyes had Hobbs’ men killed, so that makes it okay, I guess? This is a franchise where the family of heroes is shooting US agents en masse all the time for being on the wrong side this week. The point is, Dante explains, that Hobbs is next on the “torment then kill” revenge list. “Well, I’m not hard to find, dummy,” Hobbs grumbles in response. Expect it to be less hard to find Fast XXor whatever it is.

So are Dwayne Johnson and Vin Diesel friends now?

Photo: Universal Pictures

Unclear, given all the tension between them in the media over the past few years – but since half of Fast X‘s cast takes the film all over the world, there’s no reason why Hobbs should actually meet Dom Fast X: Part Two: The X-Eningat least not until the faaaamily barbecue that ends the series.

How does Fast X end?

So after the Vatican nearly explodes during one of Fast XIn the series’ biggest action sequences, Dom’s wife Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) is blamed, apprehended by Italian police, and sent to Super Duper Extra Fantasy Jail. (Seriously, the Agency seems to have designed this place with giant interlocking onyx boulders moving around on independent gimbals. The floating superhero containment system in the Marvel Cinematic Universe wasn’t this space age and stylized.)

When Letty tries to escape, after forcibly refusing help from previous Fast and Furious villain Cipher (Charlize Theron), she jumps out of a trapdoor to find herself in the frozen wastelands of Antarctica, with no sign of anything. civilization on the snowy horizon. It becomes clear that while she really wanted to bloody defeat Cipher and leave her alone in Antarctica, she will have to accept her help and work with her.

That’s a good thing, because Cipher has asked for help. Look, what should suddenly appear, but a submarine breaking through the ice! And who’s coming out of that submarine to say hello? Wait, isn’t she dead? Is there anyone who ever die permanently in the Fast and Furious movies?

Who’s in the submarine at the end of Fast X?

Photo: Universal Pictures

Fast-paced fans may recall that Gisele (Gal Gadot), an Agency operator working for Mr. Nobody worked (Kurt Russell, who does not appear in Fast Xbut is so teased that he is likely to resurface Fast Xer), died in 2013 and dramatically fell to her death to save the life of her love interest Han (Sung Kang) in the grand action climax of Fast and furious 6. Except she obviously didn’t die after all, because she’s back again, and now… apparently working with Cipher?

Looking back, going back and looking at that Fast and furious 6 scene, this is not the worst Fast & Furious death retcon – Gisele voluntarily allows herself to drop off a moving car during a high-speed chase, but she falls into unsettled darkness. And while it certainly looks like she was going to splash onto the tarmac of the airport where the scene takes place, we also don’t see anything to indicate she didn’t just land on a conveniently placed cushion. Also from Fast Xwe know that the Agency has some really ridiculously high tech laser robot spider healing devices that might have patched her up if it wasn’t for that pillow for her.

The “working with a previous Fast and Furious villain” isn’t all that unlikely either, as it’s one of the hallmarks of the Fast series. As acting Agency head Aimes (Alan Ritchson) laments Fast X, Dom’s faaaamily is a cult of sorts, and they keep converting old villains into new relatives, that is, if they don’t kill those villains. (Does this mean Dante will eventually bring his pastel fingernail polish, open-chested silk shirts, and shiny vinyl pants to a quick family barbecue once he merges with the cult? We can only hope so, just to see what Dom’s Abuelita (Rita Moreno) has to say about it.)

As for the obvious questions, how exactly did Gisele survive into her apparent death Fast and furious 6? Who does she actually work for? Is that somehow the same stolen nuclear submarine that the Fast family rescued in? The fate of the furious, back in 2017, though that submarine blew up hell At the end of the movie? Is this a universe where not even a submarine can permanently die? Those are all questions we have to wait for Speedy X2: X-Men Unitedeventually comes to a theater near you.