Ryan Coogler’s southern-fried vampire yarn Sinners is enjoying a well-deserved victory lap, sitting comfortably in the top spot on Max after its surprise box office dominance back in April. The film has drawn plenty of praise for Michael B. Jordan’s twin performances, the stunning blues soundtrack, and its story of Black southerners striving to create a place where they can be themselves.
Coogler apparently shot different versions of the ending, but it seems like he picked the right one, bringing the film to an emotionally satisfying conclusion that’s both devastating and hopeful. But it’s what comes after the credits begin to roll that puts a beautiful bow on the story: the mid-credits scene. Often just a perfunctory extension or, in the case of Marvel, a way to tease future franchise entries, Sinners makes its mid-credits scene count, delivering a powerful coda that’s worth sticking around a little longer for. A surprise appearance from a real-life blues legend certainly doesn’t hurt, either.
‘Sinners’ Stunning Conclusion
(Spoilers for the ending of ‘Sinners’)
Sammie (Miles Caton), the young, blues-playing cousin of the Smokestack Twins (Jordan), escapes the vampiric melee at his cousins’ juke joint, clutching the smashed remains of his guitar with three deep gashes on his face, a reminder of the night’s casualties. He returns to his father’s church, where he’s implored to put his guitar down and turn to God, but Sammie can’t quite bring himself to do it. Cut to 60 years later, where Sammie has moved to Chicago and become a successful blues musician, played in his later years by bona fide blues icon Buddy Guy.
This conclusion would be satisfying enough, but the mid-credits scene adds a surprising and very effective capper. One night after his set, Sammie is grabbing a drink at the bar when the doorman comes in and asks if it’s alright to let in a couple of latecomers after closing. Sammie agrees, only to discover that the visitors are his vampiric cousin, Stack, and Mary (Hailee Steinfeld), who also survived the battle all those years ago and have updated their fashion sense with the changing times.
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Stack and Mary aren’t there to finish what they started, but rather to check in on Sammie and offer him the chance to join them, but he refuses. Before they leave, Sammie tells them that, before the sun went down and all Hell broke loose, the day they opened the juke joint was one of the best days of his life. Stack agrees, since it was the last day he got to spend with his brother, Smoke. It’s a moving final moment that drives home some of the film’s most powerful themes of community, belonging, and the passage of time.
Why the Mid-Credits Scene Is So Crucial
Casting a recognizable figure like Guy as the elderly Sammie could have been distracting, but it ends up working really well, drawing a connection between the fictional musicians of the film with the impact of the blues in the real world. Most musicians in the days before recorded sound went completely unrecognized in their lifetimes, and casting one of the last great 20th-century bluesmen serves to amplify their influence. Guy is one of the last living ambassadors of a very different era of music history, and his presence underscores the movie’s exploration of music as a link between generations.
The scene ties directly into the story’s theme of the importance of community and places for people to feel like they belong, with Sammie able to do what the Smokestack Twins tried to do all those years ago: create a place that celebrates music and provides a communal experience. In the 1930s, these sorts of spaces were crucial, especially for marginalized communities, to be able to gather and express themselves safely. While cultural attitudes may have shifted somewhat by the 1990s, those spaces were still equally important.
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All vampire stories are about time in a certain sense, and Sinners’ mid-credits scene drives that home in a visceral way. Seeing the aged Sammie, his scarred face weathered but still vital, stands in sharp contrast to the ageless faces of Stack and Mary. While the idea of eternal youth may have some appeal, so does the idea of a life lived authentically until its natural conclusion. Sammie and Stack’s bittersweet remembrance of that fateful day in 1932 speaks to how many people, particularly marginalized people, remember their histories as a mix of great joy and great suffering.
Since he was given the reins to Black Panther in 2018, Coogler has excelled at blending well-crafted popcorn entertainment with earnest explorations of the legacy of race and racism, and how Black people reconcile their history with their present. Sinners might be the purest expression of his ethos yet, making the long arc of history feel undeniable, collapsing past, present, and future in the space of a single scene.
This story originally appeared on Movieweb
