Zack Snyder's Army of the Dead Ending Explained

Fans have been waiting for a couple of years now to see the new zombie movie from Zack Snyder, and now the day has finally arrived. Army of the Dead is now streaming on Netflix for all to enjoy, and folks around the world have been racing to their TVs to check it out. Now that fans are getting a chance to see the movie, there are understandably a lot of questions floating around about Army of the Dead's ending. It's a bit ambiguous, so we'll take a little time to break those final scenes down and figure out what it might mean for the future.

WARNING: This article contains MAJOR spoilers for Army of the Dead! Continue reading at your own risk...

There are two major endings to Army of the Dead, one of which offers much more closure than the other. In the first of the two scenes, the helicopter that was working to escape Vegas goes down outside of the city, killing Peters and leaving Scott and Kate stranded. Kate is fine, but Scott reveals that he was bitten. He takes a stack of money out of his pocket — the only cash from the vault that made it out on the chopper — and gives it to his daughter so she can help start a new life for Geeta's family. Of course, as help arrives, Kate has to kill a zombified Scott, just as he had to kill her mother all those years ago. Their whole story comes full circle and Kate is able to live on.

The second ending is the one that has everyone talking. The camera returns to a post-nuke Vegas as a door opens from the ground. Vanderohe pops up and brings with him several duffel bags full of cash. Remember, when Zeus was about to kill Van earlier in the movie, Dieter sacrificed himself and locked Van inside the safe. This protected him from the nuclear blast and he ends up making away with most of the money.

Vanderohe treks across the desert until he comes across a car, which he steals and drives to an airport where he pays a ridiculous amount of money for a private jet to take him away. While on the jet, Van starts feeling strange, and it seems as though the effects of the bomb may be messing with him. When he enters the bathroom the pilot announces that the plane is making its final descent into Mexico City. That announcement comes just in time for Van to notice the bite mark on his arm.

So Van had been infected by a zombie, an injury likely suffered while fighting with Zeus, though he did manage to go a while without seeing any of the effects. It seems as though this means that Van will turn into a zombie — probably an Alpha — and infect the folks on the plane, which would eventually lead into an outbreak in Mexico. This would come as a shock to the world, considering they believed the entire virus was contained to Las Vegas and that the nuclear bomb killed all of the zombies.

However, there is one other theory floating around, and its likelihood depends on some things we don't know about the rules of Snyder's zombies. In other zombie stories, like The Walking Dead, people can cut off a limb that has been bitten in order to keep themselves from becoming a zombie. Could Vanderohe do the same thing and stop himself from turning?

It's a complicated situation. On one hand, Omari Hardwick gives one of the most memorable performances in the movie and helps make Van an instant fan-favorite character. If there were a sequel, folks would probably love to see him back in action, especially since every other character not named Kate died during the mission. He could anchor a sequel on his own, no problem. But can there be a sequel if Van doesn't become a zombie? His bite is what keeps the option of zombies alive for another movie, so it almost feels like he has to turn if we want to see an Army of the Dead 2.

What did you think about the Army of the Dead ending? Do you want to see Vanderohe survive? Let us know in the comments!