A Recap of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
Written by Michael Lee
*All Media used in this article is courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
Photo via Warner Bros.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga Official Trailer
Video via Warner Bros.
Plot Synopsis
The film begins with a very young Furiosa, who has just been abducted from the Green Place of Many Mothers, her homeland. Her kidnappers are members of the Horde of the Biker Warlord Dementus and their goal is to use Furiosa to locate the place of abundance where she originally hails from. Though Furiosa is determined to keep this a secret and manages to escape their clutches, with the help of her mother, Mary Jo Bassa. Unfortunately, Dementus captures Mary Jo Bassa and executes her there, and takes Furiosa again as his prisoner. Dementus’s History Man encourages Furiosa to make herself invaluable, but her plans and motivations are unchanged; she wants to escape again back to the green abundance.
Dementus and his terrible horde manage to cross paths with a War Boy, again on their quest to find said land of abundance and the boy informs Dementus that he believes the place of abundance means is the Citadel, to which they travel to. Here, Dementus attempts to rally the people of the Citadel against their leader and encourages them to follow him instead. Their leader, Immorrtan Joe, attempts to destroy Dementu’s horde, finding out that the War Boy worked as a red herring for Immorta Joe. Joe seizes nearly the entirety of his bikes and weapons, though Dementus manages to escape Joe, along with Furiosa and a few of his men.
Dementus eventually rebuilds his horde and hatches a plan to obtain one of Immortan Joe’s war rigs and the city of Gastown. Dementus succeeds and initiates a meeting with Joe to rule Gastown in exchange for food and rations. Immortan Joe’s interest peaks when he spies Furiosa and confirms she is not a mutant, as he is interested in her becoming a breeder, to birth him a full-life child. Joe allows Demntus to rule Gastown in exchange for the Organic Mechanic, one of the Dementus horde members, as well as Furiosa. Dementus agrees and Furiosa’s keep now belongs to Immortan Joe.
Furiosa, dissatisfied with being in anyone's captivity, plots her careful escape. She is kept with Joe’s other wives and here she begins to tattoo her arm with a constellation map back to the Green Place of Many Mothers with a kit stolen from someone named the History Man. Here she meets a man called Rictus Erectus and he becomes entirely infatuated with Furiosa and desperately attempts to befriend her, though she denies his many advances. In his keep, she manages to escape, but Erectus attempts to grab her hair, though she has been shaving it off and fashioning it into a wig to aid in her attempts to escape. The wig falls off and we see over time that a tree grows from it, rooting right where the wig landed.
As time passes, Furiosa, though still captive to Immortant Joe, attempts to mask her gender and identity by becoming a mute War Boy, eventually learning how to build a War Rig for herself. She heads back to Gastown where she plans her escape; hiding food, supplies, and even a motorcycle under her War Rig, all in preparation for her eventual escape. Just as Furiosa enters Gastown, rogue members of the Dementus Horde attack the entirety of the War Boys. All of them are killed, except for Furiosa and the driver of the War Rig, Praetorian Jack. It is here that Jack learns that Furiosa is a girl. Furriosa attempts to kill Jack, though he dumps her off the War Rig and leaves her to die, though he immediately seems to have a change of heart as tells Furiosa he respects her bravery and then offers her a chance to build a new convoy with him. Praetorian Jack and Furiosa make an impressive pair and an even better team, as Furiosa’s skills as not only a mechanic but as a soldier improve greatly, making Furiosa quite the threat. Furiosa eventually tells Jack of her dreams concerning The Green Place of Many Mothers.
Gastow is suffering under the rule of Dementus as he cannot fuel the rigs any longer, so he arranges another meeting with Immortan Joe. Joe tells Jack and Furiosa to load up on weaponry from the Bullet Farm to seize back control of Gastown, but Dementus intervenes, as he sixes the Bullet Farm and ambushes Furiosa and Jack. Their entire rig is destroyed and they attempt to escape, though Furriosa’s arm becomes severed and her tattooed map is destroyed. Furiosa watches as Dementus both tortures and murders Jack, all while she is chained up by her now nearly severed arm. She frees herself, however, tearing the rest of her arm from the likes of the chain, tearing and chewing at her very skin for freedom. She is bleeding badly, stumbling out unto the desert until Max spies her near his Interceptor, though at a far distance. Max drops off Furiosa near the Citadel.
As Furiosa awakes, she finds a couple who have her in captivity, as they both watch maggots feed off the stump of her arm and they promise her a painless death, though she escapes and then informs Immortan Joe of Dementu’s plan to control the Citadel as well as Gastown and the Bullet Farm. A war breaks out between the two factions, also known as the Forty-Day Wasteland War. During this war, Furiosa manages to fashion herself a brand new arm made purely from machinery and plots to personally murder Dementus. After a long chase between the two, Demntus warns Furiosa that no revenge she executes will give her peace.
The narrator, The History Man, informs the audience that Furiosa murdered Dementus with a shot to the skull. Others gossip that she tortured him for decades. Some believe she turned him into a tree, which grows from his mangled and still very alive remains, suffering dull pain for all eternity.
In the end, we now see a much older Furiosa pick a fruit from the tree of Dementus only to head to a vault where the wives of Immortan Joe await her many years later. Together, they all sneak on Furiosa’s War Rig, reenacting the very escape scene seen in Mad Max: Fury Road as the two films bleed directly into each other, the screen fades to black.
