Twisters Ending Explained: If You Feel It, Chase It

Warning: This article contains complete spoilers for "Twisters." Reader discretion is advised. 

Deep down, all of us are attracted to danger in one form or another. Sure, most of us wouldn't consider ourselves daredevils, but the act of living requires some level of risk on a daily basis. As such, it's easier (if not simple) to understand the actions of those people who do take their lives in their own hands, because they do so for multiple reasons: one, for the sheer visceral thrill of doing so, but two, because they know, as we all do, that taking a risk is the best way to ensure actual results.

On the surface, "Twisters" may seem an odd duck when compared to the plethora of legacy sequels that have arisen over the last 15 or so years. Unlike most legacy sequels, there are no returning characters from the original 1996 "Twister" who make an appearance, and unlike the film's closest cousin (in legacy sequel terms) "Jurassic World," it's not paying off a premise hinted at by the original film.

What director Lee Issac Chung and writer Mark L. Smith (with a story assist from "Top Gun: Maverick" director Joseph Kosinski) have done with "Twisters" is not sequelize characters or plot elements from the original, but have instead updated the first film's look at the mindset of people who choose to be storm chasers, why they do what they do, and how their relationships are as tumultuous as the tornadoes they chase given such a high-stress environment. "Twisters" is a throwback blockbuster that pays homage to different eras of Hollywood's history of crowd pleasers, and it's a movie about not just the danger of the chase, but the thrill of it, too.

As "Twisters" begins, we're introduced to Kate Carter, a meteorology student, who seems to have a preternatural and almost psychic sixth sense when it comes to weather and the potential formation of tornadoes (a quality harkening back to similarly gifted characters in the original "Twister"). Waking up her storm chaser crew — her boyfriend, Jeb (Daryl McCormack), the nervous Praveen (Nik Dodani), the fearless Addy (Kiernan Shipka), and the already business-minded Javi (Anthony Ramos) — Kate has them shoot a vlog-style video, referring to her crew as the "Tornado Tamers."

In the video, she and the group reveal that they plan to use Kate's special mixture of chemicals that could potentially disrupt or even dispel a tornado once formed. It appears that the Tamers either attend or have connections to Muskogee State University, as they're using a Dorothy V doppler (the fifth iteration of the device created by Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton's characters from "Twister") to capture the data of the experiment.

Although the Dorothy V is the only direct connection between this film and "Twister," there are numerous thematic and stylistic aspects that carry over, including the way Kate's mother Cathy (Maura Tierney) invites all the Tamers to her place for a barbecue once they're done. As the Tamers chase a forming tornado over Oklahoma, Javi holds back to capture the data from Dorothy. Yet the EF1 they thought they were chasing quickly escalates into an EF5 (the most damage-inducing level of a tornado), and the crew desperately tries to escape to a nearby overpass, not an ideal shelter but the only one around. Tragically, the Tamers are whisked away to their doom one by one, save Kate and Javi, who watch their entire team of friends die.

Five years later, Kate is working for the National Weather Service in New York City as a meteorologist and is still so grief-stricken by the tragedy that she won't even take calls from her mother. Her safe but mediocre life is shaken up by the surprise arrival of Javi, who in the intervening years had joined the military. Now, post-service and having started up his own storm-chasing business called Storm Par, Javi excitedly explains to Kate that he's gotten access to some prototype versions of military-grade radar tech which when placed in a triangular arrangement around a tornado would create a 3-dimensional scan of the phenomenon.

Kate, still too wounded from the loss of her lover and friends, declines Javi's offer, but a combination of continued nightmares about Jeb and Javi sending over news that an unprecedented system of tornadoes is currently attacking their hometown of Oklahoma woos Kate back into the game.

Back in Oklahoma, Kate meets the Storm Par crew, including the all-business and stand-offish Scott (David Corenswet). In the original "Twister," there was a rivalry between Hunt and Paxton's scrappy Southern meteorologists and a group of high-tech bandits led by Cary Elwes. Chung and Smith seem to be subverting that dynamic at first, with the arrival of the Tornado Wranglers: Dani (Katy O'Brian), Dexter (Tunde Adebimpe), Lily (Sasha Lane), Boone (Brandon Perea) and their leader, the grandstanding cowboy YouTuber Tyler Owens (Glen Powell).

Seeing the Wranglers and especially Tyler as a group of fame-hungry posers constantly taking videos of themselves, Kate brushes off Tyler's flirtatious banter by trying to throw him off the next tornado's scent. It doesn't work; Tyler, the Wranglers, and Ben (Harry Hadden-Paton) — a journalist from London doing a story on the tornadoes and chasers — not only make it to the twister, but they shoot fireworks into it. Meanwhile, Kate, who is trying to help Javi set up the other radar segments (cheekily named Lion, Scarecrow, Tin Man, and the data hub Wizard), deliberately steers herself and Javi out of the path of the twister; she's still feeling too guilty and afraid to face her fears. 

Later, Kate learns some surprising things about the people in her orbit: for one, Tyler went to school for meteorology, and for another, Javi's primary investor is a real estate developer Marshall Riggs (David Born) who is using the Storm Par data in order to swoop into newly devastated areas and buy up the land. Kate also discovers that she's getting her storm chaser groove back; in a very Earthy, "Minari" touch, Kate's connection to nature allows her to visualize wind patterns with enough accuracy that she's able to predict which of a twin tornado formation will remain active and which will die out, something Tyler learns the hard way when his next stunt is a bust due to an evaporated twister.

Yet Kate and Javi still miss out on collecting more data, for when the tornado hits a nearby small town, she convinces Javi to go help instead of searching for the missing radar. While there, she discovers that the merch Tyler and the Wranglers sell isn't for profit; it's so they can buy food, water, and other essentials that they hand out for free at incidents just like this.

As Kate does some digging on Riggs in her hotel room, Tyler drops by with a pizza by way of apologizing for snapping at her working with Storm Par earlier. Since he believes she's a "city girl," and has only seen the worst of what Oklahoma has to offer, he asks to take her to something more uplifting: a local rodeo show, which he used to be a part of in his youth before choosing to study meteorology. At the show, Kate confesses to Tyler that she's not the NYC girl he thinks she is, and that she grew up in nearby Sapulpa. Tyler, in the best Hallmark Romance, Han Solo fashion, stops calling her "city girl" and now refers to her as "Sapulpa," as he confesses that he's actually terrified of tornadoes. When Kate asks why he chases, he lays it out matter-of-factly: "You don't face your fears, you ride them."

The duo immediately gets another chance to face their fears, as another tornado forms right near the rodeo show. Running to a nearby motel, Kate and Tyler manage to save some people by herding them into the back of an empty swimming pool as the twister roars overhead.

As the rest of the Wranglers show up to look after Tyler in the aftermath, Javi arrives to check in on Kate, who confronts him about Riggs. Javi tries to justify his actions, but Kate makes the mistake of implying that she's the only one who saw her friends die that fateful day, to which Javi retorts with an implication that Kate was partially responsible for the tragedy due to going after grant money (something Javi explicitly wanted back then, too). A hurt Kate storms away, taking a Storm Par truck and driving it off into the night.

Almost as if on autopilot, Kate drives to her mother's farmstead in Sapulpa, knowing exactly where a spare key can be found and everything. Her mother welcomes her home but doesn't let Kate get off too easy, refusing her request to throw away all of her research materials that she's kept intact in the barn all these years. Kate's retreat into her past is given extra resonance by old video footage of her and Jeb, as well as a scale model of a town that she rigged to simulate a tornado (an echo of Doc Brown's model in "Back to the Future").

Tyler appears, having learned Kate's full name and backstory from one of his crew remembering her name and the tragedy from several years back. Cathy invites Tyler to stay and have dinner, during which she continues to wax poetic about her daughter and her belief that she will "save the world" one day. Yet Kate's guilt is even more powerful than her fear, as she confesses to Tyler that she feels wholly responsible for the experiment's failure even as he claims that, with his crew's equipment, they could construct a better model to try taming a tornado again.

Just as Tyler's about to leave, Kate asks for his help, newly inspired to face her fears. As Tyler and Kate work on new ways to use Kate's mixture in tornadoes, Javi arrives to apologize to Kate and hand over a copy of Storm Par's data to help with Kate and Tyler's new model. Kate invites Javi to help them, but he reluctantly declines, confessing to Kate his feelings for her before bowing out.

As Kate and Tyler experiment and discover that the missing piece to Kate's model involves making it rain around the twister to "choke" the tornado, Kate finally joins the Wranglers, fulfilling her destiny of being part of a scrappy, video-taking chase team while completing the movie's subversion of the first film's rival team dynamic. Kate and the Wranglers procure all the materials they need, while Ben, ever the journalist, observes how close Kate and Tyler are becoming.

When the Wranglers chase after a newly formed tornado to make a successful run at Kate's experiment, they discover that Javi and Storm Par are hot on the trail of it, too. Unfortunately for both parties, the tornado begins to grow in strength, knocking out a nearby oil refinery and causing enough mayhem to endanger Javi and Scott. Although the Storm Par duo make it out okay, the Wranglers are horrified to see the now EF5 twister head toward the town of El Reno.

Scott sees the Wranglers head toward the town and assumes they're running, but Javi correctly realizes they're headed to aid the citizens. Scott insists that Javi stay on course so Storm Par can collect data for Riggs and others, but Javi refuses, instead leaving Scott in the literal dirt so he can go help, too.

In El Reno, Kate, Tyler, and the Wranglers hurry to try and herd the townsfolk into protected areas, but the tornado is advancing way too fast for them to quickly find a proper shelter. Making the best guess that the nearby movie theater could have a basement or something similar, they begin directing people in there. They barely make it themselves, as Tyler, pinned by falling debris, is only saved by the timely arrival of Javi.

Once inside the movie theater (which is playing 1931's "Frankenstein" and is currently in the creation sequence, which takes place during a violent storm, naturally) Kate, Tyler, and Javi are crushed to learn that the theater has no basement and that the building will not be able to withstand the encroaching twister.

Taking matters into her own hands, Kate runs back outside and drives the equipment-laden truck directly at the tornado, hoping that her experiment to dissipate it will finally work. Unable to stop her, Javi and a distraught Tyler attempt to keep everyone in the theater safe, which gets tricker when (in a very meta touch) the entire movie screen and the wall behind it is ripped away, causing Tyler to hold on to Lily with all his might.

Kate, meanwhile, uses Tyler's ground screw modification to fasten herself and the vehicle to the ground, as she fires off the rockets and, after some difficulty, opens the barrels full of her solution. Despite the force of the tornado sending her and the truck rolling, the solution works, and the twister is dispelled before it can fully reach the town. Javi, Tyler, and the rest of the Wranglers pull a dazed but alive Kate from the truck and celebrate their success.

Just as the original "Twister" homaged the screwball comedies of Howard Hawks, Chung ensures that "Twisters" not only continues the tradition but combines it with rom-com tropes in general. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the film's final sequence, set at the airport. Javi drops Kate off, excited that she's going to go back to New York and pitch new (and more scrupulous) investors on the tornado data they've just gathered, as Kate infers that Javi might fix up her mother's barn as a new base of operations during her absence.

Tyler has shown up to see Kate off but is clearly a little anxious that she hasn't told him when (or even if) she'll be back. In place of a straight answer, Kate plays with him some more, feeding his own mantra back to him: "If you feel it, you should chase it." As she heads into the airport, Tyler is accosted by a fussy traffic cop (comedian Paul Scheer in a cameo) to move his truck. After processing his fears and feelings, Tyler hits the trigger on his truck to screw it into the ground, running after Kate into the airport. Just as the two meet again face-to-face, the PA announcer declares that all flights are delayed due to inclement weather, and the couple smiles as they walk back out together.

"Twisters" is not a movie of contradictions, but subversions; after all, it's based on characters who, despite their fear, willingly run into danger and not away from it. Just as Chung flips that conventional wisdom, he also injects some love of nature into a natural disaster film, twists the first movie's good guy/bad guy coding of its teams, and even subverts the movie's traditional rom-com structure by omitting a lot of prerequisites, including a sex scene and even a climactic smooch. The overall effect this has is that "Twisters" feels much more like a personal statement than a by-the-numbers crowd-pleaser, which makes it that much more intriguing and charming. 

Chung essentially asks us to feel the movie and chase it, because just like our chaser heroes, we can't get anywhere by sitting still.