Final Destination Bloodlines was the long-awaited continuation in the horror franchise, and thankfully, the newest entry showed that the series has not yet run out of steam. Bloodlines‘ reviews were excellent, and with a franchise-high box office, the film brought Final Destination back into the conversation surrounding the most iconic modern horror series. However, while the movie was great, it unfortunately disproved a popular fan theory surrounding one of the franchise’s most beloved characters and their potential survival in the universe.

While all Final Destination movies, including Bloodlines, have a unique cast with very few recurring characters, there have still been a few actors that have returned for multiple installments in the series. The most notable of these characters was Tony Todd’s William Bludworth, who served as a mentor to the main characters in several films, appearing in Final Destination 1, 2, 5, and Bloodlines. Bludworth’s appearance in the most recent project was a touching sendoff to Todd, who unfortunately pᴀssed away not long after filming, but it also revealed some very interesting information about the franchise.

Final Destination Bloodlines Confirms Only 1 Person Has Survived Death’s Plan

Bludworth Revealed The Two Ways To Escape Death

During Bloodlines, when Kaitlyn Santa Juana’s Stefani Reyes and her family meet with Bludworth to figure out how to beat Death, the character mentions that the only person he has known to cheat Death was the protagonist from Final Destination 2 Kimberly Corman. During that film, Kimberly was placed on Death’s list due to her survival in a car crash on the highway and had a very similar role to the rest of the Final Destination protagonists. However, she differed from the rest of the heroes in that she actually survived through the end of her movie.

One of the major rules of Death in Final Destination is that being technically ᴅᴇᴀᴅ before being resuscitated is one of the only ways to escape being on the list. Kimberly drowned to save Officer Burke but was brought to a hospital and revived, managing to finally escape death. With Bludworth’s line about her in Bloodlines, it is now confirmed that she has in fact survived for the many years since, presumably along with Burke, and at least to his knowledge, she is the only person who has ever managed to outwit Death.

Bloodlines’ Reveal Confirms Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s Wendy Died In Final Destination 3

The Third Movie’s Protagonist Ultimately Didn’t Find A Way To Beat Death

The main character of Final Destination 3 was Wendy Christensen (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), who cheated death by avoiding a roller coaster that was going to derail and kill her and her friends. The rest of the movie played out as expected, with all her friends getting killed under mysterious circumstances, and it all ended with Wendy receiving a final premonition about the train that she was on crashing, killing everyone on board. The film ended with her, Kevin (Ryan Merriman), and her sister Julie (Amanda Crew) attempting to avoid it before the train crashed off-screen.

The important thing to note about this death was that it wasn’t fully shown, as the movie cut away before audiences actually saw her die, which was something of a rarity for the Final Destination franchise. She could’ve theoretically survived, but in Bloodlines, Bludworth has now confirmed that she definitely didn’t. By saying that Kimberly was the only survivor, the movie confirmed that Wendy did, in fact, perish. That would’ve been an easy ᴀssumption to make, given the nature of the franchise, but it wasn’t confirmed until now.

As Final Destination 3 came off the back of the second film, in which Kimberly definitely survived, at least until that movie’s ending, the idea that Wendy could have lived as well seemed like a fairly reasonable interpretation. Even though the vast majority of characters introduced in the series didn’t make it past one film, if anyone else was going to survive, Wendy seemed like the most obvious candidate.

Wendy Surviving Final Destination 3 Was A Popular Theory Before Bloodlines

Many People Believed That She Could Return To The Series

Given that Wendy’s death wasn’t actually shown, the theory that Wendy didn’t actually die in Final Destination 3, and managed to escape Death once again and survive in the background of the rest of the franchise, became fairly popular in the years following. From a realistic perspective, the idea that she was able to survive a train crash moments before it happened was always far-fetched, but given that the series is about people cheating Death with premonitions about the future, anything could be possible.

The fact that her death was very ambiguous also fueled second thoughts about her fate, as many of the major deaths in Final Destination are very brutal and gory, with the audience being given the time to really process the horror. Wendy’s death wasn’t shown at all, and since she was such a great character, the theory posited that this was because the filmmakers wanted to keep the character available for a potential return somewhere down the line.

One big piece of evidence against this theory, before it was outright disproved by Bloodlines, was the fact that Final Destination 3 had some alternate endings, which actually showed the train crash in which Wendy and her friends were ultimately killed. While alternate endings aren’t strictly canonical, as things change drastically from shooting to editing, it did show that the original intention was that Wendy died. The fact that they changed it was a good indication that she could have survived, but that’s no longer the case.

Wendy’s Final Destination Return In Or After Bloodlines Would’ve Hurt The Franchise

The Entire Franchise Revolves Around People Failing To Cheat Death

While Winstead is a great performer in every role, including Wendy, and seeing returning franchise legacy characters is usually a pretty fun way to make a sequel more exciting, bringing Wendy back could have potentially undermined the entire series. The entire point of Final Destination is that no one can escape Death, and the more people are revealed to have survived their encounters with it, the more that concept starts to feel flawed, and the movies will definitely start to lose their punch.

With Bloodlines confirming that Kimberly was still alive, there would definitely be no need for Wendy to become another survivor in the franchise. This is definitely a case where one is enough, as it makes Kimberly a rare exception, not just one of the many who happened to make her way off Death’s list. The more people that escape Death, the more the stakes are lessened.Unless the filmmakers have an excellent idea of how to use those characters, they are usually better off staying ᴅᴇᴀᴅ, which, fortunately, Final Destinations Bloodlines seemed to understand.