The Fast and Furious franchise isn’t known for sneaking surprises into the credits of its movies, but when it does, they pack a punch. The best example is in Fast Five when an after-credits scene revealed that Michelle Rodriguez’s character Letty had, somehow, returned from the grave. And now, it happens again with Fast X: another big reveal getting us ready for the future.
Before we talk about that though, now that we’re in full spoiler territory, let’s also talk about the final scene before the credits. The one where Cypher (Charlie Theron) and Letty (Rodriguez) have escaped their Antarctica black site and are rescued by a massive submarine, likely the one from The Fate of the Furious. That’s a surprise enough but the person at the helm is even more surprising: it’s Gisele, played by Gal Gadot. Gisele, of course, died in Fast and Furious 6, leading to Han’s (Sung Kang) retreat to Tokyo, as seen in Tokyo Drift.
How is Gisele not dead? Where has she been? Since she’s part of Cypher’s escape plan, is the implication that she has been working with Cypher and she is the one that faked her death, much like Mr. Nobody did for Han? Who knows! But it’s incredibly dumb and annoying to bring her back since it undercuts so much of Han’s journey in the subsequent films. Anyway, that happens, the credits role, and there’s one last tag.
In the actual end-credits scene, soldiers invade an abandoned building. As they walk around we see that it’s a theater and, on the stage, is an elaborate computer set up. Someone’s base of operations. One of the soldiers breaks away and walks up onto the stage where a phone is ringing. On the other end is Dante (Jason Momoa).
“Howdy, partner. Do you like surprises?” he starts. Dante tells the person that they took someone away from him. Dom was driving the car but “you pulled the trigger” he says, as we see footage from Fast Five of Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) killing a helpless Hernan Reyes, Dante’s father. “And now I’m gonna make you suffer,” Dante says. “The devil’s coming for you... lawman.” At which point the soldier’s mask comes off to reveal, yup, Luke Hobbs himself. “Well, I ain’t hard to find, you some-bitch,” Hobbs says, and crushes the phone.
Yes, after not appearing in the previous film, F9, Hobbs is back and for good reason. He did, in fact, have a lot to do with Dante’s father dying so it makes sense Dante would want revenge on him as well as Dom.
But the scene itself, as well as its placement here, raises so many questions. First and foremost, was this added last minute because Johnson is feeling a little franchise fatigue after Black Adam? Or was it always in the script like that? In the world of the movie, does Dante only want revenge on these two guys? Didn’t Brian and the rest of the crew play a big part? (Brian specifically, because the franchise has gone out of its way to keep the character alive despite Paul Walker’s passing.) Also, when is this happening? Since the scene is after the credits, the most logical explanation is that Dante’s plan for Dom has finished Dom and now he’s onto Hobbs. However, the movie left Dante in Portugal with Dom at the bottom of the dam. Dom obviously isn’t going to die— so, is this phone call from the car on his way home? Was Dante doing this simultaneously with the Fast X story? Or did we jump ahead into the narrative of the next movie?
Then, of course, are the questions of how the franchise is going to write Hobbs back in. He went off on his own adventures in Hobbs and Shaw and didn’t return for F9, but not because of anything that happened on screen. It was simply just an off-screen rivalry with Vin Diesel. But now, that’s over? What happened there?
As we said, the questions are endless and one assumes they’ll mostly be covered in Fast and Furious 11, whenever that happens. But I like Hobbs coming back much more than Gisele. Sure, fans probably prefer Gal Gadot to Dwayne Johnson at this point, but at least Hobbs was alive in this world. With the franchise coming to an end, he kind of had to be there in the last one. Gisele though? Come on. Her return basically means no one of consequence that has died in this franchise has ever stayed dead. Which, we guess, bodes well for John Cena’s Jakob. (RIP, for now.)
Did you see Fast X this weekend? What did you think of the big reveals? Let us know below.
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