John Wick: The Butterfly and Domino Effects—Chain Reactions Leading Up to the Third Film

Spoiler warning: This post covers events from both John Wick and John Wick: Chapter 2. I highly recommend watching them first if you haven’t already.

I saw someone make a comment that really, John just wants to be left alone. 

And while I do have some questions, I strongly agree with that assessment for the most part. The carnage in his wake makes it easy to misconstrue the man, but let’s look a little deeper. There are bigger factors at play to explain why and how he keeps ending up in these situations. 

I’ll start out by addressing the first conept—his desire to leave the assassin life behind, and then I’ll progress to talking about some of the chain reactions of events that have kept him from successfully doing so. It’s a major element extending through the first two films and that’s also been highlighted in the marketing for the third, so this was something I wanted to discuss a bit right now, as I anticipate finally seeing the film. 

Trying to Find a Way Out

We’ve found out in the course of the first two films, John Wick and John Wick: Chapter 2, that he paid a very heavy price in order to leave the Underworld in the first place. And one interesting thing we find from the first film is that he’s still living under and staying in a house under his own name. What’s more, the other people in the Underworld have still been keeping tabs on him, yet have not bothered the man. So it seems like he essentially had a sort of protected status for himself (and by extension his beloved wife) and wasn’t worried about being unsafe.

But then Iosef Tarasov and his scumbag pals came in and violated all of that. (Frankly, I feel John should’ve been given a pass to rectify things because of that.)

And even then, once he finished dealing with the Tarasovs, John still fully intended to return to regular life and the painful business of learning to cope with life without Helen. He wasn’t trying to get back into the assassin life. Adding to that, what we see at the beginning of the second film—his use of nonlethal force and then the conversation with Iosef’s uncle—shows that he really doesn’t want to get drawn back into this and is instead trying resume his retirement in earnest.

But as Winston had warned him, there were repercussions for his actions in the first film (as well as actions taken prior to it). 

Santino took advantage of the situation to call in a debt, and then a combination of self-defense, justice for himself and Gianna, and the need to protect the city from Santino’s vicious reign led John to take actions that pulled him even further into the world he’d been trying to stay away from. 

And there’s been this thread through the first two films and continuing with the marketing of the third that John is going to have to come to terms with his past, and that there’s a cost to his actions. It’s like everything is coming due, and it’s going to take a Herculean effort to finally wipe the slate clean and be truly free of everything.

I remember there was a phrase with the second film—it appears on a poster in the subway after the second fight with Cassian, and I think it was also used for the trailer and/or other promotional materials for that movie:

The only way out is to go through.

There were conversations in both films that also discussed this burden of the past and this deeper concept of essentially asking what kind of state his soul and karma are in. Viggo suggests Helen’s death is punishment for the past and says that John has been lying to himself in thinking his past actions wouldn’t affect the future. And then in the second film Gianna asks what Helen would think of what he’s now doing, and also asks John if he fears damnation—to which he answers in the affirmative. (For a bit more discussion of some of the spiritual and symbolic themes of the film, you can visit my post here.)

There’s also an interesting bit with Santino near the end of the film. 

Santino: John, you know what I think? I think you are addicted to it. To the vengeance.

No wife. No life. No home. Vengeance, it’s all you have.

The younger D’Antonio is definitely a provocateur and full of garbage…yet he also raises interesting and legitimate enough questions about John’s psychology, what’s driving him, and who and what he really is deep down. Could he be right? Is John addicted to vengeance? And is it truly all he has left to live for? The latter may well have been true from John’s perspective near the end of the second film, but at the very end, hearing about his second chance, John truly seemed to rekindle his drive, finding a new will to survive and start a new life. 

That said, there may still genuinely be some demons in need of exorcism there. What exactly will he do when this is over? Can he really settle down again and be content living a civilian life, no life-or-death missions and quests to pursue? This again plays into those questions of redemption and absolution. Both from a psychological standpoint and from a karmic or spiritual standpoint, is this man even capable of finding a lasting peace internally and externally?

There’s a quote that comes to mind from the beginning sequence of John Wick: Chapter 2:

Abram Tarasov: Can a man like you know peace?

John Wick: [Pauses] Why not?

Well…at this point, I can think of a reason or two, my dearest! 

Following that path, there’s a simple but keyphrase highlighted in the promotional materials for this third film, from posters to trailers:

Every action has consequences.

And here’s where we get into the second part of the post. 

The Domino and Butterfly Effects

[In brief, the difference given between the two is that the domino effect is a bit more logical and predictable. For example, one gang kills a member of another gang, which leads to reprisals, which leads to a general uptick in the violence or danger of the area. 

But with the butterfly effect, there’s a connection between seemingly random and unconnected things. I think the relationship between the Impossible Task and Iosef’s attack on John falls more along those lines.

I won’t try to strictly categorize each point as either belonging to the domino effect or the butterfly effect; instead I would summarize it by saying that the films thus far show a melding of the two. With that established, let’s take a look at how things have gone.]

Consider the effects of John’s actions:

—It’s indicated in the first film, during the scene where we first hear the Legend of John Wick, that John’s actions to purchase his own freedom were what had enabled Viggo Tarasov to rise to power in the first place. 

Viggo Tarasov: The bodies he buried that day [the day of the “Impossible Task”] laid the foundation of what we are now.

This begs a serious question: Would the situation with Iosef have even taken place otherwise? Perhaps not; Iosef came to that gas station in the process of returning home from an assignment Viggo had sent him on. Had John not cleared the way for Viggo’s rise to power, it’s possible that the latter wouldn’t have been operating in that area to such an extent—if at all—and his vicious, spoiled son might never have crossed paths with John. 

—Wick’s subsequent revenge after the attack by Iosef gave Santino an excuse to “validly” call in that favor. John left retirement to pursue the Tarasovs, thus unintentionally opening himself up to “requests” like this. (He didn’t intend for it to be this way, mind you—the pursuit of Iosef, Victor, and Gregori was a personal matter, as he noted to Winston in the first film. Winston himself also pointed that out to Santino during the second film—John’s motivations for leaving retirement had been deeply personal, not professional.

But, that said…Winston had warned John in no uncertain terms what he was risking in his vendetta against the younger Tarasov:

Have you thought this through? I mean, chewed down to the bone? You got out once. You dip so much as a pinky back into this pond, you may well find something reaches out and drags you back into its depths.

Say it with me, folks: Winston was right!

—Also as part of getting “free” that first time, John gave Santino D’Antonio a marker. And the massive irony is that John himself was quite possibly the only person who would’ve been capable of completing the horrible mission that Santino forced him into via that very marker. This is implied during the conversation where John finds out what the job actually is. John basically labels the job impossible and Santino says that’s why Wick is the man for the job. 

John: It can’t be done.

Santino: She’s in Rome for her coronation. You will take the catacombs in—

John: It doesn’t matter where she is.

Santino: That’s why I need the ghost, lo spettro, John Wick. 

That’s why I need you.

—John’s successful completion of the aforementioned job then put Santino in a position to take over New York, a prospect which seemed to be known across the board as a horrible situation. 

Gianna D’Antonio: Now, let me tell you what happens when I die. Santino will lay claim to my seat at the Table. He will take New York. And you will have been the one who gifted it to him.

—What’s more, since it was implied in the first film that John’s “Impossible Task” cleared the way for Viggo’s position—as seen in the quote earlier about that—I think it’s likely that Viggo was then the dominant power in the Russian mob in New York at the time of the first film (And it’s worth asking what on earth John did that was sufficient to earn an exempt status that was agreed upon by not just Tarasov himself but also the Underworld as whole!).

If Viggo was indeed the dominant power following that, then John’s actions in the first film may have crippled the Bratva in New York overall, especially since it wasn’t only a matter of taking lives; John also destroyed Viggo’s priceless blackmail stash that had given him leverage over the city. That stash was something that had a value and power beyond any single person in the Bratva, and may well have been the most crippling loss of all. Even if a given individual is killed, a resource stash like that can be passed on to the successor and will maintain its value and power, thus helping to preserve the larger organization. 

And John destroyed that. 

The point? If Wick did as much damage as I suspect, that was actually another part of why Santino would’ve been capable of taking over the city in the first place. Heck, when we see the Russians in the second film, under the command of Abram Tarasov, they’re busy packing up and shipping out. 

I suspect that what John did affected not only a single family but also the core of Russian Mob influence in the city. 

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And here’s the thing: I don’t mean to downplay at all what Iosef and Santino did; they were the chief instigators, and they both acted with deliberate and vicious malice.

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However, I think it’s safe to say that John’s choices also caused sequences of events that ultimately made him the inadvertent coauthor of his own nightmares. 

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And from what I recall, one term Chad used in an interview about the third film was “absolution,” and considering that and the previous things I’ve listed about the themes and actions present in the prior two films, it sounds like this movie is going to deal with fixing this whole situation and getting to a place where John either finds true freedom where he never has to worry about being pulled back in…or he dies trying. 

I know Keanu likes tragic stories and Chad gets a kick out of doing every possible thing to screw with John, but it sounds like with the John Wick story, they’re ultimately rooting for the character and plan for it to be a hard-won triumph rather than a full-on Shakespearean tragedy. Fingers crossed.

And this brings us to my expectations for the third film…which I’ll be addressing in a post here, which compares the first two movies and considers how the third may incorporate elements of each.