Spoilers for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales

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Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales has possibly the franchise's most intriguing post-credits scene yet, teasing the unexpected return of a major character for Pirates 6. But in doing so it's also rather confusing, throwing a lot at the audience in one go, so let's take a deeper look.

There's a strong tradition of stingers in the Pirates movie, with the series making them a mainstay long before Marvel (they were doing it back when Chris Evans was still in talks for Fantastic Four): The Curse of the Black Pearl showed monkey Jack becoming a cursed immortal; Dead Man's Chest revealed the fate of the dog on the island of savages; At World's End jumped forward ten years to show Will Turner taking his once-a-decade trip home from serving on The Flying Dutchman; and On Stranger Tides ended with Angelica getting her voodoo doll of Jack back. They were all a bit of fun or an emotional tease, but now Disney is actually taking a page out of their Marvel playbook and explicitly setting up the future.

As Dead Men Tell No Tales wraps up, it feels in many ways like a definitive end. Jack Sparrow, Henry Turner and Carina Smyth (now known to be a Barbossa) manage to destroy Poseidon's trident, lifting the curse on Will that bound him to the Dutchman, and return home where a de-barnacled Orlando Bloom finally reunites with Keira Knightly's Elizabeth Swann. As Jack Sparrow resumes his position as Captain of the Black Pearl (again), the two generations of the Turner family walk home against the sunset.

It's a nice, tight, happy ending that manages to resolve many of the dangling threads from the original trilogy (including At World's End's post-credits scene). Had Pirates of the Caribbean wanted to finish here, it would have been a legitimate narrative stop. They even had Barbossa, the best of the series "good" guys, sacrifice himself to save his daughter, rounding off the arc of the most developed character and giving a sense of finality to it.

However, as the post-credits scene shows, things aren't quite as cheery as they seem.

What Happens In Dead Men Tell No Tales' Post-Credits Scene?

The Dead Men Tell No Tales post-credits scene picks up with Will and Elizabeth, asleep in their bed. Unexpectedly, someone walks into the room. We hear their thudding footsteps, make out their tentacled shadow and as they lift a clawed hand in attack, there's no doubt about it - that's Davy Jones. Will then wakes up and there's no one there, suggesting it was all just a rather unfortunate dream. However, as he nods off again the camera pans down to reveal a pool of water and barnacles.

There's a degree of ambiguity to the scene, likely because at present whether a Pirates 6 is made depends on Dead Men's box office and the story is thus not fleshed out. But, assuming everything goes to plan, we can take one big thing away: Davy Jones is back... somehow. And somehow is the dominant word. After all, while it's very exciting, the character's supposed to be deader than the souls in his eponymous locker. What horrors has Jack's latest adventure accidentally unleashed?

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Bill Nighy as Davy Jones in Pirates of the Caribbean

How Can Davy Jones Return?

First, a quick overview of Davy Jones and the mythology behind him in the Pirates universe. Originally just a regular pirate, Jones sold his soul to become the immortal Captain of The Flying Dutchman. Meaning you can sail the seas for eternity, the position requires you to ferry the dead to the afterlife, with only a single treat day every ten years allowed on land. Within the rules, the only way to release someone from the curse is to stab their removed heart, at which point they become the new Captain. There's a whole side to Jones' story involving unrequited love for the deceitful witch Calypso, but that's rather convoluted and at this point in the franchise pretty much redundant, so we'll skip over that.

In the movies, Jones has made a deal with Jack Sparrow - to raise the Black Pearl in exchange for his soul - and so spends the better part of two films trying to hunt down the slippery Captain and claim his prize. Again it gets a bit messy with the East India Trading Company coming in the mix and most of our heroes betraying each other, but ultimately Jack decides he wants to inherit the Dutchman and its associated immortality. However, when Will is injured during a climactic battle, he instead allows Turner to stab the heart and become Captain, killing Jones who falls into a giant whirlpool.

Jones is thus double-dead, yet still he's returned - and the explanation for this isn't quite clear. The implication seems to be that because Will is no longer Captain of the Dutchman the powers have returned to his predecessor, something Jones is less than happy about. However, if Poseidon's trident has lifted Will's curse surely it would do the same for everyone before him also, meaning there's actually no one left to man the Dutchman. With a gulf of power and nobody left to shepherd the dead to their final resting place, it may be that Jones has been resurrected and is working for some higher power - Hades or Poseidon himself, perhaps. This poses some very interesting possibilities for Pirates 6 and may finally allow for a threat that isn't the same old "Jack races an undead crew to find a MacGuffin plot".

Regardless of what the story is, the scene subtly (and perhaps unintentionally) brings up the matter of Bill Nighy, who despite not typically being a dramatic actor delivered a show-stopping mo-cap performance in Pirates 2 and 3. He didn't return for the post-credits scene, most likely because of contract and budgetary concerns, leading to a very teasing, horror-tinged scene. If Jones is going to make a proper return, though, he would surely have to come back; while it is a CGI overlay, there's nobody else who could portray the menacing squid-face in the same charismatic way. As such, how this new threat will work depends entirely on the actor's involvement, although if Disney are going to so explicitly tease him there must be some existing agreement.

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Davy Jones remains one of Pirates of the Caribbean's best characters, and given how the majority of the series' key players have come back from the dead at one point or another it was really only a matter of time until he too rose from the water depths. It couldn't come at a better time either - the series could do with a shot in the arm after the mixed reviews to the fifth entry and it upsets an otherwise happy ending, giving the heroes a dastardly villain they've got serious history with to threaten them. Welcome back, Mr. Jones.

Next: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales Review

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