When we last saw the Bride, she’d crossed two names off of her kill list: O-Ren Ishii and Vernita Green. And oh yeah — we also learned that her daughter is still alive. Now, she’s finally going to do what she’s been promising. She’s going to kill Bill…right after she gets through Elle, Budd and everyone else.

The Bride sets off for the trailer of Sidewinder/Budd, who is also Bill’s brother. Speaking of Bill, he’s warned him that the Bride is on her way, so as she gets close, Budd blasts her with a shotgun packed with rock salt, then buries her alive. To top it all off, he calls in Elle Driver and offers to sell the Bride’s sword for a million dollars.

We go back in time to see Bill leaving the Bride behind at the temple of Pai Mei (Gordon Liu!), who in time will teach her his most deadly secret: the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique. He’s never shown it to anyone before because it kills any opponent before they take five steps. The training is beyond horrible — if you’ve seen any Hong Kong martial arts film, you’ll understand — but the Bride emerges with Pai Mei’s respect. She uses his lessons to break her way free from the coffin.

Elle Drive kills Budd with an actual black mamba, the snake that the Bride took her codename from. She calls Bill to let him know that his brother has been killed by the Bride, but that she’s already killed her. As she does so, she reveals her enemy’s true name: Beatrix Kiddo. Both of these women were trained by Mei, so the battle is beyond destructive (we have an entire article about the references in this film right here that will explain so much more), ending with Elle revealing that she poisoned and killed Mei after he took her eye. The Bride tears out her other eye and leaves her in the abandoned trailer, along with the deadly snake.

The Bride goes to Mexico, where retired pimp Esteban Vihaio (Michael Parks!) helps her find Bill, who is in a hotel with their daughter B.B. After a family-friendly evening, Bill shoots the Bride with a dart filled with truth serum. He learns that she left the Vipers to give her daughter a better life, but Bill only found out that she was missing and assumed that the man she was to marry was B.B.’s father.

The Bride then hits the dreaded Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique. Bill makes peace with her, takes five steps and dies. Beatrix Kiddo and B.B. leave to start a new life.

There were plans to make numerous sequels to this film, including two anime films that would be the origin of Bill and the Bride. There was also talk of Kill Bill: Volumes 3 and 4, which would have two killers whose arms and eye were taken by the Bride and then a cycle of stories about daughters who avenge the death of their mothers. But these days, everyone is non-committal about a sequel.

I love the dichotomy between these two films. The first is pure spectacle and brawls with hundreds of people. Just like the tagline to Jaws: The Revenge, this time it’s personal.