28 Years Later‘s Ending Introduces Jack O’Connell’s Jimmy—and Starts a Whole New Story

The following story contains spoilers for 28 Years Later.

AFTER MORE THAN two decades, director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland have finally returned to the scene of 2001’s horror/thriller 28 Days Later—and it’s proven to be worth the wait and then some (28 Weeks Later, released in 2007, is not terrible, but it didn’t have Garland or Boyle’s direct involvement).

28 Years Later picks up in the same universe that the original film established. In an exciting opening scene that includes Teletubbies, projectile blood gushing, and a man of God being torn apart limb by limb, we get yet another glimpse of the initial outbreak of the “Rage” virus that turned people into ornery Zombie-esque monsters (although they aren’t undead and don’t have a hunger for human flesh). From there, we’re thrust into a story set, that’s right: 28 years after the initial outbreak. We learn that the virus was largely contained due to the U.K. being quarantined; the rest of the world went on as normal, but here things have been stuck in a post-apocalyptic state.

And so our main story turns out to be fairly straightforward. Spike (Alfie Williams) is a good young lad, living in the Scottish Highlands with his encouraging, brash dad, Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and his mom, Isla (Jodie Comer), bedridden with an unknown illness. The movie is split in two—a first half where Jamie brings Spike on his first excursion to scavenge for supplies and kill infected on the mainland (where people of their village can only access via a land passageway during low tide), and a second half where Spike returns to the mainland with his mother seeking a doctor named Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) who could maybe cure her medical mysteries.

If the first half of 28 Years Later is the action-packed, zombie-hunting survival adventure you expected (filled with some of the coolest shot kills you’ll see all year, thanks to Mr. Boyle), the second half is more of a coming-of-age meditation on grief and coming to terms with death and morality. Williams, Taylor-Johnson, Comer, and Fiennes are all fantastic, and handle their complex characters with care.

In the final act of the film, after numerous run-ins with infected and more, Spike and Isla find Dr. Kelson, who is living in a temple made of the sterilized bones of dead humans and infected alike. While Jamie told Spike that Dr. Kelson was insane, this proved to decidedly not be the case—he’s a deeply spiritual man, but one grounded in the reality of the insane world they find themselves in. And he still has his medical prowess, which allows him to pretty quickly surmise what was wrong with Isla: She has terminal cancer. And so rather than continue to suffer, Isla decides to allow the doctor to euthanize her. It’s a difficult choice and one that’s particularly hard on Spike, who must grow up a ton over the course of the movie.

Spike eventually decides not to return home, leaving a baby they found along the way (long story) and a note with his dad, instead deciding he was going to go out on his own and use the survivalist skills he’s gained.

That doesn’t last long, though. Not long after we see Spike alone for the first time, we also see him come into contact with an infected. And while he’s able to defeat one, there are more behind that one. And that’s where he first meets Jimmy (a marvelous Jack O’Connell in a long blonde wig), who offers his help along with that of his similarly-platinum-haired friends. Spike accepts, Jimmy’s crew demolishes all the infected to the tunes of Danny Boyle’s finest death metal, and the movie comes to an end.

What in the world just happened?

Who is Jimmy in 28 Years Later?

If the ending of 28 Years Later felt abrupt, wild, and completely out of nowhere, well, that’s what they were going for. 28 Years Later is clearly setting up a different kind of story for the sequel, subtitled The Bone Temple, which will pick up where this film leaves us and is scheduled to come out in January.

But Jimmy—played by Jack O’Connell, who is truly having one hell of a year—is also a character we met earlier in the film, and saw hints of throughout. As a child, Jimmy was watching Teletubbies in the opening scene as his family was attacked, before finding his father and retrieving his cross necklace (before his father was torn apart). Throughout the movie, we see references to Jimmy during trips to the mainland; the body hanging upside down that Jamie and Spike find has “JIMMY” carved in his chest in vertically arranged lettering, and a sign outside of a bar also refers to Jimmy. Clearly, he’s a powerful, violent, and unpredictable figure who has forged his identity in this new world. And that’s something that The Bone Temple will get into with certainty.

28 Years Later‘s final scene, centered on Jimmy and his violent, mysterious, track suit and chain- wearing cult, is certainly a tone shift, but it’s one that makes complete and total sense within the context of this film. This is a movie where the world has gone completely and totally insane—there are rage-filled monsters running around bodies formerly occupied by human beings—and our characters have been desperately searching for a way to find sanity and humanity within that world. Jamie found that through hunting and scavenging in the village. We don’t know much about Isla’s life before the events of the film, but clearly she valued being a mother. And Jimmy, clearly, found his sanity and humanity in a religious system he forged for himself, and got others to buy into as well—although perhaps not the one his father totally intended.

Part of the genius of 28 Years Later is its world building. We spend much of our time with Spike, Jamie, Isla, and Dr. Kelson, and we see that they’ve had to adapt to this new life cut off from the rest of the world. But we also learn through run-ins with the soldier Erik (Edvin Ryding) that the rest of the world has evolved just as our real world has; there’s an internet, there are delivery services, and there’s lip-filler.

So if all of these things can co-exist, why can’t Jimmy’s absurd, death metal gang? 28 Years Later ends on a totally bizarre and deranged note, but doesn’t that just get you excited for the next chapter? This is an insane world—and it makes total sense to leave us on a note wondering what the most truly insane thing we’ve seen to date could lead us to next.

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