finaldestination
“ Only by embracing Death, will it pass you by. ”

–William Bludworth explaining to the remaining members of Iris’ bloodline how New Life invalidates the list.

New Life is the result of a person on Death's list killing themself in a way where their heart can be restarted, thus fulfilling their demise on the list without actually dying.

It is the only thing that can defeat Death.

Overview

According to William Bludworth, the only way to truly defeat Death is to die and then be revived, as he claims that "only by embracing death, will it pass you by", such as having your heart stop long enough to be declared clinically dead and then restart it, thus meaning that person has been crossed off the list as they fulfilled their demise in Death's design and can't be targeted by Death anymore as people can't die twice.

Final Destination 2

After the Route 23 pileup and the claiming of the first two survivors, Clear Rivers approached the visionary, Kimberly Corman and another survivor, Thomas Burke, who took them to see Bludworth as the latter believed he knew much more about Death than what he told her and Alex Browning the year prior. Despite being cryptic with Clear and only giving her foreboding omens, when Kimberly asks him if he knows anything, his attitude changes and he explains the concept of "New Life" and how it and it alone is the only thing stronger than Death.

Although he didn't explain the exact mechanics on how to achieve it, the trio summarized that a pregnant woman named Isabella Hudson, who they believe is also a fugitive of Death for avoiding the pileup, is the key to new life due to Clear theorizing that her giving birth to a baby that was supposedly meant to die in the crash while still in its mother's womb, a life that was never a part of the design, is the new life that invalidates Death's list and thus gives them all a clean slate and will allow them to finally break the chain.

Despite the deaths of the other Route 23 survivors, Isabella successfully gives birth to her son and the trio celebrate believing they've finally won, until Kimberly has a new vision which shows that Isabelle was meant to survive the pileup and her baby was always going to be born, proving Clear's theory incorrect as Kimberly realizes the horrifying conclusion. Just then, Clear and another survivor, Eugene Dix, are both incinerated in an oxygen explosion while a flaming hospital rack is sent at the next in line, Thomas, who is skipped by Kimberly saving him, as the two look to see Clear and Eugene's burnt corpses in horror and grief.

With the two of them being the only two remaining survivors and Kimberly being next, she notices her hands are bloody and a van parking outside the front door with a lake in the background, causing Kimberly to remember a previous vision she had on her way to the hospital and interprets it differently as she sees a newspaper showing a drowning victim was given new life after being resuscitated. Understanding the implications, Kimberly realizes that new life isn't about giving birth to another unintended life to be added to the list, but is instead about allowing oneself to die and then be revived to grant themself a new chance at life.

Getting into the van, Kimberly drives it into the lake and allows herself to drown while Thomas jumps in after her to try and get her out as the world around her fades and she sees the other victims of Route 23 with William's clue echoing in her mind as all fades to black. Fading in and out, Kimberly sees herself in a hospital room where Dr. Kalarjian is using a defibrillator to restart her heart that has stopped beating before she is revived. As she reawakens, Thomas explains to Kimberly that the doctors lost her for a few minutes and she was declared clinically dead for several minutes, meaning that she died and was given new life, meaning they have truly defeated Death, by extension Thomas Burke also is saved and is removed from Death's list.

Final Destination Bloodlines

After the deaths of Iris Campbell, her son Howard and his granddaughter Julia, the rest of the Campbell family visits who Iris' book describes as J.B. and is someone who knows a person that actually defeated Death. Arriving at the hospital, they find J.B. is actually William Bludworth, who reveals that he was the child at The Sky View who was the last to die in Iris' vision, right after herself. Terminally ill due to cancer, William explains to the Campbells that you must either kill someone and take their lifespan, or die and let Death pass you by to avoid it.

His conversation between him and the Campbell family confirms the flaw in Clear Rivers' theory about giving birth to a child not meant to be born, as instead they will simply be added to Death's list as part of the rule about bloodlines: anyone who is born because of an unintended survivor of a disaster is considered by Death to be an extension of that person's life and therefore, another life it seeks to reclaim - thus why Death is targeting them all now as Iris was meant to die before having any children, so all her descendants were never meant to exist in the first place and thus Death seeks to correct things its own way by hunting them to end Iris' erroneous bloodline.

He instead references Kimberly Corman's drowning and resuscitation as the person he knows that succeeded in beating Death at its own rules and that being revived after clinical death is the only way of achieving new life. When he was asked by Stefani as to why Iris didn't do that herself since both she and William were aware of this method, he explained that it was risky because when you "fuck with Death and lose, things can get very messy". With his advice given and the options laid out to the survivors, he then leaves to enjoy whatever time he has left and wishes the family luck, with Erik and Bobby coming up their own plan to create new life.

Erik’s plan is to use an EpiPen to revive Bobby after he eats a peanut butter cup due to his fatal peanut allergy. However, this plan fails when Death catches on and uses an MRI machine to kill Erik, before moving onto Bobby by sending a spring into his head and destroying his brain, killing him. While Charlie is confused as to why Erik died since he isn't related to Iris, Stefani understoods what Bludworth meant about fucking with Death: Erik actively interfered wtih Death's design, so Death added him to the list as punishment and to stop him from preventing Bobby's death.

Realizing that inside of Iris' cabin is the only potential place where Death can't reach them, Darlene decides to place herself inside as Death can't do anything to Stefani and Charlie as long as she's alive. As they approach the gate, Stefani sees Death about to make a move and desperately rams the gate and gets her seatbelt jammed. Despite getting inside, the cabin explodes by Death's intention to prevent Darlene from pulling the same checkmate that her mother did to it for decades and ultimately crushes her with a lamp post. With Darlene dead and Stefani already drowning, Death decides to let that be what claims Stefani, but Charlie ultimately succeeds in dragging his sister out from under the water.

Using CPR on her, he is able to get Stefani breathing again, which makes them think they won as they slowly vacate the ruined cabin as the next week goes by with them believing to have earned their right to live. However, when they and their father go to pick up Charlie's date for the prom, the father Dr. Reddick hears about what happened back at the cabin but exclaims to them both that Stefani's breathing would have had to have stopped for several minutes before her heart would've stopped breathing and Charlie only got her breathing while she was unconscious, thus her heart never stopped beating in the first place and Stefani was never actually dead in any way.

Stefani and Charlie both look at each other in horrid realization as they realize that Death only stopped targeting them to lure them into a false sense of security and to wait for them to move out in the open for them to strike as while this was happened, a woman who picked up the penny a week ago tried to buy a cookie from a little girl nearby, only for Death to manipulate the coin so it would fall out of the woman's purse and roll down onto train tracks as the tracks were shifting, leaving them stuck in-between directions.

Soon, a train ends up reaching this point and the penny's interference causes it to derail and sends the train hurling at the last two members of Iris' bloodline, who both run from the train as it wrecks through the neighborhood towards them as it tears up houses and the road. Stefani ends up tripping as the train slows down with Charlie coming back to help her up as they believe themselves to be safe - only for the other cars to catch up as the one carrying logs pushes against the engine and Death sends the logs forward to crush Stefani and then Charlie immediately after, thus finally ending the bloodline of Iris Campbell.

Obtainers of New Life

Successful attempts

Failed attempts