Will There Be a “Man on Fire” Season 2? Season 1 Ending Explained

Netflix’s adaptation of 'Man on Fire' follows ex-Special Forces agent Creasy and his friend’s teenage daughter Poe

Just like the 2004 film starring Denzel Washington and Dakota Fanning, the Netflix reboot of Man on Fire is full of heartstopping action until the very end.

The seven-episode thriller series, based on the A.J. Quinnell novel by the same name, follows former Special Forces operative Creasy (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) as he struggles with extreme PTSD after losing his entire team during a failed mission in Mexico City. But, a visit from an old friend, Paul Rayburn (Bobby Cannavale), changes everything.

Rayburn convinces Creasy to join him in Rio de Janeiro, where Rayburn and his firm were hired by Brazilian President Carmo (Billy Blanco Jr.) to ward off any potential terrorist attacks that could harm his chances of victory in the upcoming election. Within days of Creasy’s arrival in Brazil, tragedy strikes when the luxury high-rise building where Rayburn and his family were living is bombed — killing them and more than 600 Brazilian citizens.

Creasy vows to avenge the Rayburns’ death and protect Poe (Billie Boullet), Rayburn’s teenage daughter who survived and witnessed the attack. He enlists taxi driver Valeria Melo (Alice Braga) to not only help him hunt down the perpetrators of the bombing, but also evade the people who want him and Poe dead.

Their plan is eventually foiled, however, when Creasy is hit with a shocking development that changes everything. So, does Creasy expose the real culprits behind the deadly bombing and get Poe safely out of Brazil?

Here’s everything to know about the nail-biting conclusion of Netflix’s Man on Fire.

Who is behind the bombing?

Throughout the series, Creasy is operating under the intel that the FRP, an extremist organization in Brazil, and its imprisoned leader, Ferraz, are behind the bombing of the high-rise.

Creasy tracks down the individual seemingly responsible for orchestrating the bombings on Ferraz’s behalf — a man who goes by the name Osmar — leading to the arrests of multiple men within the FRP. But Creasy is not done: he refuses to leave Brazil until he gets to Ferraz and uncovers the identity of a mysterious man on a motorcycle who helped carry out the terrorist attack.

Though he prefers to work solo, Creasy assembles a ramshackle team — including Melo, her husband’s teenage cousin Livro, a local gang member named Vico and Ivan, a wealthy Russian man with access to travel documents and transportation — to help him carry out his mission. The plan is to sneak Creasy into the prison where Ferraz is being held and then extract Poe, Melo and her daughter to safety in Portugal.

In the penultimate episode of Man on Fire, Ferraz reveals to Creasy that it was President Carmo and his right-hand man, Prado Soares (Thomas Aquino), along with American CIA Agent Henry Tappen (Scoot McNairy), who orchestrated the deadly bombing. They did so to not only steal the election, but take total control of the country through emergency powers.

Carmo had Ferraz’s family kidnapped and held hostage to force the FRP to carry out the attack, which originally targeted a different luxury high-rise building in Rio. But after Rayburn started to suspect leaks within the president’s circle — and brought Creasy in to help uncover them — Tappen switched the target to the Rayburns’ building in an attempt to take them both out.

According to Ferraz, Tappen came down to Brazil to personally oversee the bombing. A phone call to Poe confirms that Tappen was the man she saw on the motorcycle the night of the attacks.

Ferraz and the FRP aren’t the only ones Carmo framed for the attack, however. The corrupt president had the FRP leader create fake emails to implicate Creasy in the bombing, as well — claiming he was not only aware of the planned attack, but also aided in its execution.

Ferraz claims he has two secret recordings that will expose the truth about Carmo and Soares. He promises to take Creasy to them if he’s allowed to call the FRP from Creasy’s phone to initiate an extraction plan for his family.

But after making the call, Ferraz confesses there are no recordings and that Creasy will have to find another way to take down Carmo, Soares and Tappen.

How does Creasy plan to expose President Carmo, Soares and Tappen?

Since Creasy knows how Tappen operates, he believes that the CIA agent utilized a “dead man’s switch” as an insurance policy when he made the deal with Carmo and Soares.

Creasy explains that Tappen most likely told the Brazilian politicians that he collected and recorded evidence of their crimes and if anything happens to him, those recordings will automatically get released to law enforcement and media outlets around the world. So Creasy plans to take Tappen out himself, activating the dead man’s switch and exposing him, Carmo and Soares as the criminals responsible for the bombing.

Creasy and his team stage an elaborate ruse where they lead Tappen and Soares to believe that they’re on the hunt for a recording created by Ferraz. Tappen and Soares beat Creasy to the box, but when they listen to the tape, it’s not Ferraz’s voice they hear, it’s Creasy’s. He tells them that, by pressing play, they’ve released deadly toxins into the air that will kill them.

Soares and Tappen are rushed to the hospital, where Creasy and his crew are waiting. Creasy and Poe are disguised as doctors, Ivan is dressed as janitorial staff and Melo, Vico and Livro are posing as ambulance drivers.

The plan is for Poe, who is also wanted by Brazilian authorities, to divert security’s attention so that Creasy can sneak into Tappen’s hospital room and kill him. Once he’s dead, Creasy and Poe will escape the hospital — and Brazil — with the help of Ivan, Melo, Livro and Vico.

The plan goes haywire, however, when Poe is forced from her hiding spot early and ends up in the same hospital room as Tappen. He spots her, realizing that he’s been set up and concludes that if Poe is there, so is Creasy.

Tappen takes off to find Creasy, while Poe and Ivan attempt to escape the hospital, which is now overrun with police.

Who survives the deadly showdown at the hospital?

The situation at the hospital escalates, as Ivan and Poe — along with Melo, Livro and Vico — find themselves in a standoff with the Brazilian police. Simultaneously, Creasy is on the hunt for Tappen with Soares and the cops on his tail.

Creasy fights off Soares on his way to Tappen, but loses his gun in the process. The vigilante gets to Tappen and barricades the two of them in a hospital room, where a vicious brawl ensues.

During their fight, Poe is screaming for Creasy over the radio, as the group is taking unrelenting fire from the police and can’t hold them off for much longer. For a moment, Creasy freezes, which allows Tappen to get the upper hand and start strangling him. But Creasy, fueled by his promises to Poe and his new friendships, digs deep and grabs a scalpel lying on the floor. He stabs Tappen in the thigh, hitting an artery and telling him, “This is for Rayburn.”

Tappen is dead, but Poe and the rest of the crew are still fighting for their lives elsewhere in the hospital. Things are looking bleak, as they have run out of ammunition and the police are storming their hiding place. But that’s when Creasy rolls in a Molotov cocktail, setting the officers on fire and allowing his friends to get out alive.

Creasy, Poe and the group are hightailing it out of the hospital when Creasy gets shot in the arm by a lone cop. He tells the group to keep going, and takes out the police officer on his own, despite being injured. When Creasy turns the corner, though, he finds Soares holding Poe at gunpoint.

With the weapon pressed to Poe’s head, Soares tells Creasy to drop his gun. Because the dead man’s switch has been activated, Soares plans to kill Creasy first, then Poe. But before he can pull the trigger, Poe whips out a self defense move taught to her by her father and Creasy.

She gets out of his grip and Creasy, after wrestling Soares for his gun, shoots him in the head. But Creasy is also injured in the fight, sustaining a shot to the chest. Poe, having lost all of her family in the bombing, is left begging Creasy to stay alive.

How does Man on Fire end?

The finale of Man on Fire ends with Brazilian news broadcasts announcing that President Carmo has been arrested after evidence surfaced linking himself, Soares and Tappen to using the FRP as a front for the high-rise bombing.

Creasy and his crew are credited with taking the men down and exposing the conspiracy.

Now that Carmo has been removed from power, Melo and her daughter have decided to stay in Brazil. They are hopeful that a new regime will bring positive changes to the country they love. Livro and Vico have escaped the grips of the neighborhood gang and are going to work for Ivan, doing maintenance on his yacht.

And Poe is back safely in the United States, where she is able to honor her late family in a memorial service. In the audience as she delivers their eulogies is none other than Creasy, who survived being shot by Soares at the hospital.

“What my family has given me is the strength to go on,” Poe says in her moving eulogy, “and what I’ve learned from my friends is that I never have to do so alone.”

Will there be a Man on Fire season 2?

While Netflix has yet to officially order a second season of Man on Fire, the season finale leaves viewers with a cliffhanger ending indicating that Creasy’s work is not done.

While at the memorial service for the Rayburns, Creasy receives a phone call from CIA director Moncrief (Paul Ben-Victor). Moncrief tells him that he has a situation developing that he’d like Creasy to take a look at and it involves the individuals in Mexico City that killed his entire team four years prior.

“I guess the only question is, if that’s something you’re ready to revisit,” Moncrief asks him. “Send me what you got,” Creasy says, before the credits roll.

In addition to the open-ended conclusion, director and executive producer Steven Caple Jr. has also hinted that he’d love to see Man on Fire return for a second season.

“It depends on everyone out there checking it out and watching it, and if we have something more to tell, but I think we do,” Caple Jr. told ComicBook. “John Creasy is a very interesting character; there’s a lot to say, and that’s certainly someone I would follow.”

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