Warning! This article contains SPOILERS for Play Dirty.

Parker and his crew work to pull off a huge heist in Play Dirty‘s ending after the original plan is foiled. After being betrayed by Zen (Rosa Salazar) in the film’s opening robbery, Mark Wahlberg’s character agrees to work with her to try and steal a newly discovered treasure, the Lady of Arintero.

Unfortunately for Parker, Zen, Grofield (LaKeith Stanfield), Ed (Keegan-Michael Key), Brenda (Claire Lovering), and Stan (Chai Hansen), the original plan goes awry with Lozini (Tony Shalhoub) and The Outfit being one step ahead. Play Dirty‘s characters are forced to come up with a new plan, involving stealing the legendary Spanish ship figurehead before the mob can sell it to billionaire Phineas Paul (Chuckwudi Iwuji).

As is common with heist movies, everything is not as it seems. There are secret plans, double crosses, and more packed into how Play Dirty ends this story, including a major question left regarding the fate of a pivotal character.

Did Parker Actually Kill Zen?

After a seemingly successful plan, Play Dirty takes a somewhat unexpected turn by having Parker turn on Zen. Getting revenge on her for Philly’s death was the original motive that led him to be part of the Lady of Arintero heist, but it was unclear if he would actually make good on Philly’s wife’s desire to kill whoever was responsible for her husband’s demise.

This leads to the exchange between Parker and Zen in her H๏τel room after the plan, and he pulls a gun on her, explaining that they still had issues to resolve from the previous job. Parker gives her a drink, and Wahlberg’s action movie cuts away to outside the room as a gunsH๏τ is heard, only for Parker to exit shortly thereafter.

The movie strongly implies that Parker does kill Zen, as he puts a Do Not Disturb sign on the room door when he leaves, suggesting he’s trying to hide the body he’s left behind. Play Dirty gives a good rationale for the master thief doing this, but it also leaves plenty of uncertainty, allowing potential follow-ups to walk back the decision.

It’s telling that Play Dirty doesn’t actually show Parker shoot Zen, let alone give audiences a glimpse of her ᴅᴇᴀᴅ body. There’s a common saying in entertainment that someone isn’t really ᴅᴇᴀᴅ if the movie or show doesn’t show the body. That could very well be the case, especially with how the film portrayed Wahlberg’s character.

Parker is more often than not shown as having little interest in the well-being of others. He’s perfectly okay with letting people die or killing them himself if it means propelling the plan forward and keeping himself safe. But there are also moments where he shows some sense of compᴀssion, such as letting Kincaid live.

For that reason, and the fact that the movie otherwise doesn’t shy away from showing Parker kill people, it feels more likely that Zen is still alive. Why he would fire the gun only to let her live is confounding — perhaps there was a purposefully non-fatal sH๏τ taken, but that makes more sense than the alternative. Otherwise, Play Dirty would’ve shown the sH๏τ and confirmed Zen’s death on screen.

Parker’s Actual Plan In Play Dirty Explained: Why He Blew Up The Lady Of Arintero & What He Really Wanted

It’s only by the end of Play Dirty that Parker’s plan for the Lady of Arintero heist and his true motives become clear. His decision to blow up the $500 million treasure is shocking at first, as this is what he and his crew have spent the whole movie trying to achieve.

Their final plan begins with the kidnapping of Phineas and his reveal that the Lady is located in a private vault for Lozini. They break into the building and seemingly steal the treasure with ease before the mob begins chasing after them. Everything appears to go wrong when the figurehead’s trailer detaches from the transport, allowing The Outfit to reacquire it and sell it to Phineas as planned.

However, once Phineas has the prized possession, its unearthed that he doesn’t have the real Lady of Arintero. He’s got the fake made by Zen’s accomplices. Parker and his crew switched the door numbers on the vault and made the mob believe they had the treasure, even though it was still locked in a vault for a while longer.

They get the treasure out of the vault after, but at the same time as Lozini and his mob show up after Phineas and De La Paz alerted him to the fake.

But it turns out that Parker never even really wanted to steal the Lady. The big reveal is that he figured out from the racetrack heist that The Outfit was struggling financially and that this treasure was Lozini’s way of helping the mob avoid bankruptcy. That’s why Parker lined the treasure with explosives and blasted it to smithereens.

Wahlberg’s character wanted to make sure that The Outfit went down entirely, something Lozini said couldn’t be done. By blowing up the treasure and killing the mob boss, Parker stops a struggling criminal enterprise from rising to power once more. It also gives him the freedom to go back to New York City, even if he doesn’t like it there.

However, taking down The Outfit and Lozini wasn’t the whole extent of Parker’s plan. Before killing or not killing Zen, a news report plays leaked audio of Phineas that implicates De La Cruz. Parker leaked the conversation to remove the dictator from power, allowing Ortiz to become the country’s leader and for the stolen national treasures to return to the unspecified nation.

This was done to help Zen’s people, suggesting that he did grow to care for her, despite saying otherwise. While he still makes off with some jewels from the Lady of Arintero, Parker doesn’t keep any for himself, it seems, instead giving them to Philly’s wife. All he really wanted was freedom from The Outfit, and this heist was his way of doing it.

Does Play Dirty Set Up A Sequel?

Play Dirty is an adaptation of a long-running book series by Donald E. Westlake (written under his pseudonym Richard Stark). While it doesn’t adapt one of the novels directly, the list of available source material does create an avenue for this to be a new franchise for Wahlberg, Black, and Prime Video.

Surprisingly, Play Dirty‘s ending doesn’t do much to directly set up another movie. There’s no tease of the next heist he’ll do or that many lingering plot threads for a sequel to pull on. This narrative is standalone and works in that capacity. More installments may follow, but if they don’t, then no setup will go unpaid.

Should a follow-up get made, another film with Wahlberg’s Parker would make the most sense. The sequel could confirm the fate of Zen and ᴀssemble the crew for another caper, tackling a completely new setting, villain, and more.

There’s also a chance that Play Dirty could get a spinoff focused on Stanfield’s Grofield. His character is from Westlake’s books and has been the lead of a few. With the actor standing out as one of the film’s brightest spots, a Grofield spinoff might be a way forward for this series too.

Play Dirty does not close the door on future adventures, but it is smart not to directly tease one as a guarantee. Audiences will ultimately determine whether this is the end of Parker, Grofield, and the crew’s stories or if we’ll get to see them again.