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"You're gonna turn your back on family? Just like that?"
Letty Ortiz

The Fate of the Furious is the eighth installment in The Fast and the Furious franchise. The title is based on the film's shorthand abbreviation F8.note  It was released April 2017.

The film rejoins the cast during Dom and Letty's honeymoon in Cuba, with the rest of the team exonerated and presumably retired. That is, until a woman named Cipher (played by the franchise's first Oscar-winning addition to the cast, Charlize Theron) — an anarchist, high tech terrorist, and professional criminal, who leads Dom back to the world of crime he'd left behind and the crew (sans Brian) are forced back into action to stop Cipher's schemes.

The film is directed by F. Gary Gray (of The Italian Job (2003) and Straight Outta Compton fame), and reunites Gray with Theron and Statham, who he worked with on the 2003 Italian Job remake.note .

The film was followed by a Spin-Off, Hobbs & Shaw, in 2019, while the main series was continued with F9 in 2021.


The Fate of the Furious contains examples of:

  • And This Is for...: During the final battle, after Dom breaks Rhodes's neck, he says, "That was for Elena." And when using the heat-seeking missile to destroy Cipher's submarine, he then says, "This is for my son."
  • Artistic License – Ships: The Akula class submarines have a speed of 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph) surfaced, and 28–35 knots (52–65 km/h; 32–40 mph) submerged. But is shown catching up with and outrunning all the cars going flat out on the ice.
  • Awesome, but Impractical: Roman jumps at the chance to drive a bright orange Lamborghini for the big raid...only to have it go out of control on the ice as he doesn't have snow tires and is an easy target for the guys shooting at them.
  • Ax-Crazy:
    • Cipher may not do it physically, but she is definitely the epitome of this.
    • Rhodes takes relish in every chance he can get to murder human beings, especially woman and innocent children.
  • Back for the Dead: This unfortunately happens to Elena, who is executed by Rhodes on Cipher's order as a consequence of Dom letting Letty go.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: The one time you get to see Dom straight-out kill a man onscreen is where he snaps the spine and neck of Rhodes in rapid succession with his bare hands for murdering Elena, the mother of his baby son, in front of them both.
  • Be Yourself: Cipher uses this trope in order to further manipulate Dom into working for her.
    All this Robin hood, saving the world nonsense? It's not you. Be who you are. Why live only a quarter-miler at a time when you can live your whole life that way.
  • Big Bad: Cipher, revealed to be the Greater-Scope Villain behind Owen Shaw.
  • Big "NO!": Dom, when Rhodes executes Elena.
  • Bittersweet Ending: The crew manage to foil Cipher's plan to release the nuclear subs and thus avert World War III. But Elena is killed in the process, leaving her son to be raised by Dom and Letty, Cipher herself gets away unscathed, and the Torettos making amends with the Shaws comes with a risk as they have now pardoned two extremely dangerous criminals who have caused them no end of misery in the past, including killing one of their own — but hey, everyone can change.
  • Bond Villain Stupidity: Cipher breaks into the compound where literally all the protagonists are at that moment using stun grenades. This so far is justified in that she does not want to damage God's Eye, which she's there to steal, but she could have easily finished off everyone that's after her, or possibly even knows of her existence but instead just leaves. Even the fact that killing them would set Dom up against her is moot if she just hadn't taken him with her and didn't tell him about any of it.
  • The Bully: Cipher clearly gains a high from watching people emotionally crumble from being forced to sell out their family, principles and humanity on her command.
  • Butt-Monkey: Little Nobody doesn't get any respect for most of the movie, starting with Hobbs ragdolling him in his introductory scene.
  • By-the-Book Cop: Little Nobody takes his job very seriously, which proves to be more trouble than it's worth when his blunt statement to Hobbs ends up pushing his Berserk Button and leaves a bad impression on Dom's crew when he's implied to forcibly take them in to recruit them to track Dom and Cipher down. This is, however, mostly due to inexperience rather than firmly believing in protocol, and hegrows out of it by the time of the climax, with some encouragement from Hobbs.
  • The Cameo:
    • Tego and Rico come back to help Dom out by faking Deckard's death in New York, and Owen Shaw shows up, fully healed, to help his brother launch an air-assault on Cipher's plane.
    • Dame Helen Mirren shows up as the Shaws' Cockney crime boss mother, Magdalene.
  • Charles Atlas Superpower: Apparently, Luke Hobbs now can easily throw regular-sized humans around like pieces of paper, rush through barricades of people with police shields like nothing's business, and even rip off handcuffs with little to no effort. That's how recovery from falling off a building works out, though.
  • Chekhov's Boomerang: Early on, Roman suggests using God's Eye to track and find Cipher's location, only for it to be revealed that Cipher took countermeasures to prevent it. Cipher subsequently steals it and uses it through the rest of the film to further her plan. Then it's revealed that Dom used God's Eye to find Owen Shaw's location so Deckard and Magdalene Shaw could bust him out of prison and help take over Cipher's plane during the climax.
  • Chekhov's Gun: Dom's cross makes another important role in the series. Dom hangs it above Elena's cell on Cipher's plane when he "becomes the 'old' Dom" and works for Cipher. Turns out the cross has a tracking device on it that leads Deckard right to the cell to rescue Dom's baby when he and Owen assault Cipher's plane in the climax.
  • Chekhov's Gunman:
    • The Cuban crime boss Graceful Loser returns to assist Dom in The Plan to bring down Cipher in New York, providing him with the time he needed to make a deal with the Shaws' mother.
    • Early on in the film, Mr. Nobody mentions that Owen Shaw is currently locked up at a government black site. During the climax, it's revealed that Dom enacted a plan to allow Deckard and Magdalene Shaw to find and break Owen out of prison. Owen subsequently assists Deckard when they assault Cipher's plane during the climax.
    • Early on Dom is seen soldering something, with no indication of what it is. It's a tracking device he is adding to the Cross Necklace, so the Shaws can track the plane and rescue Dom's son.
  • Construction Vehicle Rampage: Tej uses a wrecking ball to get rid of the bad guys chasing the team. The wrecking ball is completely painted yellow with smiley face winking.
  • Continuity Nod:
    • To the first film. Cipher insists that the most important thing in Dom's life is the thrill of living a quarter mile at a time.
    • To the fifth film. Elena is shot and killed. Her husband was murdered similarly in Brazil.
    • To the sixth film. When Deckard and Owen assault Cipher's plane during the climax, Owen looks back at the hatch closing behind them as they land. He grimaces, remembering what happened the last time he was on a plane.
    • To the seventh film. Midway through the film, Ramsey muses about whether the team should bring Brian and Mia in to help. Both Roman and Letty counter that they made a promise not to involve the couple in any more jobs and let them live in peace.
  • Control Freak: Cipher revels in controlling others as shown when taking a sadistic glee in getting Dom to do her dirty work, with her ultimate endgame being to take control of a nuclear sub and pretty much hold the world hostage. When Dom is no longer under her sway, it's becomes major a Berserk Button when he talks down to her.
  • Conveniently Empty Roads: Defied when Cypher hacks and remotely controls dozens of cars in order to prevent the Russian Defense minister from escaping.
  • The Cracker: Cipher is a Master Hackette who is described by Mr. Nobody as some sort of a computer goddess, who easily beats Ramsey at her own game twice, the first time when she fakes Dom's location when Ramsey uses the God's Eye to track him, and when Ramsey comes up with a countermeasure to that, she traces the signal back to Mr. Nobody's base and assaults it to take God's Eye herself. The second time when she battles Ramsey for the nuclear submarine's control and wins while also simultaneously locks down the submarine when Tej, Roman and Little Nobody attempts to remove the nuclear launch command chip directly from the submarine itself. She also has a team of master hackers who controls the digital world like nobody's business, as demonstrated when they take control of hundreds of cars in New York City and weaponize them to attack the Russian Ambassador's convoy.
  • Crocodile Tears: Magdalene Shaw begins crying uncontrollably when her son Deckard objects to bringing Owen on the final mission and stops immediately the second he agrees.
  • Dead Guy Junior: Dom's son, Brian Marcus Toretto, both meta and in-universe. In-universe, his middle name is named after Elena's husband Officer Marcos Neves, who was murdered in Brazil. In a meta-sense, his first name is named after Brian O'Connor, to honor the real-life passing of Paul Walker.
  • Death by Cameo: Elsa Pataky (Elena) shows up long enough to have a pair of scenes as a prisoner being held by Cipher to get Dom's cooperation. She is summarily executed by Rhodes after Dom lets Letty go after stealing the nuclear football.
  • Death of the Hypotenuse: Elena is executed by Rhodes on Cipher's orders, just a short time after it's revealed that she gave birth to a child. This avoids another potential Love Triangle and allows Dom to raise the child with Letty.
  • Defeat Means Friendship: Raldo loses a race against Dom, but comes to respect him so much for his gracious waiver of his car that was on the line that he travels to New York to help Dom set up a meeting with Magdalene Shaw without Cipher finding out.
  • Demoted to Extra: Elena gets kidnapped by Cipher, along with her son, who had been unknowingly fathered by Dom during their brief relationship. Sadly, she is murdered shortly afterward, to punish Dom for disobeying Cipher.
  • Diabolical Mastermind: Cipher is an absolute genius with a megalomaniac scheme to become a nuclear power all on her own. Unlike all the previous villains in the franchise, who had either money or revenge as their motivation, Cipher is the only one with ambitions on a global scale.
  • Dirty Coward: In Rhodes' last bit with Dom, the latter states he's this since Rhodes never tries to fight someone directly despite all his posturing since most of the time Cipher is one holding the leash and preventing her targets from attacking back. Directly telling Rhodes that when [Dom] kills someone, he looks them dead in the eye. Once the Shaw Brothers manage to save Dom's son. Dom repeats this to Rhodes right before he kills him.
  • The Dragon: Connor Rhodes to Cipher.
  • Easily Forgiven:
    • Dom buries the hatchet with Deckard when the latter helps rescue Dom's son, while Deckard gives up his vendetta on them after Dom uses the God's Eye to help Deckard and his mother rescue Owen.
    • This also applies to Dom as a whole by the end of the movie, considering that he did betray his team and put most of them on the international most wanted list and almost assists Cipher into starting a world war... Though considering the life his innocent baby son, whom they would also have loved and laid down their lives for, was at stake, their forgiveness is much more understandable in this case.
  • Enemy Mine: Dom's team is partnered up with Deckard Shaw by Mr. Nobody.
  • Ensign Newbie: Little Nobody is clearly still learning the ropes of undercover work, but Mr. Nobody still throws him to the deep end of the pool by having him run Team Torreto.
  • Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Deckard and Owen are revealed to be this. Despite all said and done, they love their mother, and their mother loves them too. In fact, Deckard sobs up for real when his mother sows some (fake) tears to finally convince him to break Owen out of prison and help rescue Dom's son.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: Deckard Shaw is aghast that Cipher's men want to kill a child, even if it is the son of his sworn enemy Dominic Toretto. He even beats a mook into a pulp for opening fire in the baby's direction.
  • Everything Is Online: To an even more ridiculous degree than the last film. Cipher and her hackers are able to remote control hundreds of cars in downtown New York City, and even remote pilot a refitted Russian nuclear sub and launch its payload of missiles all from the comfort of their spy plane.
  • Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Cipher mocks Dom for refusing to humiliate the loser of a drag race by taking his prized car in spite of him conspiring to kill Dom to win the race, taking his respect instead. Cipher sneered that he had no "obligation" to be so noble; but it is precisely because of Dom's ability to turn the other cheek and let bygones be bygones that allows him to earn the friendships and/or respect of said drag racer and even the Shaw Brothers, who turned out to be the trump cards in stopping Cipher's genocidal plans.
  • Evil Costume Switch: Dom's status as a Rogue Protagonist is underlined by an all-black outfit.
  • Evil Is Petty: Cipher may be a brilliant mastermind when it comes to recruiting mercenaries and utilizing nuclear weapons but she's a vindictive bitch to the core when she noticed Dom wouldn't kill Letty as part of her request for his mission working for her so as punishment: she has Elena killed right in front of Dom and his baby son to spite him for it.
  • Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: The team rework God's Eye to figure out where Cipher and Dom are, showing a building.
    Mr. Nobody: This is interesting.
    Little Nobody: Why?
    Mr. Nobody: Because that's here.
  • Face–Heel Turn: When Dom supposedly betrays the team. Turns out he never really betrayed the team. He was blackmailed in order to protect his infant son's life.
  • Faking the Dead: Midway through the film, Dom seemingly shoots and kills Deckard Shaw. Later on, when Dom enacts his Xanatos Gambit against Cipher, Deckard is revealed to be alive, having faked his death so he could skydrop into Cipher's plane without being detected.
  • Fire-Forged Friendship: Hobbs and Deckard. They initially started as bitter enemies, having Snark-to-Snark Combat whilst in prison, to eventually laughing whilst insulting each other. Hobbs even gives a Big "NO!" when Deckard is seemingly shot dead by Dom. They seem to be buddies at the end of the film.
  • Forced into Evil: Dom is forced to do Cipher's bidding because she has Elena held hostage, along with her and Dom's newborn son. She threatens to kill them if he doesn't comply.
  • Forgotten Phlebotinum: Averted. Using the God's Eye device from the previous movie is one of the first things the good guys try, but Cipher has already come up with countermeasures. She still attacks Mr. Nobody's headquarters to steal it an use it herself. Dom also uses it to locate the prison where Owen is being kept.
  • Foreshadowing: In the beginning of the film, Dom and Letty briefly discuss raising a child, with Letty playfully commenting that she's not pregnant. Later in the film, it's revealed that Elena, Dom's former lover, gave birth to a baby son, who is fathered by Dom during their brief romance together, and both of them are being held hostages by Cipher to force Dom into working for her. The baby is later adopted by Dom and Letty to be raised as their own after Elena is killed and is named Brian.
  • For the Evulz: While Cipher likes to gives out pseudo-philosophical speeches to justify her actions, it's very clear she does most of the horrible stuff she does because she enjoys it. Best exemplified by her kissing Dom right in front of Letty simply for no other reason than to break Letty's heart.
  • A God Am I: Cipher shows shades of this during her "crocodile at the watering hole" monologue. She plans to steal the launch codes for Russia's nukes, along with a nuclear submarine. This would cement her as a new nuclear superpower, and make the nations of the world fear her judgement.
  • Gory Discretion Shot:
    • During the Russian stronghold fight, Letty flips one of the soldiers she's fighting over a railing, right into the spinning propeller of the nuclear sub. We don't see anything but the slight blood splatter.
    • Elena's death is also done like this, where only the gunshots are heard.
    • In universe: Deckard says "You're not going to want to see this" to the baby and turns him away from the carnage before he beats up a soldier who shot at the baby.
  • Greater-Scope Villain: Cipher for the entire series, especially the third, fourth, sixth and seventh movies, as she was the one who employed Owen Shaw note (and by extension Arturo Braga) and Mose Jakande to steal the Nightshade device and acquire the God's Eye, respectively.
  • Heel–Face Turn: Deckard Shaw, who is humanized so much that he is Easily Forgiven by Dom and takes part in the barbecue at the end of the film. Owen as well, since Dom's the one who helps him break out of prison.
  • Hero Killer: Rhodes killed Elena under Cipher's orders, and would have killed Letty twice and the rest of Dom's family had Dom not put a stop to it.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: Cipher's plans are ultimately foiled when, in her frustration to kill Dom in the climax, she shoots a heat seeking missile at him. Dom quickly uses it to his advantage by using his car to redirect it at the Russian sub she hacked, destroying it.
  • Hostage Situation: This is what causes Dom to get involved with Cipher in the first place. He learns that Elena has been kidnapped by her, along with The Reveal that she gave birth to his child. Part of the climax involves Deckard and Owen assaulting Cipher's plane to rescue the child.
  • Hypocrite: Cipher lives this trope through the entire movie, espousing the "freedom of choice" rather than rules, despite the fact that the only reason Dom works for her is that she is holding his son hostage, and then tries to make Dom shoot her as a "choice", despite as she herself and Dom point out there are multiple reasons why the Just Eat Gilligan "choice" wouldn't work, such as the cell holding Doms' son and Elena has a two man failsafe, and the minute he shot Cipher the entire plane would come to kill Doms' son.
  • I Have Your Wife: Or rather, "I have your ex-lover and newborn son."
  • In Prison with the Rogues: Hobbs was helping out on a heist, but when Dom goes rogue, Hobbs is forced to steal the device in his place. This leads him to get caught and arrested, where he ends up incarcerated in the same high-security prison as Deckard Shaw, the Big Bad from the previous film who Hobbs had helped put there. In fact the two of them are placed in neighboring cells and exchange a lot of crude banter with one another. During a power outage, Shaw takes the opportunity to escape, to which Hobbs pursues in an attempt to stop him while also fighting off the prison guards who are trying to hinder him.
  • Ironic Echo: "Do you think this is gonna be a street fight?" Dom says this to Deckard when the latter catches up to him in New York and Dom pulls a gun on him, before seemingly shooting him dead. It's actually part of Dom's plan to fake Deckard's death to get him under the radar so he could rescue Dom's son.
  • ISO-Standard Urban Groceries: Early on we see Dom with a baguette and a rose sticking out of his shopping bag.
  • It Amused Me: Cipher's ultimate motivation; "Nothing is necessary, there is only choice." In other words, if it looks amusing, or even mildly interesting, she'll do it just to satisfy her curiosity and boredom, no matter how cruel or monstrous it may be; from causing city-wide car crashes that potentially can kill thousands, murdering mothers in front of their babies, or randomly firing thermonuclear weapons just to prove her absolute power.
  • I Will Punish Your Friend for Your Failure: Not only Cipher forces Dom in her service by threatening to kill his newborn son, she orders Elena to be killed when Dom lets Letty escape with the nuclear codes.
  • Karma Houdini:
    • Cipher successfully escapes to safety during the Climax. Although it's suggested that she has to lay low for a while, she gets off really easy for all the monstrous things she does.
    • Deckard and Owen Shaw, as well, since both are villains of previous films and had done things that almost got the team killed. The former, in particular, did kill one: Han. However, the two manage to lighten this somewhat by saving Dom's son.
  • Karmic Death: Rhodes killed Elena right in front of Dom and nearly kills Letty twice just to spite him. However once Deckard saves Dom's son and gives him the all clear. Dom wastes no time unleashing fury on him and ultimately his death.
  • Know When to Fold 'Em: The Russian Defense minister and his bodyguards are very well aware of how bad of an idea handing over a dirty bomb is and try to fight back and hole up in their car for a while, but eventually surrender it rather than be burned alive.
  • Lack of Empathy: Cipher cheerfully refers to bonds of familial love as chemical responses for species preservation, and with smug pride candidly admits her lack of respect for such emotions allows her to play actual human beings like puppets.
  • Leeroy Jenkins: During the New York chase, Little Nobody is the first one to be taken out of commission by Dom when he rushes in first ahead of the crew and Dom tricks him into crashing into a shop, and later a scaffolding.
  • Long Bus Trip: Both Brian and Mia are dropped from the series so they can quietly raise their children. This is done to retire Brian, as his actor had passed away; theoretically, Mia can appear again, but it would feel awkward (plus she has been demoted to extra since the sixth film anyway). Word of God said that Brian might appear again in some way, though.
  • Macross Missile Massacre: One of the enemy vehicles during the final battle is armed with missiles. It locks onto the team, but when Dom redeems himself, he rams into the vehicles and it takes out the other surrounding enemies instead.
  • Mask of Sanity: Cipher waxes on about her actions in pseudo-philosophical debates to try and excuse them and appears calm and controlled but it's glaringly obvious underneath it all she's an insane A God Am I psychopath who wouldn't shy away from the mass murder of thousands or God forbid, likely put entire countries to the nuclear torch for a few cheap laughs and a good stroke of her ego.
  • My Biological Clock Is Ticking: Letty teases Dom about how they never talk about having kids, despite being in relationship for over ten years. By the end, she decides to adopt Dom and Elena's son, Brian Marcos.
  • My Secret Pregnancy: Elena reveals that she was pregnant with Dom's son sometime during the events of Fast & Furious 6 and had raised him since then without telling Dom, as she didn't want to ruin his reunion with Letty. By the time she had gathered enough courage to break the news, Cipher had already known her secret and took her hostage.
  • "Near and Dear" Baby Naming: Dom names his son Brian, after Brian O'Connor, who retired from onscreen appearances in the series in the previous film due to Paul Walker's death.
  • Never Trust a Trailer:
    • The trailer implies that after Dom's (apparent) Face–Heel Turn, he and Hobbs will have an epic rematch with Hobbs announcing that whether the old Dom is still in there or not, he will take him down, over a scene where an armored reflects bullets with a riot shield, as Hobbs fires a belt fed assault rifle. Not only are these shots from completely different scenes, but the two never directly fight each other in the whole movie.
    • Speaking of Dom turning on his team/family, the trailers seem to imply that whether he has really betrayed them for Cypher and why are going to be big mysteries in the film. In actuality, it is made clear to the audience that Dom is being extorted into turning on them from pretty much the beginning, even if for what is not initially made clear.
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Cipher allowing Rhodes to kill Elena to spite Dom cut the number of hostages she held over Dom's head right down in half. At no point did she ever consider this would backfire.
  • The Nicknamer: As Mr. Nobody reveals Deckard joining in the operation against Cipher, Hobbs provides this gem of a quote:
    "You wanna tell me why you just put me in a room with this tea-and-crumpets eating, criminal summmbitch?"
  • No-Sell: During the prison riot, Hobbs is shot multiple times with rubber bullets. It does little more than piss him off.
    Hobbs: Rubber bullets. Big mistake.
  • "Not So Different" Remark: Hobbs is curious as to why Deckard became a criminal since he is a highly decorated war hero. Deckard then points out that he wasn't so different from Hobbs, who was a highly decorated government agent. He further implies that like Hobbs, he was betrayed and set up, forcing him to operate in the shadows.
  • Oh, Crap!:
    • Once it's made known that Deckard has saved Dom's son, Cipher quickly realizes that she no longer as any hold on Dom, meaning he, his family, and the Shaw Brothers are now all free to come gunning for her for all the crap she's put them through. As Dom put best: "You just took your foot off the tiger's neck."
    • This is followed shortly after when Dom uses a heat seeking missile she shot at him to redirect it into the Russian sub she took control of. She quickly realizes her folly but by then it far too late to try and counter it.
    • Also Rhodes' reaction when he realises Dom is about to kill him.
  • Only Known by Their Nickname: Little Nobody's real name is never brought up. He is only ever referred to by the nickname "Little Nobody", which he doesn't appreciate.
  • Papa Wolf: Dom's actions in the film are motivated by The Reveal that Elena was pregnant and gave birth to a baby boy while he was busy chasing Jakande in the previous film, and is what allows Cipher to have a hold on him. One of the climactic scenes has Dom waiting to hear back from Deckard, who along with Owen assaults Cipher's plane to rescue the child.
  • Pretty Boy: Little Nobody. Hobbs lampshades this by asking why Mr. Nobody would want a boy band member as his assistant.
  • Reveal Shot: Hobbs is introduced in close-up giving a pep talk to his squad before an important operation. Then the camera pulls back to reveal his "squad" is actually his daughter's soccer team and the operation is their next game.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
    • After Hobbs' daughter's soccer team performs an intimidating haka right before a match, one of the girls on the opposing team decides she doesn't want to play anymore.
    • After Cipher takes control of hundreds of cars in New York, a taxi driver waits until it has slowed down enough and jumps out... abandoning his passenger on the back seat.
  • Sequel Escalation: As of this movie, The Toretto family's archnemesis is a remorselessly sociopathic hacker-slash-warlord with a veritable god-complex, who is fully able (and willing) to threaten the world with a global nuclear holocaust just to puff up her monstrous ego.
  • Sequel Hook: Cipher escapes after the Final Battle, and Mr. Nobody reports that she was last seen in Athens. Time will tell when she will rise again.
  • Serious Business: Hobbs' daughter's soccer team. It is hilarious, awesome and heartwarming all at once.
  • Sexiness Score: Roman is upset he didn't make it into Interpol's top 10 most wanted list, because Ramsey beat him to the 10th spot, and he complains "There's no way she's a ten", which prompts Tej (who has a major crush on Ramsey) to joke "Oh, she's definitely a ten." Ramsey just rolls her eyes and walks away.
  • Shout-Out: After the submarine chases the characters, one of the remarks, "We're going to need a bigger truck!"
  • The Sociopath:
    • Cipher is a rare female example. Coldly charming on a superficial level, Cipher confesses a complete detachment from human feeling, refusing to acknowledge love itself above the level of evolutionary function and hormonal responses and uses said emotion to drive heroes into villainy. She is perfectly indifferent to threatening children with murder to force obedience from their parents, justifying her monstrosity with pretenses of Utopian aspirations. Her impulse control is nonexistent as her ego is huge. The only emotions she is capable of feeling are cold satisfaction from watching decent people crumble under her tyranny, and animalistic rage when things do not go her way.
    • Cipher casually states that the men under her command have no compunctions whatsoever about murdering innocent babies with gunfire; Rhodes certainly showed nothing but grinning-joy in slaying Elena right in front of her baby son.
  • Someone to Remember Him By: Dom's son, Brian Marcos, someone to remember Elena. And Brian too, in a sense (see Dead Guy Junior above).
  • Stealth Pun: The title of The Fate of the Furious is derived from the working title, F8 — if you take the first letter of the working title and pronounce it in front of the number, then you have a homonym for "Fate".
  • Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Little Nobody seems to be one for Brian in his early police days. He's working on the force and prefers driving Japanese tuners (Subaru BRZ in New York, Subaru WRX in Russia) like Brian. And again, he's explicitly called a pretty boy, which is also what Brian used to be called back in the days.
  • Terrorists Without a Cause: Cipher and her network of hackers and mercenaries.
  • Theme Music Power-Up: When Dom dispatches Rhodes and races towards the missile truck firing at the team, the theme song kicks in full force as he goes down the snowy slope.
  • Two-Keyed Lock: Cipher's plane has one for Elena's cell, which initially prevents Dom from rescuing her since he's alone and the second lock is located in the cockpit. This is why it takes both Deckard and Owen to rescue his son during the climax.
  • Underestimating Badassery: Zigged-zagged. Cipher knows Dom is formidable due to him taking down Owen and Jakande, two men that were in her employ. So rather then try and confront him, she manipulates him into working for her via holding his former lover and son hostage. It does nearly work for the most part, but as she got closer to her goal, Cipher got too cocky near the endgame that she didn't realize Dom had set a plan in motion to have his son saved by Deckard and Owen while his team handled her plan. Once that leverage was taken away, she was forced to fight Dom directly. Predictably, her plan gets shot to Hell in a matter of seconds and she's left running with her tail between her legs.
  • Unknown Rival: Dom has been inadvertently foiling Cipher's plans' for at least two movies, by stopping Owen Shaw and Mose Jakande. She hasn't taken it well.
  • Villain: Exit, Stage Left: After her plans are foiled and the Shaw brothers kill all her men and capture her plane, Cipher escapes from it by jumping with a parachute, remaining at large as the movie ends.
  • Villainous Breakdown: Cipher loses it during the climax of Fate beginning with Ramsey setting her back one time too many. It continues even more when Deckard and Owen attack her plane, allowing Dom to kill Rhodes as well as save his son. Then she becomes increasingly irate as her attempts to kill Team Toretto repeatedly fails. She finally reaches her breaking point when Dom uses the heat-seeking missile that she launched against the submarine she hijacked in order to destroy it. To be fair to her, she manages to keep herself composed enough to escape Deckard but she clearly doesn't take the tables being turned against her well.
  • Villainous Fashion Sense: Cipher is an extremely fashionable villain, sporting heavy metal t-shirts and leather jackets, and even has a combination high-fashion walk-in wardrobe and weaponry closet on board her jet plane.
  • Visionary Villain: Cipher claims that she wants to act as a watch dog to the world and keep the big dogs in line, but the way she says it and her past operations imply it's more out of a desire to inflict control than any altruism.
  • We Have Reserves: Cipher shows absolutely no inclination to preserve the lives of her mooks in the climax, and kills quite a few of them while going after the crew with the submarine.
  • Wham Line: The first trailer for the film has a very big one.
    Hobbs: Dominic Toretto... just turned on us!
  • Wham Shot:
    • The shot on Cipher's plane that reveals Elena, Dom's former lover, has been held hostage by Cipher in order to force him into working for her. The second Wham Shot is dropped seconds later when Elena reveals that she gave birth to a baby son, who was fathered by Dom during their brief romance before Letty was discovered to be alive.
    • Later, a pair of men use special wingsuits to board Cipher's plane, then unmask to reveal themselves as the supposedly-dead Deckard and his supposedly-imprisoned brother, Owen.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: Most to all of Cipher's hackers disappear during the climactic fight aboard her plane.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Hobbs notably asks Dom what he's doing and tells him to reconsider when the latter rams him off the road after the botched Berlin job.
  • Would Hurt a Child: Cipher does not even blink, much less hesitate to force Dominic to obey each and every one of her commands by holding the life of his infant son in her hands, and calmly orders the execution of the boy's mother right in front of him and Dominic for the simple act of refusing to shoot Letty.
    Deckard Shaw: You'd shoot a little baby? Really!? You sick bastard.
  • You Have Failed Me: In retaliation for Dom rescuing Letty from Rhodes, Cipher has Rhodes execute Elena in front of Dom.

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Cipher

Cipher murders Elena in cold-blood.

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