The Continental Ending Explained: Which John Wick Characters Return?

This article contains spoilers for THE CONTINENTAL: FROM THE WORLD OF JOHN WICK.

Fresh off this year’s John Wick: Chapter 4 comes the spinoff prequel television series The Continental: From the World of John Wick, developed for television by Greg Coolidge, Kirk Ward, and Shawn Simmons. Running for three feature-length episodes on Peacock, the series follows the adventures of Winston Scott (Colin Woodell), the future head of the eponymous New York hotel that serves as a safe haven to a shadowy order of global assassins. Set decades before the John Wick films, Winston finds himself on his vendetta as he is drawn deeper into the lethal world of assassins, taking on the Continental’s ‘70s proprietor Cormac O’Connor (Mel Gibson).

Filled with explosive gunfights and a quiet expansion of the John Wick shared cinematic universe, The Continental depicts a rise to power for Winston while proving him every inch as deadly as John Wick himself. And though The Continental does tell a complete story, it also leaves plenty of room for potential future seasons to follow as the series unveils previously unseen history behind this brutal, bloody world. Here’s how The Continental unfolds and ends, including what familiar faces from the John Wick movies play a role in the Peacock original series.

The Story So Far…

The John Wick universe takes place in a world where assassins are organized through an international network, run by a clandestine junta known simply as the High Table. In major cities around the world, assassins can rest and get supplies, with entire arsenals at their disposal, at a chain of luxury hotels known as branches of the Continental. To pay for services, including access to the Continental, assassins utilize specially minted gold coins, with the organization and its currency predating the Roman Empire.

The High Table imposes a strict set of rules to maintain order and secrecy among the assassins, with violations often punishable by death. One of the biggest rules is no violence on Continental grounds and, if order cannot be restored at a specific location, the High Table’s Adjudicator (Katie McGrath) authorizes the destruction of a hotel. These rules are already firmly in place by the start of The Continental, providing the series with a hovering menace as its conflict escalates.

How Does The Continental Begin?

Set during the ‘70s, the Manhattan Continental is robbed of its gold coin press amidst New Year’s Eve celebrations. The culprit is Frankie Scott (Ben Robson), a Vietnam War veteran and protege of the hotel’s current supervisor Cormac O’Connor, who brought in Frankie after he was arrested for arson as a boy. After the High Table’s Adjudicator warns Cormac to get his house in order or face the consequences, he summons Frankie’s younger brother Winston and tasks him with tracking down Frankie and the coin press.

Winston reunites with Frankie, meeting Frankie’s wife Yen (Nhun Kate), who is even deadlier than he is, along with Frankie’s gun-smuggling friends Miles (Hubert Point-Du Jour) and Lou (Jessica Allain). Ambushed by Cormac’s elite assassin twins Hansel (Mark Musashi) and Gretel (Marina Mazepa), Frankie allows himself to be executed in exchange for Yen and Winston to escape to safety with the press. Grief-stricken, Winston vows revenge on Cormac, turning to Yen, Miles, and Lou to overthrow the New York Continental, no matter the consequences.

What Other John Wick Characters Are In The Continental?

Beyond Yen, Winston finds a surprising amount of help in toppling Cormac’s control over the New York Continental. Joining Miles and Lou in the assault on the Continental is Uncle Charlie (Peter Greene), a personable middle-aged Southern gentleman who is as steady with his aim as he is with his professional demeanor. Uncle Charlie is a younger version of the same character played by David Patrick Kelly in the first two John Wick films, who became a crime scene cleaner working for the assassin order by the time of the movies.

Winston also gets help from the underground assassin network operating out of Manhattan’s Bowery. Introduced in John Wick: Chapter 2, this scrappier assassin organization is commanded by the Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne) in the movies, but under different leadership in The Continental. Despite this difference, the two assassin syndicates remain at odds in the ‘70s, with Winston receiving the help he needs in exchange for disrupting the High Table.

Even within Cormac’s inner circle, Winston has even more support, specifically from Charon (Ayomide Adegun). By the time of the films, Charon is Winston’s right-hand man and the concierge of the New York Continental, played by the late Lance Reddick. Though the younger Charon is initially a faithful associate of Cormac’s, his boss’ unpredictably violent mood swings and a tacit threat to his father leads Charon to betray Cormac and side with Winston during the final attack.

How Does Winston Claim His Revenge?

The New York Continental turns into a blood-soaked battlefield as Winston and his forces launch an attack to take it over and kill Cormac. Growing desperate, Cormac takes a controlled substance that heightens his aggression to even the odds and, as the situation grows more dire, sets up a self-destruct countdown to blow up the entire hotel. As gunfights erupt in the halls and hotel bar, Winston’s allies use the pneumatic package delivery system to launch bombs at different sections of the building and even the odds.

After a fierce battle, Lou succeeds in gunning down Hansel while Yen blows up Gretel with a bomb after an intense duel on the hotel’s rooftop courtyard. Cormac is finally killed before Winston asserts himself as the new authority of the New York Continental, demonstrating how formidable he is by killing the Adjudicator himself. With order restored and the coin press returned, the High Table acquiesces to Winston’s show of force, sparing the hotel that it is now under new management.

How Does The Continental Leave Room for Season 2?

At the end of The Continental, Winston is settling into his new role overseeing the hotel as its manager, with Charon at his side. This leaves the possibility for future seasons to see how Winston handles the challenges that come with this position, as well as being more directly involved with the deadly business of the High Table. Though Winston already has a network of allies, the recent chaos and manner in which he came to power may warrant conflict with other individuals in the assassin organization.

Similarly, Winston is now effectively part of the system that the Bowery assassins actively oppose, potentially leading to heightened tension if they come to Winston looking for their favor repaid. Amidst all the suspense and friction is KD (Mishel Prada), a former New York Police detective who investigated Winston and the Continental after she lost her family in the arson incident that Winston and Frankie were responsible for as children. Though KD and Winston reached a modicum of peace, the possibility for violence and vengeance is always an open one.

John Wick himself doesn’t make an appearance in The Continental and nor should he, the series is about how Winston Scott becomes involved with the High Table and seizes control of the titular New York hotel. With the narrative foundation now laid, a continuation of the series could explore how these hotels are interlinked and further the world-building of this cinematic universe. And now under new management, the Continental is definitely open for business.

All three episodes of The Continental: From the World of John Wick are available to stream on Peacock.