[WARNING: this post contains spoilers for John Wick: Chapter 4]
John Wick: Chapter 4 was worth the wait. Following pandemic- and Top Gun: Maverick-related delays, the fourth film in the John Wick franchise is out — and it rules. “If this is it for John Wick,” Uproxx‘s Mike Ryan wrote in his review, “Chapter 4, improbably, goes out as easily the best of the series and a contender for one of the best pure action movies in recent history if not ever made. It’s so good I really kind of hope they end on this.”
There is a way forward for the franchise, however, and it’s in the credits.
There’s a lot that happens in John Wick: Chapter 4 (it’s nearly three hours long!), so let’s skip to the end. John (played by Keanu Reeves) challenges Marquis Vincent de Gramont (Bill Skarsgård) to a duel. If he wins, he’ll be free from all obligations of the High Table; if he loses, well, he’ll be dead. Both come true: John wins the duel, but he dies after being shot by Caine (the great Donnie Yen), who was enlisted by the cowardly Marquis to fight for him.
The end?
Not quite. There’s one loose thread: earlier in the film, Koji (Hiroyuki Sanada), the manager of the Osaka Continental Hotel, is killed by Caine, and his daughter, Akira (Rina Sawayama), vows revenge. She doesn’t appear again after the Osaka sequence until the end credits, when she approaches Caine — who can finally be reunited with his child — with the intent to kill him.
The end.
If the next John Wick-verse movie (besides Ballerina) is about Rina Sawayama trying to assassinate Donnie Yen, sign me up. Even without John Wick (RIP).