John Wick's car in John Wick: Chapter 2 is more important than it seems to be on the surface. Originally conceived as a much older character prior to Keanu Reeves's rewrite of the script, John Wick's debut made him into a legendary action movie anti-hero, parallel to his legend as an assassin in his own world. The 2017 release of its sequel John Wick 2 was long anticipated ahead of its debut, a fact reflected in how John is re-introduced in the film's opening action sequence.
John Wick 2 picks up shortly after the ending of the first John Wick, in which the Baba Yaga has avenged the killing of his dog and murder of his good friend Marcus (Willem Dafoe) by crime boss Viggo Tarasov (Michael Nyqvist). With his Ford Mustang Mach 1 having also been stolen and fallen into the possession of Viggo's brother Abram (Peter Stormare), John Wick fights a protracted martial arts battle with his henchmen to get the car back, with the Mustang ending up severely battered. Despite the extensive damage to the car and the risk to his own life that John put himself in to get it back, his determination ties into the importance of his dog in the first John Wick.
In John Wick's opening, John's beagle was left to him by his late wife Helen, only to be killed when Viggo's son Iosef (Alfie Allen) and his gang arrived to steal John's car. The loss of the dog cut John deeply as the killing of his last connection to his wife. While he'd avenged the dog by the end of John Wick, retrieving the car is the last thread of John's remaining pain of that terrible night. As a result, John's car in John Wick 2 has a more potent personal symbolism than it seems on the surface – it represents both his own personal trauma and grief.
John Can Finally Gain Closure By Getting His Car Back
John Wick's apparent difficulty in maintaining friendships left him lonelier than ever after Helen's death, with the beagle she left him providing him with a warm and loving companion. The killing of his dog and the theft of his Mustang by Iosef are also events that are inherently linked in John's mind. Though the dog's death impacted John more deeply due to occurring during his mourning of Helen, Iosef stealing John's Mustang was the instigating event that made it happen. For John, the car itself represents the unfinished business of his vendetta with the Tasarov family, and thus the two are inextricably tied.
Had the Mustang been stolen under more innocuous circumstances, John would have probably gone through more traditional channels of informing the authorities about the theft without single-handedly risking his life just to get the car back. The John Wick franchise's theme of grief is what makes the situation different for him, with the theft of the Mustang being enveloped in the tragedy of John's dog being killed, and by extension his mourning of Helen's death.
John Wick is a very sentimental man hoping to finally find peace in a normal life. Even so, avenging his dog's and Marcus' murders in John Wick show that retirement has not made him a pacifist. What John Wick: Chapter 2 reveals about him is that John will only move on from loss once everything related to it is finished. His car may seem like a simple object to some, but to John it is a poignant reminder of his tragedy.
