What ‘John Wick: Chapter 4’ end-credits scene means for a could-be sequel

contains the following significant spoilers for John Wick: Chapter 4. You have been warned!

When the credits hit phenomenal John Wick: Chapter 4an unspoken question hung in the air of my theater: “Did they really just kill John Wick?”

We’d just seen the assassin extraordinaire (played by Keanu Reeves) win his freedom from the high table by killing the Marquis de Gramont (Bill Skarsgård) in a duel. But it wasn’t long before he collapsed, bleeding, on the steps of the Sacré-Coeur Basilica in Paris. From there, the film switches to an image of his tombstone. The Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne) and Winston (Ian McShane) mourn his death. They even have John’s Pitbull with them so it looks like he’s gone forever. Still, in this era of groundbreaking post-credits sequences, there’s always hope that a beloved character will return after the film ends – but that’s not the case John Wick: Chapter 4. Instead of getting mad that John is coming back John Wick: Chapter 5the post-credits scene hints at something else: a new rivalry.

We see John’s old friend and adversary Caine (Donnie Yen) arrive at a crowded Sacré-Coeur with a bouquet of flowers. He’s there to see his daughter, the violinist, who the High Table threatened to kill if Caine didn’t follow their instructions. Like John, Caine is freed from the high table after the duel, so he can finally approach his daughter without fear. However, there is a loose end that he hasn’t accounted for.

During his hunt for John, Caine killed Shimazu (Hiroyuki Sanada), the manager of the Osaka Continental. However, he left Shimazu’s daughter Akira (Rina Sawayama) alive. Before breaking up with John, she made it very clear that either he would kill Caine or she would.

The post-credits scene shows Akira preparing to fulfill that promise as she makes her way through the crowds of Sacré-Coeur toward Caine, box cutter in hand. We switch to black shortly after Akira pulls out the blade, but the meaning is clear: just like John Wick in his first film, she’s now out on a quest for revenge.

So what happens next? Can Akira surprise Caine in the crowd? Will this spawn a John Wick Spinoff focused on Caine and Akira related or similar to the upcoming film ballerina and TV series The Continental?

While it doesn’t have a massive franchise-wide connotation, this post-credits scene reinforces one of the key themes of John Wick: Chapter 4: Anyone who leads the life of an assassin can never really be free. Both John and Caine are pulled out of supposed retirement and forced into a bloody cycle of revenge. Caine calls the two “damned,” while John is repeatedly told that the only end of his path – and the only way for him to find freedom – is death.

Sure, that end credits scene could be a sequel (I wouldn’t say no to more Yen and Sawayama), but it’s also a powerful reminder of the brutality of life in John Wick’s world. Like Caine, you may think you’re free and clear — but that’s never the case.