Arka Mukhopadhyay
One way or another, death reclaims everyone. If you love watching people die in the most unexpected of ways, there is hardly a better choice than the ‘Final Destination’ movie franchise. David R. Ellis of ‘Snakes on a Plane’ fame reared 2009 movie ‘The Final Destination,’ the fourth supernatural horror venture from the vastly popular series. The movie follows a group of friends who escape a near-death experience, but would they be able to defy death after all? If you are having difficulty putting the finale together, let us recollect the fatal events that unfold in the penultimate moments. SPOILERS AHEAD.
The Final Destination Plot Synopsis
Hunt, Janet, Lori, and Nick catch a racing event at McKinley Speedway. Nick has a vision of a spectacular massacre. Although Hunt wants to see some crashing, they rush out of the venue when Nick rightly predicts a few things — the courteous man with the cowboy hat, the mother who gives her children tampon earplugs, and the yelling redneck. At night, Nick dreams about a cross, a horseshoe, a ball, and chains. Lori assures him that she is by his side.
Meanwhile, Carter, the racist man (whose wife dies in the crash), takes his tow truck to the house of George, the security guard, hoping to exact vengeance. However, the horseshoe falls on the gear, the music resumes, and the vehicle starts by itself. The redneck trips on the ball and chain, and as the beer can empties on him, his body is set ablaze. He gets dragged down the street until a visceral explosion leads to the end of him.
Nick has another vision, and little does he know that it concerns Samantha, the mother of the twins. After sending her menacing kids off to a video game parlor, Samantha goes to get a haircut. She meets her doom instead. After another premonition, Nick calls Hunt and Janet to his house. Death reclaims all, but they can perhaps break the chain if they stop it in the middle.
The Final Destination Ending: What Is the Chain of Death?
Nick and Lori trespass at the massacre scene late at night, and Nick tries to remember the order of deaths in his vision. George discovers them, and they divulge everything about Nick’s sporadic visions. According to Nick’s research (and as the other movies in the series have revealed), those fated to die will die in the same chronological order. This fatality is dubbed as the Chain of Death. Evading death is never easy, but maybe they can stop the chain if Nick can save the next person in line from dying.
Next up in line is the car mechanic, and although they do not know their name, they discover his workplace from the jacket — Grandstate Customs. However, the mechanic does not believe in such mumbo jumbo, until a piece of broken machinery splits his body through the fence. After the incident, George advises Nick and Lori to inform their friends. Hunt hooks up with a girl by the pool, while Janet has a bad start to a day when a bird poops on her car’s front window. Nick has two simultaneous visions, both concerning coins and water.
Janet goes to a car wash to solve the poop problem, and her car stops midway after a wire disconnects by itself. However, Lori and George are fast enough to reach the scene. Lori pulls Janet out of the car right before a pipe pierces the front windshield. Nick disperses from the group in his hunt for Hunt, but it is perhaps too late by the time he arrives at the pool. Hunt’s search for the dropped coin makes his bum fit like a cork on the broken sluice. The pressure reaches an extreme, and he explodes through the filter pressure gauge. As Janet lives, the friends think they have broken the chain, but George is not hopeful.
Is George Dead or Alive?
George, who has lost his wife and kid in the car crash, has no qualms about dying. Nick and Lori stop by George’s house to discover him hanging from the ceiling. Thankfully, as they rescue George in the nick of time, he is still alive. Does he survive death, or is it not his turn to die? Nick discovers the next victim, Jonathan Groves, the chivalrous cowboy, is still alive from the news.
Meanwhile, Lori wanted to see the movie ‘Love Lays Dying’ with Nick, but now she is not picking up the phone. However, she is safe for the time being, shopping with Janet. While Nick and George are crossing the road, George has a deja vu. Meanwhile, Nick has a deja vu of his own. George dies in an accident with an ambulance in the vision, while Nick gets another premonition about an explosion in a movie theatre.
In the vision, Nick can rescue Lori right before the explosion, while Janet dies in the theatre. The subsequent explosions wreck most of the shopping mall, and the elevator collapses as they walk down. Lori goes under the belt. He wakes up from the premonition to warn George of the imminent accident, but it is too late. George is dead from the car accident, just like in Nick’s visions.
How Does Nick Stop The Mall Fire? Is Nick Dead or Alive?
Startled by George’s death, Nick rushes to the mall and takes the fire out from behind the movie screen, but a piece of smoldering ash sets another heap of sand on fire. Meanwhile, a nail gun goes off by itself, crucifying Nick on the opposite wall. It also pores holes in the explosive substance sitting next to him. However, he manages to get the fire close to the fire sprinkler system, which goes off before the fire can escalate out of control. With his impeccable presence of mind, Nick stops the fire and saves the moviegoers.
However, in a movie that rests its case on fatality, the fire was not meant to happen, perhaps. Following the daring success, Nick becomes a local hero. But in the finale, Nick, Lori, and Janet meet their doom, and death settles the scores. While they are sipping their coffee at Death by Caffeine, (the same coffee shop the friends visit after the McKinley Speedway disaster) the steel frame outside the café collapses, urging a truck to lose control and crash into the friends. As the final animated sequence reveals, all three die in the crash.
Who is the Homeless Man? Is He Dead or Alive?
Shortly before their visceral death, Nick, Janet, and Lori meet a homeless person as they enter Death By Caffeine. The person greets Nick and congratulates him on stopping the fire at the mall. He is the same homeless person to whom Janet gives a tip earlier on her way to the car wash. He does not like the penny and throws it onto the road.
Not much is divulged about the person in the movie, other than that he roams with his pet Chihuahua dog, Browning. His final fate also remains unknown. It is not clear whether he is in the coffee shop during the crash. However, he is not part of the chain to begin with, and one should hope that he is still alive.
Read More: Final Destination 3 Ending, Explained
