SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for The Nun II. If you have not yet seen the film, proceed at your own risk!
After 10 years, the timeline and continuity for The Conjuring Universe has gotten quite complex. At the core of everything is the main run of Conjuring movies (The Conjuring, The Conjuring 2, and The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It), but the popularity of those titles has inspired multiple spinoffs with sequels of their own. The latest spinoff sequel is director Michael Chaves’ The Nun II – and now that it’s in theaters, we can discuss the strange relationship that the end of the film has with the established canon.
It’s all a bit complicated, which is why we put together this feature. What happens at the end of The Nun II, how does it fit with the rest of the Conjuring Universe, and what does the director have to say about its franchise connections? We’ve packed everything you want to know in this piece – and we’ll start with a recap of the new horror movie’s last few scenes.
What Happens At The End Of The Nun II
For a brief moment at the end of The Nun II, it feels like all may be lost. Valak (Bonnie Aarons) has achieved its goal and acquired the eyes of Saint Lucy, and the girls at the all-girls boarding school are helpless while being chased around the grounds by a demonic goat (who may or may not actually be Satan). But then Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga) and Sister Debra (Storm Reid) figure out how to win.
Reflecting on their earlier conversation about how faith is behind the idea of transubstantiation, Irene and Debra pray together and take advantage of the fact that the property used to be a winery before it was turned into a school. Caskets of red wine explode and douse Valak as it hovers in the air, and the prayers of the protagonists turn the liquid into the blood of Jesus Christ (the same weapon that was successfully used in The Nun). The unholy evil burns in a pillar of fire, and the demon goat returns to its place in the stained glass window of the chapel. Maurice (Jonas Bloquet) screams as Valak immolates, but Irene and Debra pray with him until he is back to normal and the film’s titular antagonist is embers.
The next morning, Irene finds Maurice back out in the school’s garden tending to his tomato plant – which grew from the seeds that the young nun gave to him when they went separate ways in Romania. Also with “Frenchie” is Kate (Anna Popplewell) and her daughter Sophie (Katelyn Rose Downey), and the formerly possessed groundskeeper apologizes to them all. As Irene watches, the trio walks away hand in hand, and the movie ends with a cut to black.
Wait, Does The Nun II Fit With The Rest Of The Conjuring Universe?
Those of you who distinctly remember the ending of The Nun may be a touch confused by what happens in the final minutes of The Nun II. For those who don’t recall, the 2018 movie concludes by executing a special deep canon link featuring Maurice a.k.a. Frenchie – who is shown to be inhabited by Valak following the big third act battle (as indicated by a scar on his neck that looks like an inverted cross). After this reveal, the film fast-forwards to 20 years later via footage from The Conjuring, with Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga) giving a lecture that features footage of them with a possessed Maurice performing an exorcism.
Maurice being plagued by Valak is a detail that properly syncs up with what happens in The Nun II, but it’s at the end of the 2023 film where things go wrong. In the last scene, Maurice is looking happy and demon free as he says goodbye to Sister Irene, and if that’s truly the case, why would Ed and Lorraine Warren need to do an exorcism? The puzzle pieces don’t fit together… though there is a pretty simple solution for the franchise: make The Nun III.
If the canon is going to be cleared up, that means Maurice is going to have to get repossessed, and the story of how that happens could close out a Nun trilogy. Additionally, the theoretical sequel could explain how Valak survives the events of The Nun II (we know that the demon comes back years later thanks to The Conjuring 2), and it could also finally forge a definitive link between Sister Irene and Lorraine Warren.
How The Nun 2 Director Approached Its Big Ending Knowing The Movie’s Place In The Conjuring Universe
Director Michael Chaves is certainly not a novice when it comes to The Conjuring Universe. The filmmaker helmed his first chapter of the franchise making 2019’s The Curse of La Llorona, and he followed that up by making The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It. The Nun II marks his third film in the canon, and when I discussed the ending of the new film with him during the movie’s virtual press day, he started by demonstrating his depth of knowledge regarding not only big screen continuity, but the real files of Ed and Lorraine Warren. Said Chaves,
We couldn't kill Maurice 'cause it's too... he tragically dies. The real Maurice died tragically after a failed exorcism. And we couldn't kill him in this movie. I didn't want to kill him 'cause I loved Jonas [Bloquet] too much. I was like, 'Maybe we could get another movie out of him.'
Maurice "Frenchie" Theriault could be called a doomed character in The Conjuring Universe, as his entire life in the movies is leading to his post-exorcism death, but Michael Chaves apparently wasn’t ready to tell that story (but obviously he is keeping that door open for the future).
As for the construction of the ending, Michael Chaves addressed that there was an inherent challenge in telling what is a middle chapter in the franchise (The Nun II is simultaneously a sequel and a prequel). Fans know that there is more of this story to be told, but he wasn’t interested in doing what audiences saw from Fast X, Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse and Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1 this summer:
We know where it's going, and I think it was really important to signal to the audience that we recognize the timeline, that we are on that timeline, and we are heading towards an event which you know, everybody knows is coming. But at the same time, I think that there's a certain art to not just doing the shameless 'tune in next time' or 'to be continued' where, there is enough of resolution within this movie that it feels complete, and it feels like the chapter is closed.
The way that the director explains it, the film is able to serve two audiences. Movie-goers who come to The Nun II knowing nothing about The Conjuring Universe will be satisfied by a self-contained horror story, and die-hards will understand that there is still more of this story to be told. In Chaves words,
I think what works really well is for people who have never seen the movie before, they can just jump right into it and you can pick up the pieces and you can follow along with the story. And it feels complete at the end. It feels like this chapter's been closed. But it also serves, I think especially well for fans of the universe who have been there the whole time who know where it's going, know where it's come from. I think it gives a complete story.
While we don’t presently know if/when we will get The Nun III, the franchise does have future plans in the form of The Conjuring: Last Rites, which was first announced in October 2022 with David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick penning the screenplay. Stay tuned here on CinemaBlend for more updates about the amazing horror franchise, and learn about all of the scary films on the way in the coming months with our Upcoming Horror Movies guide. Or if you're interested in visiting or revisiting some past horror movies, check out our list of the best horror movies of all time.
