Death in the "Fast and Furious" movies isn't entirely permanent.
It's more of a suggestion.
So while it may seem like these characters have come to their demise by the end of "Fast
X," how likely are they to appear alive again?
Out of all the characters who meet grisly fates at the end of "Fast X," John Cena's
Jakob Toretto seems the most likely to actually stay dead.
For starters, he's a relatively recent addition to the franchise, having only debuted in "F9."
That makes him a bit more expendable, even though he is a Toretto.
Jakob's whole arc in "Fast X" seems to set him up for the noble sacrifice he makes at
the end.
His uncle-nephew road trip with Little Brian is the most grounded and emotionally resonant
storyline in the movie.
After seeing Jakob mostly as a vindictive killer in "F9," he gets to show his lighter,
goofier side.
He does a commendable job keeping Brian's spirits up during terrifying circumstances,
and he keeps his promise to his brother Dom by protecting him at all costs.
A sacrifice from Jakob would make his whole character a bit easier to swallow.
While he does come back around to the side of good by the end of "F9," he never really
redeems himself for the many violent and evil things he's done.
Killing him off in a heroic way makes it easier for the series to grapple with that conundrum,
by simply ignoring it.
So while explosions have rarely been fatal in the "Fast and Furious" movies, Jakob's
bomb-car maneuver seems like it may indeed be the last we see of him.
Right before the end of "Fast X," the vengeful Dante Reyes has Agency head Aimes shoot down
the plane that's carrying Han, Tej, Ramsey, and Roman.
It's a stunning twist after Aimes initially appears to ally himself with Dom.
Aimes blasts one of the plane's engines with a missile launcher, sending it spiraling around
the side of a mountain.
There's a giant explosion, but there's no shot of the interior as the plane goes down.
So what are the odds that any of these characters are actually dead?
Well, at the very least, Sung Kang's Han is probably safe.
The franchise already spent like five movies killing him, retconning who killed him, and
then bringing him back from the dead.
Taking him out now, offscreen, seems highly unlikely after all the work put in to resurrect him.
"So you got my postcard, huh?"
Plus, "Fast X" ends with Gal Godot's Gisele Yashar, the love of Han's life, coming back
from the grave herself.
There's almost no way the films would kill him off before he has a chance to reunite
with her.
But since he is on the plane, we technically don't know whether he makes it or not.
Also on the plane that Aimes shoots down at the end of "Fast X" is Roman Pearce, played
by Tyrese Gibson, the de facto funny man of the Toretto crew since his debut in "2 Fast
2 Furious."
Roman's "Fast X" arc is all about leadership, as he struggles to assert himself as more
than just a comic relief character.
He and Tej have a nice little moment of brotherly love on the plane before they enter the fray,
and that's basically the last we see of either of them.
So is Roman dead?
Probably not.
If Vin Diesel and the writers wanted to kill somebody on the plane, it probably wouldn't
be the class clown.
That's just too sad!
Roman is far from the most essential member of the gang, but he's been part of the franchise
since the second movie, and he's way too beloved to kill off so unceremoniously.
Plus, he's gotten out of worse scrapes.
"How in the hell are you not dead?"
That said, it wouldn't be outside the realm of possibility for him to make a big sacrifice
to save his friends at the start of "Fast and Furious 11."
Such an act would mesh well with his leadership arc in "Fast X," and it would kick off the
next movie with some heavy stakes.
Tej, played by Ludarcis, is also on the plane when Aimes sends it hurtling into a mountain.
But is he dead?
Like Roman, the answer is probably no.
While killing off characters to raise the stakes is natural at the end of a long franchise,
killing either half of the classic "Fast and Furious" comedy duo would be just too tragic.
In fact, it seems more likely that Tej would be the one to save himself and the others
by figuring out some high-tech way to escape the explosion.
Given that Ramsey is there with him too, there's a good chance they could figure something out.
For now, though, Tej's fate remains unclear.
Like Roman, he's been a part of the franchise since his debut in "2 Fast 2 Furious," and
it's hard to imagine the movies without him at this point.
Last but least on the doomed plane is Ramsey.
From one angle, she could be seen as the most expendable of the foursome because she's been
a "Fast and Furious" team member for the least amount of time.
Ramsey first pops up in "Furious 7" as the creator of God's Eye, the all-seeing computer
program that can hack into any camera on Earth.
God's Eye plays a pretty major role in the plot of "Fast X," and Ramsey even gets to
show a bit of remorse for how her invention is being used.
So is she dead?
Like the others on the plane, maybe, but probably not.
Though she is the most recent addition to the series who's also part of the crash, she's
too established to be relegated to an off-camera death, and the God's Eye is still a major
part of the plot going forward.
Plus, the whole franchise has also made a point in recent years of developing its female
characters more thoroughly and balancing genders in the cast.
Letty and Gisele came back from the dead, Mia returned in "F9," and "Fast X" even introduces
Daniela Melchior's Isabel, sister of the late Elena Neves.
That doesn't mean that the series still couldn't kill a woman like Ramsey, but her death doesn't
seem like the kind that would really play well.
One of the early casualties in "Fast X" is Luis da Silva's Diogo, a Rio-based street
racer who befriended Dom back in "Fast Five."
When Dom returns to Rio looking for Dante Reyes, Diogo is there to help him out.
Sadly, Diogo appears to die at Dante's hands during their ensuing street race.
The villain attaches bombs to the bottoms of both Diogo and Isabel's cars, and he detonates
them both.
Diogo's car goes up in flames first, and he seems to die instantly, as Dom doesn't stop
to help him out as he does with Isabel.
The question remains, though: If Isabel survived her explosion, why couldn't Diogo have as well?
There's no real narrative reason to bring Diogo back in the next movie, as returning
to Rio in back-to-back entries feels a bit much.
But also, explosions rarely ever kill anyone in "Fast and Furious."
Mr. Nobody doesn't show up at all in "Fast X."
That's probably because, as of "F9," he's likely dead.
But his shadow looms large.
"That's a big entrance for a nobody."
The former head of the secret international organization known simply as "The Agency,"
Mr. Nobody was supposedly killed at the beginning of "F9" when his plane was attacked by Jakob Toretto.
In "Fast X," his absence is felt severely when Aimes takes over the Agency and decides
to go after Dom and the crew.
It's later revealed that Aimes has been in cahoots with Dante Reyes for a decade, though
the exact nature of their association has yet to be revealed.
"Fast X" also introduces Mr. Nobody's daughter, Tess, who sides with Dom and fights against
the Agency from the inside.
You'd think that if Mr. Nobody truly were still alive, he'd come back to stop all the
chaos happening at his old job.
However, there's one line in "Fast X" that suggests he might just be in hiding.
While meeting with Dom in Naples, Tess refers to her father as "missing," with a curious
pause before saying the word.
Does she know something we don't?
Could Kurt Russell return before the "Fast" saga is over?
It seems more than likely.
While he might have been the big bad of Fast 6, the lesser Shaw brother hasn't played a
big role in the franchise over the last handful of installments.
The injuries he suffers while fighting Dom and his Family spur his older brother, Deckard,
to seek revenge by killing Han, though that obviously wasn't quite how it went down.
Owen pops up again in Fate of the Furious, this time as an ally to Dom when he and his
brother rescue little Brian from Cipher's plane.
Once the Fast & Furious spinoff, Hobbs and Shaw rolls around, we get this confusing little moment.
"Forced me to kill my own brother!"
But if her son really is dead, Queenie doesn't seem to know since she tells Dom in F9,
"Are you looking for one of me sons?"
"Not tonight."
So is Owen dead?
Probably not.
The most likely explanation is that Deckard faked his brother's death to culminate in
a triumphant reveal in a future Fast movie.
Also possible is that the relative lack of interest in future Hobbs & Shaw movies means
that the spinoff film is non-canonical and will simply be ignored going forward.
Either way, with Deckard speeding off to save his mother by the end of Fast X, Owen's ambiguous
fate may be cleared up in the next film.
Elena Neves plays a curious role in the "Fast and Furious" franchise.
She's a supporting protagonist in "Fast Five" and in "Fast and Furious 6," a temporary love
interest for Dom while Letty is "dead," and then a point of leverage in "The Fate of the
Furious" after it's revealed that she had Dom's baby.
Elena dies in "Fate" at the command of Cipher, but she continues to play an important role
in "Fast X."
Her sister Isabel becomes embroiled in Dante's plot after Dom travels back to Rio, and she'll
likely return in "Fast and Furious 11."
But what about Elena?
Is she really dead, or is there some chance that, like Letty, Han, and now Gisele, she
could be "resurrected"?
You'd think that she would have done whatever she could to get back to her son if she were
alive, right?
Well, yes, but there are some clues in "Fast X" that she might, might, be coming back.
In addition to introducing Isabel, who makes Elena central to the story again, "Fast X"
starts what seems to be the slow process of redeeming Cipher.
At the very least, it makes her a little less evil and a little more helpful.
That doesn't necessarily mean that she'll become part of the family, but her redemption
would definitely be a lot easier to swallow if her greatest crime turned out to be a lie.
Okay, this one is a bit of a stretch.
Hernan Reyes gets shot in the head by Luke Hobbs at the end of "Fast Five."
Not only is it a visible, palpable kill, but it's the entire setup for Dante's vendetta
against Dom and the crew.
There should be no doubt as to whether or not Hernan is still alive.
But this is "Fast and Furious," where no death should ever be believed 100%.
Let's say, just for the sake of argument, that Hernan is still alive.
It could actually fit quite nicely with what Dante does in "Fast X."
We know that he's a trickster.
He shows it numerous times throughout the movie, including at the end when it's revealed
that Aimes has been working for him the whole time.
What if his revenge quest is actually a ruse for what's really happening?
"Do you like surprises?
I adore them."
In the "Fast Five" flashback sequence that kicks off the film, Hernan tells Dante that
he has a plan to make their family richer and more powerful than ever.
Apparently, Aimes has something to do with that scheme, though we don't yet know how.
Why would Dante wait a full decade to track Dom and Hobbs down?
Maybe it's because his father is still alive and they were scheming in the shadows until
the right moment presented itself.
Hernan Reyes is almost surely dead.
But actor Joaquim de Almeida came back for "Fast X," so what's to stop him from returning
again in the next film?
"Never accept death when suffering is owed."
Jesse died in 2001.
He was shot to death by Johnny Tran and Lance Nguyen all the way back in "The Fast and the
Furious," right in front of the Toretto house — or at least, that's what they want you
to think.
If the core "Fast and Furious" saga truly is ending, what better way to tie everything
together than bringing Jesse back?
He's the first major character to die in the series, which makes him more deserving than
anyone of the now-famous "Fast" resurrection treatment.
He could even be the one to save Dom and Little B from the dam, or Roman, Ramsey, and the
others on the plane.
Ridiculous?
Sure.
But in this franchise, it's not outside the realm of possibility.
Just imagine Jesse, the original computer genius before Tej or Ramsey ever entered the
picture, working on God's Eye modifications, or space cars, or hacking into the Agency's mainframe.
Picture him in the climax of the next movie still driving his beat-up Volkswagen Jetta.
Wishful thinking?
Surely.
But again, completely feasible given what this franchise has done in the past.
It just brought Gisele back — the latest in a long string of returns that includes
Han and Letty.
Jesse could be the next link in that death-defying chain.
What a joy it would be for fans who've followed the movies since the first one to see him
ride back into action after 24 years away.