Remember back in 2003 when Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King came out, and fans kept circling back to the topic of how every time they thought the movie was over, Jackson added a new epilogue, finale, wrap-up scene, or coda? (Even so, some people still didn’t think the movie had enough endings.) Ryan Coogler’s sprawling, gloriously messy 1930s-set vampire movie Sinners does something similar, in a “Just when you thought it was safe to run to the bathroom…” kind of way. PSA: Do not run to the bathroom the second the credits start. Stay for the mid-credits scene at least. It isn’t just a little tacked-on tease or gag, like so many credits scenes; it’s practically a fourth act for the movie. Spoilers ahead.
Does Sinners have a mid-credits scene?
Image: Warner Bros./Everett Collection
Does it ever. It’s a lengthy, detailed one! By this point in the movie, we’ve already gotten the big finale faceoff, where young, naïve blues singer Sammie “Preacher Boy” Moore (R&B/gospel singer Miles Caton) and local-legend gangster Smoke (Michael B. Jordan) fend off a vampire horde led by capering mass murderer Remmick (Jack O’Connell). Then there’s a second big finale faceoff, where Smoke decides to return to the doomed juke joint he started with his brother Stack (also Michael B. Jordan), wait for the mob of Ku Klux Klan members he knows are coming to murder him, and murder them instead.
Stack gets shot in that gunfight, goes down, and sees a vision of his beloved wife Annie (Wunmi Mosaku) nursing their dead infant and waiting for him on the other side… but then pulls back from death just long enough to kill (overkill, really) one last Klansman before returning to Annie in death, all of which really feels like a third finale, added almost as a visual gag, given the comic timing. So by this point, it feels like we’ve gotten three endings.
But after the first wave of credits, Coogler jumps from 1932 Mississippi to 1992 Chicago, where a fragile, aged Sammie (played by blues great Buddy Guy!) is playing onstage with his band, after what’s clearly been a long, celebrated career: Images of his album covers adorn the walls. As Sammie sits at the bar after the show, the bouncer invites in an ominous couple: the vampire versions of Stack and his white-passing girlfriend Mary (Hailee Steinfeld), who survived the 1932 vampire massacre by fleeing the scene, and are now dressed in garishly stylish 1990s clothing.
Stack narrates how his brother Smoke make him promise not to harm Sammie and to let him live out his life, but notes that that life will end soon, and offers to turn Sammie into an immortal vampire too, but Sammie casually passes on the offer. Stack doesn’t force him, but does praise his music, while saying he doesn’t care for the newfangled electric blues, and he misses the old music of his era. At his prompting, Sammie takes up his guitar and sings a song called “Travelin’.” Stack praises the music, says goodbye, and leaves, with Mary in tow.
Does Sinners have a post-credits scene?
Image: Warner Bros./Everett Collection
It does, for one last finale, though it’s much less plot-significant. In fact, it isn’t even really clear whether this scene is canonically part of the story, or is just a little performance outtake. In the post-credits scene, Sammie sits alone in his father’s church and sings a fiery rendition of the 1920s gospel standard “This Little Light of Mine.” Or is it just Caton performing on set and in costume?
If this is meant to be a scene from the movie, it’s unclear when it takes place. But it’s presumably before any of the action of the movie, given that in the earliest point of the timeline we see, Sammie’s disapproving preacher father Jedidiah (Saul Williams) is already in place in the church, prepping for his Sunday sermon, and it seems unlikely that he’d sit still for Sammie to perform there, given how he disapproves of Sammie’s guitar, even for a gospel number. This would presumably be a younger, happier Sammie performing on his own while the church is empty, maybe just enjoying the acoustics.
But it seems just as likely that this is Coogler enjoying Caton’s voice (and maybe both of them enjoying the church’s acoustics?) and capturing him on film, given that the scene doesn’t really fit into the timeline we know. Either way, it’s one last finale for a movie that keeps giving these characters one more shot at a last satisfying moment.
