That Emotional ‘Extraction 2’ Ending, Explained
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Warning: The following contains spoilers for Extraction 2.
Cut to: an impeccably dressed Idris Elba, back to the camera, voice carrying to a handcuffed Chris Hemsworth. “It’s like the goddamn Sound of Music out here, innit?” Here being some modernistic lair/home overlooking the Austrian alps. Here also being the final scene of Extraction 2, when Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth) reunites with partner Nik Khan (Golshifteh Farahani), after many days of prison breaks, chases, and acts of reckless endangerment to Austrian citizens.
Director Sam Hargrave and writer Joe Russo’s follow-up to 2020’s Extraction signals much more from the franchise with this final scene: Elba’s “man” (per the Netflix closed captions), asking Rake to come and do another job. Which could mean an Extraction 3, if not more.
Let’s rewind a bit.
Extraction 2 picks up directly where the first film left off: a grievously injured Tyler Rake falling from a bridge in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Rake obviously lives, and after some Walden Pond rehab, is recruited by Elba’s character for another rescue mission—this time Rake’s sister-in-law and her children, who have been held captive by their incarcerated father and Georgian crime boss.
The emotional arc of the film, however, concerns Rake’s relationship with his ex-wife Mia and Rake’s lingering guilt over his son. (Many character relationships in the franchise, including the villains, involve triangular connections between a father, a son, and a mother.) Unable to watch his child die of cancer, Rake had instead chosen to return to Afghanistan. His son died in his absence, his wife divorced him, and Rake joined up with Nic, precipitating the events of Extraction.
Extraction 2 attempts to unpack Rake’s guilt and give him the sort of surrogate redemption op necessary for any half-baked emotional action film—atoning for one’s sins by rescuing some other kid. So, just like the first Extraction. Except different. Kind of.
What happens at the end of Extraction 2?
After successfully rescuing his ex-sister-in-law and their children from Georgia, Rake, Nik, and Nik’s brother Yaz fend off a counterattack from their impractical hideaway in Austria. The attack comes from the children’s uncle, Zurab (Tornike Gogrichiani), seeking avengement for his brother’s death. (Rake kind of murdered him during the prison break sequence.)
The team somehow evades the Georgian mafia and the local Austrian police and successfully brings the children and their mother to a safer safehouse. Yaz, however, is killed in the escape.
Zurab, hiding from authorities, then bates Rake into coming after him, which Rake does, hoping to kill Zurab and fully protect his ex-wife’s family (and also show his ex-wife that he’s not completely useless.) Throughout the film, Rake has also been fighting a secondary battle with his nephew, who waffles between loyalty to his mother and his father. (There’s probably some foiling here regarding Rake’s relationship with his own son, but we think it would be overreading to unpack it.)
The confrontation ends in a shootout. Zurab is killed. Rake’s nephew redeems himself (and Rake) by turning on his uncle. With Nik in Rake’s arms like Michelangelo’s “Pieta,” paramilitary police enter the church and apprehend the two, completing the main action of the film.
After a fade to black, Nik is then shown in the next scene, alive but handcuffed to a hospital bed, inside Schwarzau Prison in Austria. Rake is shown in Graz-Karlau Prison elsewhere in Austria. (Their mission included no protection from local authorities; the two were likely arrested for all kinds of murder and civil chaos.)
In the next scene, Rake limps to a phone booth for visitation with his ex-wife, Mia, who tells Rake that her sister and their children have been resettled in America under witness protection. Rake thanks Mia for “doing what I couldn’t,” i.e., being with their son when he died. Mia then reveals Rake’s final impression on their son, whose final memory of his father, Rake believes, was watching him leave. “His last image of you wasn’t you walking out on him,” Mia tells Rake. “It was you going off to save people.” His final words were: “I want to be brave, like Dad.”
While there’s no reconciliation between the couple, Mia’s words give Rake the kind of closure he needs to accept his shitty parenting decision (and ultimately get back to killing people, which is where the franchise will inevitably return.)
In the final scene, Rake is driven from the prison, reunited with Nik, and offered a new job, one that will apparently help to commute his and Nik’s prison sentence.
What does the Extraction 2 ending mean for the future of the franchise?
The ending obviously opens more doors than it closes—a creative choice made by Russo and Hargrave to lay foundation for future Extraction properties.
Speaking with Screen Rant about casting Idris Elba, Hargrave said that “Joe [Russo] had always wanted to expand the Extraction universe, and to populate it with super talented actors who could carry their own movies in this universe and start their own franchises.”
Casting Idris Elba, then, was one such deliberate choice to expand the franchise.
While there hasn’t yet been word from Netflix on future development, we’re likely to learn more as viewership numbers roll in. The first Extraction hit the streaming network in April 2020; Netflix then announced plans for a sequel in May.
Should viewership numbers prove satisfactory, we’re likely to get word about Extraction 3 in the coming weeks. Who's getting kidnapped next?
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