Final Destination 2: What Happened to Every Character

Wondering who survived? We have a list of what happened to the survivors of Route 23 in Final Destination 2.

The Final Destination franchise traumatized many viewers over the years with its creative death scenarios. Chief among them: the log scene from Final Destination 2. While driving down the highway, a police officer is completely obliterated by a log flying out of the semi-truck in front of him, smashing through the windshield and turning the officer into nothing more than goo. This and many of the other deaths make this sequel one of the best in the series and one of the most traumatizing.

In Final Destination, the victims met their demise because they escaped death in the explosion of Flight 180. Kimberly Corman and her friends are on their way to Spring Break in Florida when she has a terrifying vision of a multi-car pileup on the highway. Stopping traffic, Kimberly manages to save the people behind her from dying in the accident. Unfortunately, this only prolongs the inevitable. Those people were fated to die, marked by Death by their connections to the Flight 180 disaster.

Because of Kimberly's intervention — and maybe because it's a sequel and they needed something new — Death's list is reversed from her premonition. The survivors of Route 23, along with the final survivor of Flight 180, Clear Rivers, die one by one in visceral and absurd ways. Here's what happened to each character.

In a rule that only applies to this entry in the franchise, new life is the only thing that can stop Death. For the majority of the movie, Kimberly and the crew imagine this means they must save Isabella Hudson, a pregnant woman who survived the Highway incident. When they discover that Isabella was never meant to die in the pile-up, Kimberly realizes that it's not birth, but resurrection, that will stop this curse. Mimicking what she saw in an earlier vision, Kimberly drowns herself by driving a van into a lake before she is rescued and resuscitated by Burke.

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While she makes it out of Final Destination 2 alive, Kimberly and fellow survivor Thomas Burke may not have lasted much longer. In an alternate ending to Final Destination 3, a newspaper reveals that both died after falling into a wood chipper at a hardware store.

Kimberly's friends Dano, Frankie, and Shaina die the same way that they do in Kimberly's vision, with the only difference being that they were supposed to die last. The three are sitting in Kimberly's SUV when a semi-truck carting several cars plows into the vehicle. It triggers a huge explosion that finishes off Kimberly's car and her friends.

After escaping death by semi-truck, lottery winner Evan Lewis meets an early demise when his apartment catches fire in a predictably absurd chain of events. It begins with Evan haphazardly cooking, shirtless and tossing oil on his gas stove like it's not a problem. Next, a magnet happens to drop from the fridge into a dish of food, which Evan misses before putting the box in the microwave. He then drops a diamond ring in the sink and gets stuck trying to retrieve it. The pan catches fire and the microwave won't stop sparking.

Evan, stuck in place, swats at the growing fire, making it immensely worse. He eventually manages to wriggle his way out of the sink and escapes the apartment through the window. Thinking he's made it, Evan falls to the ground before he's swiftly impaled by the falling fire escape ladder.

Tim and his mom Nora were also meant to burn to a crisp in the Route 23 disaster, which would probably have been better than the ways they end up going out. Expecting the worst, we watch as Tim sits through the dentist appointment of his nightmares. After a series of mishaps, a plastic blowfish almost chokes Tim to death, but he's saved at the last second.

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Thinking he's avoided his fate and souped-up on way too much nitrous, Tim chases after a nearby group of pigeons outside. One flies directly in the face of a construction worker operating a crane, causing him to drop a pane of glass directly on Tim. He's crushed into a shapeless goo, his last true joy the pigeons that would be his undoing — at least it was quick.

Nora is still reeling from her son's death when she's met with an equally gruesome and absurd fate. The scene starts with her and fellow survivor Eugene Dix leaving Burke's apartment by elevator. In the elevator with them is a man holding a basket of hook hands. After Kimberly, Burke, and Rory see an image of a man with hooks and decide he will be the one to kill Nora, they frantically call and inform her of the danger.

Nora, assuming this must mean the man in the elevator is dangerous, freaks out. Her hair gets stuck to one of the hooks, and the elevator doors close on her neck when she tries to leave. With her head inside and her body in the hall, Nora is eventually decapitated by the elevator.

Kat's death is probably the biggest instance of absurd incompetency in Final Destination 2. While driving Rory, Clear, Eugene, and Burke to the hospital where Isabella will have her baby, Kat's tire has a blowout, sending the vehicle careening off the road and into a nearby farm. A ton of PVC pipe flies through the back window and nearly impales Kat through the back of the head, but it just misses. Kat is okay but pinned in the car. When a snarky firefighter tries to rescue her with the Jaws of Life, the motion triggers the driver-side airbag, forcing Kat's head back and straight into a sharp piece of PVC pipe, killing her instantly.

Meanwhile, a news van arrives to capture this scene. As fate has it, the van runs over a rock sharp enough to trigger a huge gas leak which eventually travels all the way to Kat's car. After she dies, Kat drops her lit cigarette to the ground, sparking the flame and triggering another huge explosion. Most everyone is out of the way, except for Rory. The force of the explosion sends a barbed wire fence flying toward him and the wires trisect his body, the pieces sliding off each other in a cartoonishly grisly fashion.

In the car accident with Kat, Eugene is punctured in the lung by one of those deadly PVC pipes. He's rushed to the hospital, where he's doomed to meet his maker. As he lies in bed, listening to the news about Kat and Rory's deaths, Eugene notices strange things happening in his room. The air vents close, the tubes on his oxygen tank snap, and his defibrillator gets pulled loose from its electrical socket. Eugene panics, but the defibrillator soon activates its emergency power supply and things seem like they’ll be alright.

Related: Final Destination: 9 Best Character Deaths in the Horror Franchise, Ranked

Meanwhile, Clear arrives at Lakeview to make sure Eugene is alright. She meets up with Kimberly and Burke, who informs her that everything is over because Isabella's baby was born. Immediately, Kimberly snaps back to the opening premonition, realizing that Isabella wasn't one of the foreseen victims. Panicking, Clear rushes through the hospital until she finds Eugene. Upon opening the door to his room, a spark from the loose defibrillator plug ignites the oxygen that's been building up in the room and bursts into flames, incinerating Eugene and Clear.

Originally the victim of that infamous log, Officer Thomas Burke manages to escape Death by the film's end. In Kimberly's vision, Burke is meant to die after she and her friends; her death and resurrection screw up the order and leaves Burke safe — for now. As mentioned previously, he dies via wood chipper in some version of the Final Destination lore.

Brian Gibbons, the young farmer who first approaches Kat's vehicle after the crash, wasn't supposed to die. He has no connection to Flight 180 or Route 23, and, if the survivors had never crossed his path, he would’ve been safe. After the car crash, Brian is nearly struck by an approaching news van. Rory saves him, thus adding Brian to Death's list.

The film ends with Kimberly, her brother Michael, and Burke attending a barbecue picnic with Brian and his parents at their farm. While Brian works the grill, his dad tells everyone about Rory's heroic deed. Kimberly and Burke worriedly look over just before the grill explodes, sending chunks of flesh and viscera flying. It's a particularly mean-spirited move from the movie, but in a franchise that relishes in its stupidity, Brian's unexpected death is an especially fun one.

Zoe is a writer with a passion for all things horror. When she's not writing, she's usually hiding in the shadows with her partner, two cats, and a spooky movie.