Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again brings back the cast, the ABBA and the stunning Greek locales of the original - but does it go one better and include a post-credits scene? Long-rumored but rarely-expected, Mamma Mia 2 goes The Godfather Part II route by both continuing the story of the Swedish-singing, multi-father family unit and showing how it all came to be; we follow Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) dealing with her pregnancy, and the younger years of her mother Donna (Lily James, taking the mic from Meryl Streep) teased in the first film.
Of course, it's all really about the ABBA and providing intermittently stunning and incredibly campy covers of the bands most famous works. It's those covers that would make you'd stick behind the credits of any pop jukebox movie, hoping for more. Indeed, during the credits of the first Mamma Mia, there were two musical numbers from Donna and the Dynamos ("Dancing Queen" and "Waterloo"), and then "Thank You For The Music" over the credits themselves. What does the sequel offer?
Related: Read Our Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again Review
Straight up, over the first stretch of the credits there's a massive encore where all the cast from both timelines sing "Super Trouper". But, if you leave the movie the moment that finishes, you're going to have to go again: Mammia Mia 2 does have a post-credits scene. What's so interesting is that, in a sea of Marvel end-credits teases, this is decidedly old-school (warning: the rest of the article contains mild spoilers for Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again).
The post-credits scene of Mamma Mia 2 is less an extra sequence than it is an outtake. It takes us back to the pier on the Greek mainland when Harry (Hugh Skinner, played a younger version of Colin Firth's "spontaneous" banker) comes upon Omid Djalili's style-obsessed passport officer. After Harry's been condemned for his shorter haircut, Djalili says that if Donna doesn't take him back, then he's always there and starts singing "Take A Chance On Me" before cracking up (along with the off-screen crew) and telling the director to call cut.
This sort of extra outtake after the movie is a throwback to decades past, when after-credits scenes were (as well as being more infrequent) much lesser seen; typically hidden gags and little more. That said, in the context of the Mamma Mia canon, it does have a tongue-in-cheek element, given that Harry came out as gay shortly after his run-in with Donna.
Of course, because we're now ten years into the tradition of Marvel setting up the next movie when half the audience has gone, this will inevitably lead to questions about Mamma Mia 3. There is a mention of Sophie wanting ten years of quiet, a wink to the decade gap between the first Mamma Mia sequel and the original, but little direct setup. As long as there are more ABBA hits to cover, though, there's always a chance.
