The premise of the "Final Destination" movies is gloriously novel and relentlessly efficient. At the beginning of the six extant films, someone has a premonition of a horrible accident wherein multiple people die spectacularly. The psychic character then convinces people they are in danger, and they avoid the accident. Sadly, these psychic premonitions seem to be messing with Death's plans. Those people were destined to die in that accident, you see. The rest of each film is devoted to the characters
all dying in fatal accidents, orchestrated by Death itself. The calamities are always colorful and elaborate, Rube Goldberg contraptions for thanatophiles. The avoided accident in the first movie is a plane crash, lending the series its name.
In the most recent chapter, 2025's "Final Destination Bloodlines," a woman has a psychic premonition of an elevated restaurant collapsing and killing hundreds of people ... in 1969. Because Death can't work quickly, and because it needs to attend to the deaths of so many escapees, it takes decades for the Grim Reaper to catch up with all the intended victims. By the time it arrives in 2025, the intended victims have had children. Which, of course, Death will also need to dispatch.
There's not a lot of linking material between the "Final Destination" movies. The late Tony Todd appears in five of the six films as a helpful coroner who explains the rules to each new group of protagonists, but the main characters typically all die off. Sometimes a character may survive past one film, but they will be dead by the next. The only real connection the films all have is a cute little numerological gimmick. One might notice the number 180 popping up from time to time. This in reference to Flight 180, the crashed plane from the first film. The "Final Destination" filmmakers, in using 180 repeatedly, are winking to the series' many fans.
"Bloodlines" also makes a reference to Flight 180 on a passing license plate. Blink and you'll miss it.
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A Car In Final Destination Bloodlines Make A Reference To The First Final Destination
As mentioned, the inciting incident in "Bloodlines" is the spectacular, fiery collapse of a Space-Needle-like restaurant in the year 1969. The vision is had by a woman named Iris (Gabrielle Rose) who is being taken to this restaurant by her romantic boyfriend (and, he hopes, soon-to-be-fiancé). The trip to the restaurant is a surprise — it has just opened and is the hottest ticket in town — so Iris is driven there in a blindfold.
Attentive users on Reddit have captured an image of the car pulling into a parking spot, and one can clearly see that its license plate reads FL8-18E. If one squints and uses a little garbled language — "FLATE ONE-EIGHT-E" — one can see that this is a cute reference to FLIGHT ONE-EIGHTY. It all comes full circle. Flight 180 is still going to crash. It's worth noting that "Final Destination 5" (2011) is secretly a prequel, and ends with its surviving characters boarding Flight 180, just as it appeared at the beginning of "Final Destination" in 2000.
And these are hardly the only uses of the number 180 in the "Final Destination" movies. In "Final Destination 2" (2003), the instigating accident is a log truck crash. It takes place on Mile 180 of a road trip. Clever "Destination" fans have also clocked that the Mile-180 marker appears on-screen at exactly one hour and eight minutes — 1:08:00 — into the movie.
Then, in "Final Destination 3" (2006), partway through the movie, the main characters are seen boarding a subway car, emblazoned with "081," a 180-degree flip of 180. It's two 180s in one! There's also a unit key with the number 081 on it. The fourth film, "The Final Destination" (2009), begins with a crash at a NASCAR track, and the not-yet-dead protagonists are said to be sitting in section 180.
And then, in "Final Destination 5," there is a company called 180 Corporate Consulting. It seems Death has a lucky number. Or unlucky, depending on your perspective.
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