28 Years Later ending explainer: Who is Jimmy?

With 28 Years Later, director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland are not only picking up the zombie-focused franchise they began in 2002 with 28 Days Later; they’re also charting a spinoff trilogy focused on the family introduced in their latest gnarly thriller. But there’s more to family than blood, which the climactic finale makes clear and concerning.

If you’ve watched 28 Years Later and are wondering what’s up with the ending and what it can tell us about Boyle and Garland’s plans for the sequel, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, we’re here for you.

Below, we’ll dig into the hidden details of the 28 Years Later finale, including spoilers and details from Mashable’s Say More‘s interview with Danny Boyle.

So, let’s begin with the big question:

Who is Jimmy in 28 Years Later?

Jimmy and his sisters are warned to stay in the room in “28 Years Later.”
Credit: Screenshot: YouTube

There’s more layers to this answer than you might expect. On the top level: Jimmy is the name of the boy who appears in the film’s gruesome beginning. In the early days of the Rage Virus outbreak, a room full of blonde children sit watching Teletubbies on TV, while the sounds of adults shouting and violent smashing can be heard through the wooden door of a cozy living room. Jimmy is the only one we know makes it out alive.

After his mother is attacked, she demands that he run. And he does — to a nearby church where a pastor kneels in prayer. Jimmy calls him “Dad” and says his mom has been attacked. But his father disagrees, telling the boy that this is God’s plan. “This is a glorious day,” the father proclaims, “A day of judgement!” Then, he gives Jimmy a golden crucifix necklace, saying, “My son, keep this with you always. Have faith!”

The infected storm the church and attack the pastor, who relishes joining their ranks. But young Jimmy hides, clutching the gold crucifix necklace. As the rampaging horde leaves, the boy shivers and says, “Father, why have you forsaken me?” A message that might speak to God the Father in the Christian faith or to his own father, who chose the horde of undead over protecting his son.

From there the movie leaps to “28 years later” — and you might look for Jimmy, even wondering if Spike’s dad is the boy from the beginning. But his name is Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson).

By the end of 28 Years Later, 12-year-old Spike is on his own, like Jimmy was 28 years before. And just when Spike needs someone to save him from the rampaging infected, they meet, Jimmy introducing himself by name.

The movie lingers on this Jimmy (Sinners‘ chilling and beguiling Jack O’Connell), his blond hair, the gold crucifix hanging upside down from his neck. All of this suggests this is the boy from the opening, all grown up. And he’s clearly a leader, as he drips in gold jewelry (necklaces and rings on every finger), regarding the others like members of his court as he wears a glittery tiara as a crown.

But what else can we glean from this scene?

Jimmy is a dangerous cult leader.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Alfie Williams go hunting in “28 Years Later.”
Credit: Sony

The first clue that Jimmy is the head of a cult is that he’s flanked by followers who dress like him. They all have longish blonde hair. They all wear velour track suits. And, if you look at the credits, they are all called Jimmy.

While O’Connell is credited as as just “Jimmy,” his gang is credited as Jimmy Ink, Jimmy Jones, Jimmy Snake, Jimmy Shite, and Jimmy Fox. Further bolstering that Jimmy is a crucial figure in this movie and its already-shot sequel, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, is that even the characters in the first scene are credited in connection to him: “Jimmy’s mom,” “Jimmy’s dad,” and “Jimmy’s sisters.”

Jimmy’s name appears in other places across Spike’s journey ahead of their meeting. On his first day on the mainland, Spike and his dad come across an abandoned house, where an infected man has been hung upside down from the ceiling. His hands are bound behind his back. His head has a plastic bag tied around it, filled with pooled blood. Spike is shocked by the scene, and his dad explains this is “maybe a punishment. Maybe a warning.” On the man’s torso, spelled downward vertically, five letters are carved into the flesh: J I M M Y.

Later, as Spike leads his mother (Jodie Comer) deeper into the mainland in search of Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes), they walk past a house with graffiti that includes the name “Jimmy.” Both these things suggest that Jimmy’s reach is wide on the mainland. And he’s used it to create a cult that seems a slap in the face to his father’s religion.

He not only wears his crucifix upside down (a symbol sometimes considered Satanic), but also the corpse bearing his name was hung upside down. And in that final fight scene, one of the Jimmys leaves an infected dangling the same way. None of this suggests that Jimmy’s kingdom is as wholesome as his core inspiration.

What do the Teletubbies mean in 28 Years Later?

TV showing the Teletubbies is splattered with blood in “28 Years Later.”
Credit: Screenshot: YouTube

As teased in the trailer, the iconic British children’s series makes its appearance in the film’s opening. It serves the initial purpose of establishing that this scene is set in 2002, when the show was hugely popular, and when the Rage Virus first took hold. Perhaps Boyle and Garland were also amused at juxtaposing such violent imagery against the weirdly cheerful series, where the sun is literally the face of a giggling baby. But Dipsy, Laa-Laa, Tinky-Winky, and Po have a bigger meaning within the movie.

In the ending, adult Jimmy is wearing a tracksuit that at a glance looks black. But as the sun shines on it, you can see it’s actually purple. His fellow Jimmys wear similar athleisure wear in the colors red, yellow, and green. They are wearing the colors of the Teletubbies in soft fabrics that suggest the touch of their branded toys.

Whether Jimmy intended to or not, he’s memorialized that moment of childhood trauma, surrounded by his blonde sisters watching the Teletubbies. He’s made himself Tinky-Winky, building his new family with his own Dipsy, Laa-Laa, Po, and — whoever the Jimmy in blue is emulating.

To hammer home the connection, the slamming soundtrack by Young Fathers pays homage to the Teletubbies by scoring the Jimmys’ battle against the infected to a hard rock cover of the show’s theme song. It’s an utterly bonkers moment of cinema, but also a callback. After all, the untouched version of the theme song opens 28 Years Later, ahead of the reveal of Jimmy and his sisters watching the show. So, 28 Years Later creates a repetition, just as the Teletubbies did in their show. And this repetition is reflected in the film’s montage sequences, which compress centuries of British war, using archers and child soldiers, to express the relentlessness of history repeating.

What does Jimmy mean for 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple?

Alfie Williams and Ralph Fiennes hand off a skull in “28 Years Later.”
Credit: Sony

This already-shot sequel, directed by Nia DaCosta (The Marvels, Candyman) and written by Garland, is slated to come out next year. From the title, you might expect it’ll deal more with Dr. Kelson, who in 28 Years Later built numerous structures of bone as a memento mori. (“Remember death. Remember we must die.”) However, we’ve seen how Kelson’s territory and Jimmy’s are in close proximity through abandoned, dangling bodies and graffiti. So, could there be a coming conflict between these two allies of young Spike?

In an interview with Mashable’s Say More, Boyle teased how Garland pitched the first two films of this emerging trilogy to him: “[Garland] said the first script is about the nature of family, and the second film’s about the nature of evil.”

This quote suggests Spike is in for an even more brutal journey than he’s already endured. Seeking a path of his own, Spike comes across a man who was once a boy forced to do the same. But even in the brief moments we spend with Jimmy in the finale, it seems he is dangerously stunted by his childhood trauma. He’s rebuilt his family like a Clockwork Orange crew, favoring eccentric costumes and relishing in grisly violence as if it’s a game. It’s hard to feel Spike is in safe hands.

Will his father Jamie come to find him and cross Jimmy in the process? Will Jamie and Dr. Kelson become unlikely allies as they seek to find Spike or understand the mystery of his adopted sister, Isla? Will Jimmy become a father figure that Spike turns to in his earnestness to rebel against his father’s brand of masculinity? (“Father, why have you forsaken me?”) Or will Garland plot something we absolutely can’t predict?

We’ll have to wait and see.

28 Years Later is now playing in theaters. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is slated for theatrical release on Jan. 16, 2026.