John Wick: Chapter 1; John Wick: Chapter 2 explained

Image Courtesy: IMDb

John Wick: Chapter 1 which came out in 2014 introduced us to the world of John Wick - a parallel world of criminals, assassins, enablers, and bosses who share the same Earth as us but their values and dimensions run parallel to ours.

This world is full of rules and contracts, you break a rule you lose a limb, you break many you lose your life. You break the code of life that governs this world you are excommunicated (basically you die an ignoble death) and in a world which has the honor at its core, it is not a good way to go.

We were given a peek at this complex world and the titular John Wick who is an oddity in this world as well, he's the Boogeyman, the Baba Yaga, the one who can kill 8 people in a bar with a pencil. John is retired, but his dog is murdered and that brings him back into the world that he had once left behind.

Image Courtesy: IMDb

John Wick: Chapter 2 continued the world building started in John Wick: Chapter 1. This one peeled back the first layer of the onion to introduce the viewers to the group that rules this parallel world. The High Table, referenced only a few times in this movie, the politics and the infighting that goes on in this group is exposed when John is made to honor a marker that was given out by him to one of the aspiring High Table bosses Santino D'Antonio.

Betrayal is nothing new for John Wick, that he gets a contract put out on him for fulling his marker by the same man who asked him to fulfill it. We also find out the power wielded by the managers of 'The Continental' the hotel used by everybody in John Wick's business. John also has allies in the form of the Bowery King who runs the network of homeless assassins and the manager of the New York Continental who considers John his friend.

At the end of John Wick 2, John is on the run having broken THE CARDINAL rule of The Continental by killing Santino D'Antonio on The Continental New York's premise and thus is made excommunicado from The Continental and the associated fraternity. The High Table not liking the killing of one of their own by a mere hitman doubles the open contract on John Wick to $14mn and makes it international.

John Wick: Chapter 2 ends with John on the run and the entire might of the High Table out and gunning for him...

See how John Wick 3: PARABELLUM plays out