| “ | Look! 1974, Chicago chemical spill. That driver never made it to work in the morning. Now, 324 lives saved. Look, look. What's next? What's next? Right, well we have... We have 1991, April 3rd, Hamburg, Germany. 1,861 lives saved. The Hardshaw Weapons Factory Heist, 1968. You know, the terrorists never came in the building because I! BLEW IT! THE F***! UP! 3,027 lives I saved! | „ |
| ~ The Fizzle Bomber, explaining himself to his past self. |
The Fizzle Bomber is the main antagonist of the 2014 sci-fi film Predestination.
A terrorist active primarily during the 1970s (but as early as 1968 and as late as 1991), he is directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of people and millions of dollars in property damage; shunning the limelight, he makes no attempt to explain himself to the press, so is motivates are unknown at the start of the film, as is his identity. Even the time-travelling Temporal Bureau have been unable to discover who he is or apprehend him, despite managing to prevent one of his bombs from killing anyone. However, one Temporal Agent has set out to find and kill the Fizzle Bomber at any and all costs, thus paving the way for the finale of the film.
Due to the nature of the film, the Fizzle Bomber is portrayed at the various stages of his life by Olivia Sprague, Monique Heath, Sarah Snook (who also portrayed Siobhan Roy on Succession), and Ethan Hawke (who also portrayed The Grabber in The Black Phone, Martin Asher in Taking Lives, and Arthur Harrow in Moon Knight).
Biography[]
Early Life[]
The man who eventually became known as the Fizzle Bomber was assigned female at birth, born in early September 1945. A foundling, he was left on the doorstep of a Cleveland orphanage, where he was taken in and given the name "Jane". No trace was ever found of his parents.
He soon proved quite different to the other children, proving more interest in reading about space than joining in when the others were at play, eventually becoming an outcast in the process. Deeply envious of kids with parents of their own, he once went so far as to sneak out of the orphanage just to spy on one such happy family, only to nearly get run over by a car while crossing the road, prompting Jane to punch out one of the car's headlights in a fit of temper, immediately earning him punishment from the orphanage staff.
Jane was widely known as an oddball and a troublemaker throughout his childhood. As the outcast of the orphanage, he often ended up getting into fights with the other boys and girls, and despite being smaller than most of his challengers, he invariably won (getting into even more trouble with his caretakers as a result). His intelligence proved equally isolating, for though he rarely paid attention in class, he academically excelled and somehow always knew the correct answer to whatever question the teachers put to him, driving him even further away from the rest of the students.
He also developed an aversion to sex: witnessing two of his caretakers having sex just outside him dormitory late one night, he felt confused and unsettled by the experience, promising himself never to repeat whatever actions might have led to him being abandoned in the first place; if he were to have a child, he would guarantee that they had a parent.
Time went by, and Jane was never adopted: the brilliant, socially-awkward, temperamental child was not an attractive for any prospective parents; nor did he find himself attracting friends of any kind at all. Believing that he was a freak, Jane eventually grew to despise himself, to the point that he couldn't even look at himself in a mirror or allow himself to be photographed, the end result being that little evidence remained of him appearance from childhood to full maturity; even his future iterations struggled to remember how he looked at the time.
Falling In Love[]
Aged seventeen in 1962, Jane found himself unexpectedly approached by a man named Robertson: representing a program known as Space Corp, he was a talent scout for a new and highly unconventional aerospace program (history apparently diverging significantly from known events at this time). Though women still weren't considered acceptable for astronaut training, a select number of female recruits were being allowed into the program in order to become sex workers for their male counterparts. Virgins were preferred and they would need to be open to providing comfort for deep-space personnel, but they would also require a proficiency in science and mathematics and sufficient strength and intelligence to actually work in space alongside them. Furthermore, there was an almost perfect chance of getting married to a spacer at the end of their career. Realizing that this was his best chance to see the stars and find love, Jane eagerly accepted Robertson's offer of placement.
Jane once again found himself as one of the highest-achieving members of the program, excelling in strength, stamina, intelligence and aptitude. Furthermore, he actively enjoyed the training, continuing to jog on the treadmill for hours even as all other recruits collapsed, progressing gleefully through the use of the flight simulator even while his fellows broke down vomiting under the stimuli. Unfortunately, this also made him an outsider yet again, and he didn't make many friends among the other trainees; indeed, he regarded them with barely-restrained contempt, dismissing fellow recruits as "hookers and neurotics," believing himself better than any of them. Combined with his perfect record, Jane's behaviour soon began to inspire anger from the others.
After yet another fight with his fellow students, Jane and his newly-beaten challenger were taken off to the infirmary for treatment, and during his stay, the doctors uncovered something interesting during a thorough physical examination of the offender. The results of this exam were shared only with Robertson and Jane didn't become aware of them until much later, but they were enough to disqualify him from the training; made to believe that he was being ejected from the program due to the fight, Jane was given Robertson's promise that he would submit an appeal on his behalf to the board and he might eventually get a chance to return.
He knew that he couldn't wait for Robertson to make good on his promise, however: for the time being, he was forced to support himself, eventually finding work as a mother's helper (essentially a household assistant). During his daytime hours, he worked around the house of her client, vacuuming, ironing and disposing of garbage - while also developing a taste for the true confessions magazines litter around the place. At night, he went to charm school in the dim hope of proving to the appeals board that he was working on his decorum.
In 1963, Jane was leaving the school one rainy evening when he bumped into a man waiting outside. This man claimed to be waiting for someone, prompting Jane to remark on the old saying of "all things come to those who wait", only for the man to unexpectedly reply "but only the things left by those who hustle," an Abraham Lincoln quote that Jane had been thinking of at that very moment. Fascinated, Jane took an interest in the stranger, and eventually ended up falling head-over-heels in love with the man, even having sex with him at one point. The two of them were together for only a few months, unfortunately: one evening, the two were at a park when Jane's lover unexpectedly told him that he had to leave for a moment, promising her that he'd be right back. He never saw him again.
Not long afterwards, Robertson approached Jane again and confessed that he hadn't been considered for Space Corps at all: Robertson represented an organization that used Space Corps and other organizations as a means of recruiting individuals with special abilities, most commonly people with no families, no pasts and no ties to the future. He never stated what the exact purpose of the group was, but he revealed that Jane was eligible for recruitment.
Unfortunately, Jane soon found his life taking yet another unfortunate turn just when things were looking up: he was pregnant with his mysterious lover's baby. Robertson soon broke off contact with him, leaving Jane with no career, no prospects and only unmarried motherhood to look forward to.
The Unmarried Mother[]
Jane's pregnancy came with unexpected complications, and when he finally went into labor several months later, he had to be anaesthetized for a Caesarean section though he successfully gave birth to a healthy baby girl in the process, he suffered significant internal injuries that forced the doctors to perform additional surgery. It was here that they finally discovered what had been brought to Robertson's attention back at Space Corps: Jane was actually intersex, possessing an internalized set of male sex organs along with his female ones. Both were unfortunately still immature in comparison to the rest of his body, hence why the birth had became so difficult.
Over the course of his labor, Jane's ovaries and uterus had suffered irreparable damage and had to be removed. Through early-stage gender reassignment surgery, a male urinary tract was constructed to replace his lost female organs. In order for Jane to live a functional life, he would be given additional surgery and hormone therapy, at the end of which he would be legally recognized as male.
Though shocked by the news of this, Jane was determined to soldier on so he could give his newborn daughter a happy upbringing, even naming her Jane, just so he could keep the name in the family. Two weeks later, unfortunately, baby Jane was kidnapped from the hospital one night, taken directly from the nursery while the staff's backs were turned. No description of the kidnapper ever emerged, nor was he ever caught, and despite his parent's best attempt at finding baby Jane, no trace of the child could be found at any of the adoption agencies or orphanages in the area, as the baby was never seen again.
Jane was left to suffer through his therapy alone. Over the course of the next eleven months, he underwent multiple surgeries, took regular hormone therapy and gradually altered the pitch of his voice until all traces of his former appearance were gone except for the massive caesarean scar across his belly, and he could be legally classified as a male. Accordingly, he renamed himself "John."
Ironically, John found himself being immediately accepted by the nurses around the hospital, who found him quite handsome in his new state, and the fact that John knew how to talk to women from personal experience made him even more attractive to them. The loss of his old identity was a devastating process, but eventually he came to terms with what had happened to him and tried to move on with his new life, first by seeking employment at Space Corps once again, this time as an astronaut instead of a sex worker. Unfortunately, John's former status automatically marked him down as "unfit for basic training," and John suspected the attending doctor only allowed him to get as far as the physical exam just so he could get a good look at the legendary medical case he'd heard so much about.
Having spent his life thus far angling for careers that were no longer appropriate for his new gender, John was lost for a time and left deeply bitter over everything that had happened because of his former lover. Eventually, he made his way to New York City and sought out a fresh start. He found work as a fry cook, though he found the long hours and low pay difficult to deal with, eventually driving him to become a public stenographer. This also proved both unsatisfying and unprofitable, as John only managed to get through six letters and a manuscript in four months, but the latter gave John the idea of pursuing a writing career of his own; drawing upon his old love of True Confessions stories, he studied up on what made these articles successful, then started writing his own.
Under the pseudonym "The Unmarried Mother", John began writing stories of being abandoned and betrayed by lovers, once again drawing on personal experience to add a touch of authenticity. His work was immediately successful with True Confessions magazines thanks to said experience, and ultimately proved profitable enough to keep himself alive, if not necessarily comfortable.
My Own Grandpa[]
It is at this point that the events of the film chronologically begin, in 1970. With the Fizzle Bomber's latest attacks causing panic throughout the city and prompting an exodus of terror-stricken people, John makes his way to near-deserted bar in search of distraction, where he finds a new barkeep at work. The two of them strike up a conversation, during which John reveals his profession as a writer and exchanges some half-hearted attempts at banter, before he bitterly admits to feeling sympathy with the Bomber, even remarking that some people deserve to die.
The Barkeep eventually challenges John to tell him something he hasn't heard before, promising him an entire bottle of booze if he wins, and after a bit of cajoling, John reveals his life story: his early life as Jane, his disastrous love affair, and his transition into a male. The Barkeep is surprisingly tolerant, accepting every detail without question and remaining sympathetic throughout. He even congratulates John when it's revealed that, according to the doctors, his male sex organs have finally matured and he's now a fully fertile male specimen - making John capable of fathering children if he wanted to.
Just when it appears that John's story is over, the Barkeep unexpectedly offers him the chance to take revenge on the man who ruined his life all those years ago. John is immediately sceptical, given that he tried tracking down his ex-lover before and found nothing, but the Barkeep reveals that he's been sent by Robertson to recruit him into the secret organization; the test of John's suitability comes down to whether or not he can kill his lover. Though suspicious of this opportunity, John warily accepts and follows the Barkeep downstairs into the basement, only to watch in utter confusion as his guide gathers up two handguns and a violin case. The Barkeep gives John just enough time to learn that the violin case is actually a time machine known as a Field Kit before activating it, sending the two of them hurtling backwards through time.
Materializing in 1963, John is given a quick overview of the rules of time travel and informed that the organization that he's being groomed for is known as the Temporal Bureau, an agency created with the specific goal of preventing historical crimes and disasters through the use of time travel. The Barkeep then vanishes off into another period of history, but not before giving John a gun, telling him that his ex-lover is waiting outside the school, exactly where Jane met him all those years ago; if he hurries, he might be able to spare his younger self all the pain she suffered as a result of her abandonment.
John is left waiting outside the school that evening, looking for any sign of the man who was to ruin his life. Then Jane unexpectedly bumps into him; John distractedly remarks that he's waiting for someone, and Jane comments "you know what they say about good things happening to those who wait". Shocked, John realizes that he's found himself occupying the role of his own ex-lover, but nonetheless progresses through the conversation exactly as he remembers it, even calling Jane beautiful.
Before long, the two of them are in a committed sexual relationship. If John has any qualms about having sex with his past self, he shows no sign of it; indeed, he seems to recognize that he and Jane are the only compatible partners that they have ever found, noting how he believed himself superior to everyone around him was much the same way as he was contemptuous of his fellow citizens back in the seventies. For several months, the two are happy together.
One night, John and Jane are sitting together at a park when John happens to notice the Barkeep standing in the distance. Finally realizing that this could be the only reason why he would even leave himself, John storms off to confront the Barkeep in a fit of rage, even holding him at gunpoint over everything that's happened. The Barkeep points out that this element of history cannot be changed, and some events are simply inevitable; though John insists that he'll stay behind and be there for Jane when he is needed the most, history indicates that he will leave.
What finally disarms John is the Barkeep's final revelation: he loves Jane as well - for a reason that immediately becomes apparent to John. Shocked, he allows the Barkeep to take him to Robertson, transporting him forward in time to the Temporal Bureau headquarters. There, the shock of travelling so many decades through time at once almost instantly incapacitates John, and he is taken away for medical attention. When he finally awakens, he is ready to begin his training as a Temporal Agent.
However, the Barkeep is gone; though he leaves behind a tape of prerecorded messages for John to study, the man himself is never seen again.
The Rooster[]
John soon makes a name for himself as a highly-effective agent, stopping numerous disasters and crimes across the span of history the Bureau monitors. After many years of service, however, the Bureau finds itself pitted against the Fizzle Bomber, and even their technology proves ineffective in the face of the terrorist's cunning. As a result, it's not long before John is sent in to try to stop the Bomber's reign of terror.
At some point in the 1970s, John arrives at a building that the Fizzle Bomber has targeted for destruction and is able to catch his target in the act of setting up a bomb in the basement. The two exchange gunfire, and though John is struck in the shoulder, the Bomber is quickly forced to flee the area before his face can be seen. With this out of the way, John attempts to dispose of the bomb before it can detonate, but he is distracted by a noise in the distance that he initially mistakes for the terrorist returning to attack again, wasting precious time. The explosive detonates just as he places it in a disposal container, and though the container prevents it from doing any damage to the building itself, the closing lid channels a gout of fire directly onto John's face.
Horribly burned and in agonizing pain, John tries to reach for his Field Kit, but is too weak to get close enough to it. However, a mysterious figure then emerges from the shadows and pushes the Field Kit back within his grasp, allowing John to transport himself back to Bureau headquarters.
John eventually regains consciousness in a Bureau medical facility in 1992, face swathed in bandages in the wake of extensive facial reconstruction. He is awarded with a medal for his latest services and given immediate medical leave to recover from his wounds, though it's clear that his failure to kill or apprehend the Fizzle Bomber has left him bitter. Worse still, he is beginning to suffer the natural side-effects of his long career in time travel: he's logged more hours in the field than any other agent, and extensive use of the Field Kit runs the risk of inducing dementia and even irreversible psychosis in long-term users. As such, it won't be long until John is retired from the Bureau.
Eventually, the bandages are finally removed, allowing John to get his first look at his new face: to his bemusement, he's now identical to the Barkeep, finally confirming the fact that John was responsible for recruiting himself and arranging for the meeting between his earlier selves all along. Looking at himself in the mirror, John reflects that his own mother couldn't recognize him now - and based on everything he's learned since then, he knows for a fact that this was true.
Once his hair has grown back, John is given the mission of recruiting his previous self, and he is sent back in time to take the role of a barkeep in 1970. Once again meeting the Unmarried Mother at the bar, he performs his role to the letter and drops his younger self off in 1963. He then leaves him to it, performing an illegal jump in defiance of his mission parameters, transporting himself forwards in time to make one final attempt at stopping the Fizzle Bomber in the 1970s.
He arrives in the basement of the building where he first met the Fizzle Bomber, this time seventeen minutes before the bomb detonates, and manages to catch him in the act of setting the explosive. Unfortunately, John's target appears to have been expecting him, drawing the temporal agent into a gun battle that eventually leads the two of them into the building's boiler rooms, where the terrorist is able to take John by surprise and hold him at gunpoint. Though John is able to break free and engage his assailant in hand-to-hand combat, the Fizzle Bomber is able to match him move by move, eventually knocking him unconscious - but despite having him at his mercy, the terrorist spares his life.
When John wakes up a few minutes later, he finds that his past self has already arrived on the scene and gotten into a shootout with the departing Fizzle Bomber. Worse still, the noise from John creeping around in the shadows is what eventually distracts his past self from disposing of the bomb in time, making him indirectly responsible for the device exploding in his younger self's face. Consequently, John takes on the role of his own mystery rescuer and pushes the field kit into his past self's hands, saving his life.
Returning to his safehouse in another time period, a furious John trashes the apartment in a fit of rage, knowing that his nemesis has once again managed to slip away - and even more frustratingly, the shadows in the basement made it impossible for him to get a good look at the Bomber's face, meaning that they still have no leads as to who he might be. Once he's recovered, though, begins recording one of several messages for his younger self as he prepares for the next stage of his official mission, knowing that it won't be long before Young John needs his advice.
He then jumps to 1964, arriving in the hospital where he gave birth to his daughter. Here, he meets with Robertson, who declines to punish John for performing an illegal jump, musing that an agent outside the control of the Bureau's board of directors might be far more useful to their organization; nonetheless, he instructs John to continue his mission of laying the seeds of the future, pointing out the necessity of creating an agent outside the boundaries of history and ancestry - even though his younger selves will suffer immensely for it.
John then sneaks into the maternity ward while the nurses' backs are turned and steals baby Jane. After a brief stopover, he deposits the baby on the doorstep of the orphanage where his younger self was first discovered, thus setting the stage for the events of his entire life: John is his own biological parents, mate and mentor, possible only through an incredible predestination paradox. As John bitterly remarks, he has become the Ouroboros, the snake that eats its own tail - or, thinking back to the chicken-and-egg joke that he and his younger self exchanged at the bar, the Rooster.
He then returns to 1963 to collect his younger self, escorting younger John to Bureau headquarters in 1985. He is then allowed to retire, being given one last Field Kit that will automatically decommission itself once it's reached a destination of his choosing, ensuring that he won't be able to travel through time or risk his sanity any further. To Robertson's confusion, John picks New York City, 1975 - not long before the Fizzle Bomber's master plan. Before he leaves, though, Robertson gives him some of the new evidence from the Bureau's latest attempts at tracking down the terrorist, then sends him on his way.
John arrives in his new apartment in 1975 without incident, and finds his Field Kit decommissioning itself exactly as expected. Having a seat, he pours himself a glass of whiskey and relaxes, enjoying his new home... but then the Field Kit suddenly registers an error: the automatic decommission failed, meaning that John now has access to a functioning time machine beyond the Bureau's control.
The Ouroboros[]
John spends some time studying the evidence Robertson gave him, decorating the walls of his apartment with articles on the Fizzle Bomber, before finally opting to make a new life for himself outside of his obsessions. Paying a visit to an antiques shop, he buys a typewriter and strikes up an unexpected friendship with the shopkeeper, Alice, who encourages him to take up writing again. With this in mind, John begins writing a novel, a process that takes several months: titled Time, Love and An Unmarried Mother, it is an autobiography written through the lens of science fiction.
But though he seems content with his life as a science-fiction author and his burgeoning romance with Alice, John soon ends up studying Robertson's evidence once again, leading him right back to his efforts to track down the Fizzle Bomber. The trail eventually leads to a late-night laundromat somewhere in New York City, positively identified as the terrorist's current base of operations. One night, John heads for the laundromat when nobody else can be found on the premises and catches the Fizzle Bomber completely by surprise.
However, when his target finally turns around to face him, John is shocked to find that the Fizzle Bomber is none other than his own future self. Now crazed by years of illegal time jumps, the Bomber insists that everything he's done so far was for the greater good, claiming that Robertson specifically arranged for his Field Kit to continue functioning so that he could have an agent outside of the Bureau's control.
Having used his still-active Field Kit to peruse the future of potential catastrophes, Future John collected newspaper articles on every single one, then set out to remove them from history at their point of origin, usually through explosives. Every bomb he's planted in his career as a terrorist has been targeted at a location that would have become the cause of a major disaster, and in a frenzy of excitement, Future John points out that by blowing up all these buildings before the attacks could take place, he's saved millions of lives. Worse still, there's no way of telling if the Fizzle Bomber is correct in his assertions or if he's simply acting on his own psychotic paranoia.
John is understandably disgusted to find that he is his own nemesis and insists that he'll never become the Fizzle Bomber, drawing a gun on him, even repeating his lines about hunting down "the man who ruined your life." However, Future John begs the agent not to pull the trigger: if John kills him now, he will invariably take his place. The only way to break the chain is for the two of them to join forces: he reasons that, as their own past and future incarnations, they are the only people who can possibly understand, empathize and love one another as Young John and Jane once did. Furthermore, he points out that John's current attempts to make a life will all fall to pieces, even his relationship with "that bitch", Alice, and claims that she will never be able to understand John the way he can.
In a final effort to temper John's rage, the Fizzle Bomber tries to entice him into joining him as he did back when they met at the bar all those years ago, asking "Do you know what we're going to do tomorrow?" John coldly retorts, "no," and promptly shoots his future self dead on the spot, ending the Fizzle Bomber's menace once and for all.
The film ends with John alone in his apartment, clutching his head and rocking back and forth on his haunches as he realizes, to his horror, that he now has everything he needs to become the Fizzle Bomber, setting the stage for him to become the mass-murdering terrorist that helped ruin his life and eventually be shot dead by his past self.
Trivia[]
- In the original short story, no real antagonist exists.
- The name John is original to the film, In the book he still kept the name Jane.
- When John confronts his older self at the New York City laundromat, he impossibly shoots him seven times; his pistol could only hold six bullets.