What happened to Praetorian Jack in ‘Furiosa’?

I just watched Furiosa, the prequel to Max Max: Fury Road which is just as intense and almost as good. I expected a standout performance from Anya Taylor-Joy, which she delivers, but I didn’t realize she’d have such an important co-star in the form of Praetorian Jack, played by Tom Burke, a throwback to the original Mel. Gibson “road warrior” without literally being that character. Spoilers follow.

While his relationship with Furiosa is one of the staples of the film, his exit is a little… unusual and you may leave the theater wondering what happened to him or waiting for a post-credits scene to explain it. There is no such scene.

In his final scene, Jack is shown being tormented by the Dementus gang who are pulled endlessly on a motorcycle, at first keeping up but eventually being dragged. Then a lot of time passes and we see Furiosa escaping by literally disconnecting her injured arm from a crane.

But Jack? He hasn’t seen. She has never seen him before. So what happened? If they didn’t show his body, is there any chance he’s still alive?

It wouldn’t make much sense if that were true, as we’d have some indication that he escaped as well during this scene, or Furiosa would be trying to save him, which doesn’t happen. As it turns out, it was confirmed by Burke and George Miller that the character is dead, even if the film doesn’t make it clear by showing his corpse. From GQ:

“I actually never read the words, ‘He’s dead and she sees his dead lifeless corpse.’ And finally, it was about a week, I said, “George, I’m dead, aren’t I?” He goes “Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.” Because I thought, you never know, I might come back. He may not have any face left, but a lot of people in the Wasteland are like that.”

So, it’s not impossibilitymiller could change his mind and jack could come back horribly injured (you don’t get dragged around by a motorcycle for several hours and you survive, generally, and no one in this world has superpowers), but it seems likely to be the last we get see Jack’s.

I’m not sure I was wild about how this was handled, as his disappearance alone EFFECTS His death made it seem like he would either return in a hero moment or at least be mentioned later, which didn’t happen. But if you want an answer? Here’s your answer. Currently.

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