Fast 9: Here's Why Dom Never Mentioned His Brother John Cena Before Now

At long last, F9: The Fast Saga is in theaters. We've waited over a year for this moment, and you've hopefully gotten to see the return of Han, the journey to space, and all of the other amazingly ridiculous things that happen in the film--including the ending. There's one thing we definitely need to talk about, though, and that's the introduction of Jakob Toretto (John Cena), the long-lost brother of Dom (Vin Diesel) and Mia (Jordana Brewster).

Warning: The following contains spoilers for Fast 9. If you've yet to see the film, turn away now unless you want to know what happens.

It's been 20 years since the first movie in the franchise, The Fast and the Furious, debuted in theaters. In all of that time, we never heard a word about Jakob. Now, nine (technically ten, Hobbs and Shaw included) movies in, Dom magically has a little brother? How is that possible?

Oddly enough, the movie found a way to make it work thanks to Dom's origin story told in the first movie. In that film, Dom said his father Jack Toretto (played in F9 by Mayans MC star JD Pardo) was killed in a crash on a race track, due in part to the dirty tactics of another driver. Dom nearly beat that man to death with a wrench, which resulted in his first stint in jail.

What we learn in F9 is that Dom wasn't the only Toretto on Jack's pit crew for that race--younger brother Jakob was also there. Dom was led to believe that the crash was caused by tinkering Jakob did under the hood of the car. After his release from prison, Dom challenged him to a street race (because that's how normal people settle family squabbles). If Jakob lost, he was out of the family forever. Spoilers: he lost.

And thus Jakob was never heard from again until F9, and Dom has no interest in sharing that piece of his old life with his crew. Of course, that's not the whole story. As Jakob reveals to Dom in F9, he did change something under the hood of their dad's car--at Jack's direction.

According to Jakob, Jack was deep in debt and conspired with the younger Toretto to sabotage his car, enabling him to plausibly throw the race. Jack didn't want his eldest son to know, so they hid their plan from Dom. Jakob did what he was told and the results were disastrous, leading to his father's death on the track.

So while the younger Toretto was essentially kicked out of the family, he carried that burden with him most of his life. However, now that the truth is out there and Jakob has decided not to destroy the world, the possibility of teaming with the family again in the final two movies exists.

Sure, he's definitely wanted across the globe for his villainous work with Cipher and Otto. It's not as if every member of Dom's crew hasn't appeared on most wanted lists of practically every government agency at some point, though. Honestly, these movies could find a way to make Cipher one of the heroes in Fast 10 and it would be believable. So don't count Jakob out just yet.

Fast 9 is in theaters now.