This article contains spoilers for Fast X.
This Fast and Furious installment seemed to have even more lore than usual. Can we start at the beginning? Who is Reyes, the father of Jason Momoa’s character? And when did that safe scene happen in the franchise?
The background to Fast X took place in Fast Five, which premiered more than a decade ago, in 2011, so I wouldn’t blame you for forgetting. In F5, Dom (Vin Diesel), Brian (Paul Walker), and Mia (Jordana Brewster)—Dom’s sister and Brian’s wife—found themselves in Rio de Janeiro, where they crossed paths with Hernan Reyes, a drug lord who owned the city. Dom’s crew happened upon information about Reyes’ stash houses, which they decided to rob as a means of starting a new life. (They were on the run after the events of the previous films.) In the film’s climax, the crew ripped the vault out of the station wall and drove it, quite destructively, around Rio before making off with the cash. F5 is also when Dom’s crew gained the allyship of federal agent Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and Brazilian patrol officer Elena Neves (Elsa Pataky). Hobbs shot Reyes, killing him as vengeance for Reyes’ earlier act of ordering a hit on Hobbs’ team.
Fast X retcons Fast Five by revealing that Reyes had a son, Dante Reyes (Jason Momoa), who is hellbent on seeking revenge for the death of his father. He’s also a flamboyant psychopath, which is fun.
Right, Elena! What happened with her again?
As previously noted, Dom met Elena in Fast Five, and the two soon began a romantic relationship. To understand this, it’s important to remember that at the time, Dom’s wife, Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), was presumed dead from a car crash in the fourth film, Fast & Furious.
Hold on—these film titles are killing me!
Sorry, sorry. They are ridiculous, it’s true. Here they are in order, with no comprehensible set format, structure, or pattern: The Fast and the Furious, 2 Fast 2 Furious, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Fast & Furious, Fast Five, Fast & Furious 6, Furious 7, The Fate of the Furious, F9, and now Fast X.
But from now on, we can refer to them as just F1, F2, F3, etc.
OK, so Dom assumed that Letty was dead from events in F4 …
Yes! Believing the love of his life to be dead, Dom began a relationship with Elena. However, in F6, Dom received notice that Letty was, in fact, alive, and Dom’s crew worked to get her back from the clutches of Owen Shaw (Luke Evans), who manipulated Letty easily, given the amnesia she sustained from the car crash and explosion she evidently survived in F4. By the end of the film, Elena graciously let Dom go, with both of them acknowledging that he still loved Letty. However, in F8, it’s revealed that Elena was pregnant with Dom’s son. This son was later kidnapped, along with Elena, by Cipher (Charlize Theron). Cipher eventually had Elena killed.
So, the young woman Dom saves during the explosive street race in Rio is Elena’s sister?
Yep. In F10, Daniela Melchior plays Isabel, who turns out to be Elena’s sister. This explains why Dom chooses to save her over his longtime friend Diogo (Luis Da Silva Jr.), whom we originally met in F5. This also explains why Isabel referred to Dom’s son as her nephew—because he is!
And Dom, too, has a long-lost sibling? And it’s John Cena?
Fans who missed the previous film in the franchise, F9, will be surprised to see Cena play Jakob Toretto, Dom’s younger brother. In F9, Jakob was the Big Bad, seeking revenge against Dom, who (quite literally) drove Jakob out of town years ago under the false belief that Jakob had planned the fatal race car crash that killed their father. Of course, like all the best Fast and Furious villains, Jakob eventually becomes part of the family, turning on his sometime ally Cipher. (There was also another villain, Otto, but for now, at least, we can ignore him.)
Right. What was Cipher’s whole deal, again? Remind me why Letty hates her so much.
Cipher was introduced in F8, and she has quite a bit to answer for! And I’m not just talking about being a white lady with dreadlocks. On top of that, you can add kidnapping, murder, cyberterrorism, and probably a few more infractions I’m forgetting about. When we first meet Cipher in F8, it’s revealed that she was behind the motivations of both F6’s villain, Owen Shaw, and one of F7’s, Mose Jakande (Djimon Hounsou). In addition to attempting to kill Dom’s family in those previous movies, in F8 Cipher kidnapped Dom’s son (whose existence, at the time, he was unaware of) and Elena. Cipher ordered Elena to be executed as Dom watched. So, needless to say, there is plenty of bad blood between Cipher and the Toretto Familia by the time Cipher shows up on their doorstep at the beginning of F10.
Speaking of cyberterrorism, remind me: What’s the deal with this God’s Eye thing?
I’m so glad you asked, because I can talk about the best film in the franchise, F7. God’s Eye is a hacking device that is powerful enough to hack any tech that uses a camera or satellite tracking. It was created by Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel), whom we are introduced to in F7. God’s Eye has been, for multiple movies now, the target of many villainous robbery attempts. The Family’s efforts to prevent God’s Eye from being stolen are what originally brought Ramsey into the familial fold. In F10, Dante attempts to steal it to locate the whereabouts of Dom’s loved ones, particularly his son, so he can inflict the same pain upon Dom that he felt when Dom’s actions led to his father’s death.
Seems like they would have found a way to not have God’s Eye stolen in practically every movie by now, but I digress. Why did Shaw immediately start to fight Han (Sung Kang)?
Like Letty, fan favorite Han had a resurrection arc. Unlike Letty, his death and subsequent resurrection involved quite a bit of retconning … twice … across multiple movies. Detailing that whole situation would require an entire additional explainer, but the TL;DR on Deckard Shaw’s involvement is that Shaw wanted to kill Han, Dom’s friend, as retribution for Dom’s defeat of Shaw’s aforementioned younger brother, Owen. Simultaneously, Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell) recruited Han as a replacement for his former agent (and Han’s former partner), Gisele (Gal Gadot), who died in F6 (more on her later). Mr. Nobody and Han, knowing that Shaw was coming after him, used Shaw’s attempt to murder Han to fake Han’s death so Han could do Mr. Nobody’s bidding under the radar. This was all revealed in F9. The scene of Han and Shaw meeting in F10 is actually a continuation (and re-creation, as you can see by Sung Kang’s hair) of an F9 midcredits scene, in which the two meet for the first time since Shaw attempted to kill him. Naturally, Shaw assumes that the only reason a man he attempted to kill would show up on his doorstep is to exact revenge, so he doesn’t exactly roll out the welcome mat.
I’m so glad you mentioned Mr. Nobody. Who is this Mr. Nobody they keep mentioning, and Little Nobody, and now … Little Miss Nobody?
Mr. Nobody is a U.S. government official who first appeared in F7. He ran a covert operation called the Agency, which utilized Dom’s crew on many occasions across multiple movies, and is the main reason the Family was able to leave their criminal past behind and instead do government-sanctioned busts and heists. His whereabouts are unknown—in F9, Dom’s crew learns that Nobody’s plane was intercepted by Jakob Toretto on its way to apprehending Cipher, but he wasn’t found. Little Nobody (Scott Eastwood), who was Mr. Nobody’s assistant and protégé at the Agency, appeared in F8 to help the gang stop Cipher and shows up in the early parts of F10 before he goes underground. F10 also introduces Tess (Brie Larson), Mr. Nobody’s daughter, who, in Mr. Nobody’s absence, tries to help Dom’s crew when the Agency, under its new leader Aimes (Reacher’s Alan Ritchson), turns on them.
There were a few other moments of recognition among my theater’s audience. The biggest was for Gal Gadot’s appearance in the submarine at the end. What was that about?
That is the aforementioned Gisele!
Wait … I thought she died?
Apparently not! If you’re keeping count, this marks the third time the franchise has resurrected a major character. In F6, Gisele seemingly died, having sacrificed herself to save Han (again, her partner at the time) by dramatically falling off a car, which was being lifted by a plane, into the nothingness. Since her exit from the franchise in 2013, Gadot has become a huge movie star as the lead in Wonder Woman. So, it’s only fitting she would be asked to come back to the franchise as it releases its final chapters. How they’re going to explain her survival I don’t know, but her death seemed less concrete than Han’s, so I’m sure they’ll find a way. Also, this would mean that Han and Gisele were both alive but didn’t know the other was alive. Can you imagine their emotional reunion?
Given all of these fake deaths, Tej, Roman, Han, and Ramsey aren’t actually dead, right?
Given the fact that this movie essentially served as a way to get the band back together for the franchise’s finale, I highly doubt it. It’s more likely that there will be some zany explanation for how they survived what seemed to be an unsurvivable plane explosion and crash. Somehow nitrous will be involved.
Who are the other celeb cameos? My audience seemed to recognize some people that I didn’t. I did recognize Pete Davidson.
Rita Moreno appears for the first time as Dom’s paternal grandmother. Brazilian singer Ludmilla has a brief cameo as a street race starter in Rio. Most randomly, actress Debby Ryan and her husband, Josh Dun, drummer of the band Twenty One Pilots, appear very briefly as the couple that Jakob and Little B bump into in the airport. According to IMDb, they play themselves. Finally, the flight attendant who helps Jakob and Little B escape is played by Paul Walker’s daughter, Meadow Walker.
Is there anyone NOT in this movie who could be in the next one?
There are plenty of smaller characters who could show up. Elle (Anna Sawai), Han’s ward, whom he was protecting in connection to Project Aries, is still alive, as is Owen Shaw (well, actually, that’s debatable). Fan-favorite Suki (Devon Aoki), whose disappearance after F2 was never explained but strongly felt, could definitely return. There’s also Monica Fuentes (Eva Mendes), who aided Brian and Roman in F2 and was the one who let Hobbs know Letty was alive, in an F5 post-credits scene. The franchise already brought the F3 gang back—Sean (Lucas Black), Twinkie (Shad Moss), and Earl (Jason Tobin)—to help make F9’s infamous space car, and I don’t see why they can’t come back to send the family to the moon. Rico Santos (Don Omar … and Ozuna as young Santos!) and Tego Leo (Tego Calderón), Dominican street racers who helped the gang on a heist in F4, against Reyes in F5, and against Cipher in F8, are likely still free. And what kind of Fast and Furious movie would the final installment be if it didn’t bring back another long-absent sibling, Hobbes & Shaw standout Hattie (Vanessa Kirby), Shaw’s sister?
Speaking of people we didn’t see, why isn’t the Rock with the gang in this movie? And what was up with his midcredits scene?
There’s a long and well-documented history of beef between Dwayne Johnson and Vin Diesel. It resulted in Johnson, who last starred in Hobbs & Shaw in 2019, stating that he wasn’t going to appear in any future Fast films. Perhaps they offered him a truckload of money and that changed his mind?
