The following contains major spoilers for John Wick: Chapter 4. You have been warned!

As the credits roll over the phenomenal John Wick: Chapter 4an unspoken question hovered in the air of my theater: “Did they really just kill John Wick?”

We had just seen the assassin extraordinaire (played by Keanu Reeves) earn his freedom from the High Table by killing the Marquess of Gramont (Bill Skarsgård) in a duel. But it does not take long to collapse, bleeding, on the steps of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Paris. From there, the film cuts to an image of his tombstone. The Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne) and Winston (Ian McShane) mourn him. They even have John’s pit bull with them, so it looks like he’s gone for good. Still, in this age of game-changing post-credits footage, there’s always hope that a beloved character will return after the film ends – but that’s not the case for John Wick: Chapter 4. Instead of teasing that John will be back in 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 Sacred Heart with a bouquet of flowers. He’s there to see his violinist daughter, whom the High Table has threatened to kill if Caine doesn’t follow his orders. Like John, Caine is also freed from the High Table after the duel, so he can finally approach his daughter without fear. However, there is one detail he did not take into account.

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 parting ways with John, she made it clear that he would kill Caine or she would.

The post-credits scene shows Akira preparing to fulfill that promise as she pushes her way through the Sacred Heart crowd toward Caine, cutter in hand. We cut to the black right after Akira pulled out the blade, but the meaning is clear: just like John Wick in his first movie, she’s now out for revenge.

So what happens next? Is Akira able to surprise Caine in the crowd? Will this cause a John Wick spin-off focused on Caine and Akira, related or similar to the upcoming film Ballerina and TV series The Continental?

While it doesn’t have massive franchise-wide connotations, this post-credits scene reinforces one of the key themes of John Wick: Chapter 4: Those who live the life of an assassin can never truly be free. John and Caine are pulled out of their supposed retirement and forced into a bloody cycle of revenge. Caine refers to both of them as “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 set up a sequel (I wouldn’t say no to more Yen and Sawayama), but it’s also an effective reminder of the brutality of life in the world of John Wick. . Like Caine, you may think you are free and clear, but you never are.