During the marketing for Pirates of the Caribbean 5, bombastic trailers eagerly promised that this movie would be where “the final adventure begins.” Begins being the operative word, clearly. You didn’t really think that the series was going to simply conclude on the fifth movie, did you? Now with Bloom and Keira Knightley seemingly set to reprise their roles for a larger sequel following Dead Men Tell No Tales, the post-credits sequence was lined up to tease exactly that. The sequence begins with a newly mortal Will Turner finally having a decent night’s sleep by the side of his wife Elizabeth. The scene also continues the trend of strangely not giving Elizabeth a single line in the movie—or having anyone remark on how her hair changed from golden locks to being a deep raven hue in an era predating modern hair dyes. Fortunately for both Liz and Will though, their son Henry (Brenton Thwaites) was able to aid in the destruction of Poseidon’s Trident, ending all curses in the sea. This meant the release of Will from being damned to permanently captain The Dutchman and guide the dead to the afterlife… but it had negative repercussions too. If you haven’t placed it together, the seashell is one of the body parts apparently dropping off of Davy Jones (Bill Nighy), the villain of the second and third Pirates of the Caribbean movies. His body was comprised of all manner of sea life in those films after spending centuries as The Dutchman’s captain. He also is often shadowed by a haunting organ theme written by Hans Zimmer, which we heard just a few notes of as the final, final Dead Men Tell No Tales scene came to a close. Then again, if he is quickened to life once more, that is plenty incentive to have a vendetta against the former blacksmith and current captain of Jones’ beloved ship—hence showing up in the Swann boudoir in those pre-dawn hours. Also who knows, maybe next time they could give Elizabeth Swann some actual lines—like revealing why she never mentioned Jack Sparrow’s name to her son when she obviously had more chemistry with him than her over-earnest husband, am I right?
