History Headscratchers / JohnWickChapter2

* In the first movie, Winston had Ms. Perkins executed by firing squad for *trying* to kill John in the hotel. In this one, he punishes John with excommunication for *actually* killing Santino, waits overnight to administer the punishment, and gives John a one hour head start. Why? Given the chaos and destruction that will ensue from this decision, it has to be more than just his personal respect/fondness for 'Jonathan'.
** Well she conducted business on the premises by trying to kill John and later killing Harry, so it's not just try and that just add to the murder attempt. Plus Winston was shown bending his rules for John since the first movie. Marcus wanted to do that too so it's more than likely with the age difference and Wick's history he was around since Winston built the Continental. Viggo even mentioned Marcus and Wick are the last of the old guard, so there is a matter of honor into it.

** He all but outright says that he does so out of sentimentality. John asks Winston why he isn't dead yet, and Winston's reply is "Because I choose it to be so." What's the point of being in such a position of power if you can't bend the rules a little bit when you choose to?
* It may also be because Winston, being highly placed in the organization, knows that Santino was going to cause even ''more'' damage to everyone if he stayed alive, probably causing some kind of civil war among the assassins. But as long as he was on Continental grounds, there was no legal (by the organization's standards) way to stop him. Even in the best case scenario, there's an EvilPowerVacuum on his hands to clean up just to maintain the organization. By killing Santino, even on Continental grounds, Winston knows Wick's actions (however destructive) averted a bloody and wasteful disaster for the guild, thereby doing him a ''favor.'' Winston has to declare John PersonaNonGrata and honor the bounty for appearances' sake, but he knows John saved their asses in the longer term.
** Most likely he just did ''Winston'' a favor, the High Table would probably have gain more money from Santino taking over New York than leaving it to Winston and the Bowery king. Like the actor said in the first movie, if Viggo and Wick are the god and devil of New York, Winston is now the ruling Titan.
** Is there any reason for Winston to object the High Table coming to New York? If anything, it would mean getting more business. The Intercontinental is more or less an union for work-for-hire assassins and the various support services they need to operate, so the organization depends on other more general criminal empires ready to pay top dollar for the absolute best.
** They don't need to pay top dollar if they are the only available client in the area and as seen with Viggo when there is only one king it tends to encourage people into breaking the Continental rule if their backer is powerful enough. One of the reason why Winston is so powerful is that he is the only member of an international crime syndicate with a foot in New York. He won't be master of his own kingdom if there are other ready to offer the assassins a better share than him.
** The deleted scenes show that Santino was already in the process of taking over the NY crime business in a very hostile manner, and even verbally threatens Winston and tells him that he doesn't care about his rules and traditions.

** Viggo is actually introduced in the first movie coming out of a meeting with some unspecified criminal gang. We don't get any context or information, but Avi proudly declares "They've agreed to all of your terms, but it's not like you left them much of a choice. Congratulations, Sir.". Later on when John Wick burns Viggo's stash, Viggo unravels with "All the leverage I had in this city was within that vault!". In the second movie Gianna just takes Mr. Akoni's shit without any regard. If you pierce all of that scattered information it's easy to deduce what is going on: Viggo (somehow) forced the Camorra into relinquishing their power over New York to him through some form of blackmail. When John destroys the blackmail material and dismantles Viggo's entire criminal outfit, the Camorra just returns and picks up right where they left off. As for the Bowery King, the movie makes pretty clear NY belongs to the Camorra as far as the ''High Table'' is concerned. Bowery King is explicitly noted as a faction opposed to the High Table.
** So to sum it up: New York belonged to the Camorra, but Viggo usurped New York from their hands (with or without the approval of the rest of the Russian mob, it's unclear) via blackmail and possibly actual gang warfare. Camorra relinquishes their power over NY to Viggo completely around the same time of the events of the first John Wick. John Wick throws a monkey wrench into everybody's plan and wipes out the entire Russian Mob in NY and destroys the blackmail material, paving the way for Camorra's return. So during Chapter 2 the Camorra is returning and the High Table is trying to return things to normal. The Bowery King is just a renegade faction brewing under all of this conflict. Wick himself alludes to the idea that "A storm is coming for everyone who's not the High Table" and both him and Wick accept the fact Santino's takeover would mean the High Table fully dedicating themselves to wiping out the King's men. Whether Viggo accepted the Bowery King or not is unclear. In short: New York is escaping the High Table's control and slipping into Viggo's and Bowery King's, and they're trying to rerail it into their hands.

** The car John is driving in the beginning of the movie isn't his Mustang but the Chevelle SS Aurelio gave him as a loaner in the previous film.

** From the way Wick talks, it seems like he had three choices: A) Never fulfill "the Impossible Task" and thus never retire. B) Die during the process of the Impossible Task and thus never retire. C) Get Santino's help through the Marker and retire, then hope Santino would never find reason to pull him out of retirement. Winston points out how his retirement tactic is kind of fragile to put it mildly and John's only answer is "It was the only way". For that matter, he doesn't seem entirely wrong: From the way Santino talks it seems like there'd be a huge social taboo against taking Wick out of retirement for just the marker (which Santino himself points out), the only reason Santino recruits Wick is because of the entire Iosef massacre of the first film which implied John Wick had come out of retirement in the eyes of the criminal world, making cashing in on the Marker socially acceptable. If we erased that moment Iosef kickstarted the plot of the first movie, Santino would never have been able to cash in the Marker because of the social taboo against breaking a man's retirement. It's also very possible Wick could avoid the Marker some other, non-lethal way (like giving Santino some information he needed).

** While Santino is not technically breaking any hard rules, he is deeply pushing the unwritten taboos among the assassin and criminal world through his actions. Normally you probably wouldn't take out a contract on the assassin who carried out the mission for you, but Santino is willing to break that sort of professional courtesy between client and contractor, both out of necessity (silencing John so he can't tell anyone who hired him) and out of personal arrogance and pride (as John refused him at first, and Santino wanted to punish John for such arrogance).

* In the first movie, Winston punishes Ms. Perkins with death for *trying* to kill John in the hotel. In this one, he punishes John with excommunication for *actually* killing Santino, waits overnight to administer the punishment, and gives John a one hour head start. Why? Given the chaos and destruction that will ensue from this decision, it has to be more than just his personal respect/fondness for 'Jonathan'.
** Well she killed Harry so it's not just try and that just add to the murder attempt. Plus Winston was shown bending his rules for John since the first movie, Marcus wanted to do that too so it's more than likely with the age difference and Wick's history he was around since Winston built the Continental. Viggo even mentioned Marcus and Wick are the last of the old guard so there is a matter of honor into it.

** He all but outright says that he does so out of sentimentality. John asks Winston why he isn't dead yet, and Winston's reply is "Because I choose it to be so." What's the point of being king if you can't twist the rules a little bit when you choose to?
* It may also be because Winston, being highly placed in the organization, knows that Santino was going to cause even ''more'' damage to the organization if he stayed alive, probably causing some kind of civil war among the assassins. But as long as he was on Continental grounds, there was no legal (by the organization's standards) way to stop him. Even in the best case scenario, there's an EvilPowerVacuum on his hands to clean up just to maintain the organization. By killing Santino, even on Continental grounds, Winston knows Wick's actions (however destructive) averted a bloody and wasteful disaster for the guild, thereby doing him a ''favor.'' Winston has to declare John PersonaNonGrata and honor the bounty for appearances' sake, but he knows John saved their asses in the longer term.

** Is there any reason for Winston to object the High Table coming to NY? If anything, it would mean getting more business. The Intercontinental is more or less an union for work-for-hire Assassins and the various support services they need to operate, so the organization depends on other more general criminal empires ready to pay top dollar for the absolute best.
** They don't need to pay top dollar if they are the only available client in the area and as seen with Viggo when there is only one king it tends to encourage people into breaking the Continental rule if their backer is powerful enough. One of the reason why Winston is so powerful is that he is the only member of an international crime syndicate with a foot in NY. He won't be master of his own kingdom if there are other ready to offer the assassins a better share than him.

** Iosef even mentioned he just crushed the last resistance for his father at the start of the movie.
** Viggo is actually introduced in the first movie coming out of a meeting with some unspecified criminal gang. We don't get any context or information, but Avi proudly declares "They've agreed to all of your terms, but it's not like you left them much of a choice. Congratulations, Sir.". Later on when John Wick burns Viggo's stash, Viggo unravels with "All the leverage I had in this city was within that vault!". In the second movie Gianna just takes Mr. Akoni's shit without any regard. If you pierce all of that scattered information it's easy to deduce what is going on: Viggo (somehow) forced the Camorra into relinquishing their power over NY to him through some form of blackmail. When John destroys the blackmail material and dismantles Viggo's entire criminal outfit, the Camorra just returns and picks up right where they left off. As for the Bowery King, the movie makes pretty clear NY belongs to the Camorra as far as the ''High Table'' is concerned. Bowery King is explicitly noted as a faction opposed to the High Table.

** That's not even loophole, Cassian and Wick had to stop fighting the moment they entered the continental, it's not because Santino is a villain that he can't search for sanctuary especially when Wick is the guy who destroyed two criminal empire on revenge, if the Hight Table has a say in this they'll prefer Santino who is one of them over John who keeps "retiring".

** From the way Wick talks, it seems like his choices were A) Never fulfill "the Impossible Task" and thus never retire. B) Die during the process of the Impossible Task and thus never retire. C) Get Santino's help through the Marker and retire, then hope Santino would never find reason to pull him out of retirement. Winston points out how his retirement tactic is kind of fragile to put it mildly and John's only answer is "It was the only way". For that matter, he doesn't seem entirely wrong: From the way Santino talks it seems like there'd be a huge social taboo against taking Wick out of retirement for just the marker (which Santino himself points out), the only reason Santino recruits Wick is because of the entire Iosef massacre of the first film which implied John Wick had come out of retirement in the eyes of the criminal world, making cashing in on the Marker socially acceptable. If we erased that moment Iosef kick started the plot of the first movie, Santino would never have cashed in the Marker because of the social taboo against breaking a man's retirement. It's also very possible Wick could avoid the Marker some other, non-lethal way (like giving Santino some information he needed).

** The High Table's inner workings are unclear but it seems more likely that it functions like a sort of criminal UN in which everyone is ''kind'' of allied but also hates each other (like, say, Russia and the US both being members of the UN). It's also implied every member of the High Table has a high amount of power over the region they control.

** John doesn't rescue a puppy at the end of the first film. The puppy is the one that dies. He rescues the same dog that appears in Chapter 2, an older pitbull male. As far as his injuries, they do affect him, it's just that there's so many other injuries he accumulates over the film that it's hard to tell what's restricting him due to the "new" and what's "old" and still hampering him. He conspicuously demonstrates he's still hampered by old wounds in some of the decisions he makes on how to dispatch the men in Peter Stormare's warehouse, primarily relying on his car to do the fighting for him and going for his gun the second he has to deal with someone who looks like he can handle himself.

** Giving his life back was just the Bowery King being theatrics. John half-assed slitting his throat since he wasn't the target. It'll be like the GiantMook with busted kneecaps owe John. Plus while they take golden coin the homeless seems to be at odds with the High Table, who are the one that put the bounty. Bowery King was likely weighting if 7 millions is worth more than losing New York to Santino.

** As in real life, sniping someone takes planning and coordination ahead of time. Any snipers in Wick's world would struggle to quickly respond to a contract and predict Wick's future whereabouts to set up a long distance ambush. It's much easier for the street level, close combat assassins to spot and attack Wick on opportunity.

** Winston said in that scene the Marker is new and might help Wick. He probably hope Wick can fill a blood oath with a strong guy for protection one day.

** The deleted scenes show that Santino was already in the process taking over the NY crime business in a very hostile manner, and even verbally threatens Winston and tells him that he doesn't care about his rules and traditions.

*** For a fully-grown adult dog, its face changes and it grows in size between the two movies, as could be demonstrated if we could link to images. Notably, at the end of the first movie, the dog doesn't reach knee height on John. By the time of the second one, it does.

** It's important to remember a few things about Santino. First, he's arrogant, which is going to color his strategic decisions to antagonize John. Second, his relationship with John came from the fact that John came to him first for help with the "impossible mission." This is important because the seemingly-impossible task that John completed, which earns him so much fearful respect from those who don't give him normal respect, was something that required Santino's help to complete, and that will mean that Santino lacks the same respect for John and views him in a less legendary light compared with other people. Third, Santino nearly succeeded at killing John twice; were it not for his armored coat John would have died immediately after killing Gianna or die din the catacombs, and the packs of assassins hunting John would have killed him without the Bowery King's help. John is terrifying and incredibly deadly, but he is still mortal and Santino had the resources to kill him eventually, which is why John decisively ended it when he cornered him in the Continental.

** John owes the Bowery king because the Bowery King didn't just put a bullet in his head while John was unconscious and collected the $14 million and good relations with the Cammorra, and also treated John's wounds. The Bowery King has no obligations to John in any way and was clearly powerful enough and well-armed enough to take on the Cammorra, and was gearing up for such a fight when John offered him a clean and deniable way out.

** Its pretty clear from Abraham's dialogue at first that he was expecting John to come after him violently, and had ordered his men to shoot John on sight. Abraham was unlikely to believe John wanted peace until ''after'' he had taken down all of his men and had him at his mercy. John knew this, which is why he used comparatively less-lethal methods to take down most of his men and recover the car.

** While Santino is not technically breaking any hard rules, he is deeply pushing the unwritten taboos among the assassin and criminal world through his actions. Normally you probably owuldn't take out a contract on the assassin who carried out the mission for you, but Santino is willing to break that sort of professional courtesy between client and contractor, both out of necessity (silencing John so he can't tell anyone who hired him) and out of personal arrogance and pride (as John refused him at first, and Santino wanted to punish John for such arrogance).