The following contains spoilers for Sinners.Sinners director Ryan Coogler explains Smoke’s (Michael B. Jordan) vision at the movie’s ending. Following a pair of twins, Smoke and Stack, who started a juke joint in Mississippi in the 1930s, the supernatural thriller tells the story of an opening night gone wrong. After killing the vampire responsible for the horrific turn of events and defending the juke joint against the Ku Klux Klan, Smoke was fatally injured and saw Annie and the child they lost in his final moments.

In an interview with USA Today, Coolger unpacks the meaning behind Smoke’s final scene. The director explained that the movie was about “idenтιтy,” and for Smoke, he “sees himself as a father,” a soldier who excels at killing, and “a man who’s unredeemable” due to what has happened. Coolger stressed that having him reunited with Annie and the baby was “the only ending that made sense.” Read his comment below:

This movie for me was about idenтιтy, as my movies always are, and how people see themselves, but also what people do. Smoke sees himself as a father and as a man who’s unredeemable because of his past sins, but he also sees himself as a soldier. For him, soldier means he’s a killer. He’s as good at killing people as Sammie is at singing (and) as Stack is at coming up with schemes and talking people into doing things that they might not want to do. That would always be how he would respond to what happens. It was also the only ending that made sense.

What Ryan Coogler’s Comment Means For Sinners

Smoke’s Fate Was A Moment Of Truth In Sinners

The gangster twins in Coogler’s highly rated vampire thriller may look alike on the outside, but they are inherently different. On the day the juke joint opened, Stack went on a journey to recruit the crew who would work for them later in the day, while Smoke took a trip back home to visit his child’s grave and see Annie, which says a lot about whom the Sinner character wants to be and how he sees himself, despite having to wear other hats in life.

Before the KKK attack, the film showed Smoke’s flashbacks about the people who were alive before the fateful night, revealing his guilt for the part he took in it, indicating that being a killer and opening the bar with his brother never resonated with who Smoke was. Annie and the child are what’s real for Smoke, which made his last scene being reunited with them in the afterlife fitting for the character. In another interview, Coogler shared that telling a satisfying story was his goal, which is why it’s unlikely for Sinners to receive a sequel.

Our Take On Sinners’ Ending

Smoke Had An Opposite Character Arc From Stack

I was rooting for Smoke to make it out of the fateful night alive, but it sounds like his death was always meant to happen. Sinners‘ mid-credits scene reveals that Smoke made a deal with Stack and let him live as a vampire under the condition that they would stay away from Sammie, and unlike his brother, who couldn’t bear the losses, Stack was rocking the ’90s with his lover, Mary. It seems that being a vampire suits Stack.

Smoke’s final scene in Sinners is one of the key moments that separates the twins and shows the audience who Smoke really is underneath the suit and the killing, shedding some light on why Annie disapproved of him getting into business with Stack. For Stack and Sammie, the opening night marked their transformation to becoming who they were meant to be, but for Smoke, it was about losing everyone he loved and going down for his sins.

Source: USA Today