It’s finally time to return to Panem. The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes takes us to the Capitol—long before Coriolanus Snow was the president and determined to ruin the lives of the people he ruled over. Before he and Katniss Everdeen became sworn enemies, Snow (played by Tom Blyth) was a young boy at the Academy trying to win the Plinth prize so that he would “land on top” once more.
The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, based on the book of the same name by Suzanne Collins, is set during the 10th annual Hunger Games, which might be the last. The Gamemaker, Dr. Volumnia Gaul (Viola Davis) is trying to make the games more interesting to the world once more with the help of Dean Highbottom (Peter Dinklage). By the end of it, Snow has fully become a villain and we don’t quite know where in the world of Panem Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler) has fled.
The ending is pretty much setting up Snow’s future as the villain we know from The Hunger Games. Snow has become the man who will be president. He doesn’t care who he has to hurt to get there, including his cousin Tigris (Hunter Schafer), who knows that Snow is gone. The ending of The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is chilling.
While fans of the franchise know where the story is heading, this is only the 10th game. There are plenty of stories and games before Katniss Everdeen volunteers for Primrose during the 74th annual Hunger Games and sets the revolution in motion as the Mockingjay. But does The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes hint at other stories to come? Is there a post-credits scene to tease another addition to the franchise that so many of us loved as children?
Are you, are you, waiting for a scene…
Sadly, no—there is no post-credits scene in The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes. What we do get, however, is a new Olivia Rodrigo song, which plays as we watch the credits roll, and it does feel very fitting for The Hunger Games franchise. Remember when Taylor Swift and the Civil Wars gave us “Safe and Sound”? I’ll never forget.
Right now, The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is only other book outside of the original trilogy that Collins wrote for The Hunger Games. While there are characters that I’d love to spend more time exploring (as a fan of Finnick Odair, I’d love to see a story about his games and his relationship with Annie), Collins hasn’t written another story—yet.
We did, however, get a callback to Donald Sutherland’s President Snow at the end, with his voiceover over a black screen, repeating a line he says to Katniss in Mockingjay – Part 1: “It’s the things we love most that destroy us.”
After hearing Tigris call him “Coryo” the entire time, I really wish we could have heard someone else call him that in the original movies. But to answer your question, there are no post-credits scenes. Just Snow being a sassy boy I love to watch.
(featured image: Lionsgate)
