Tracking Dom's Trusty Silver Cross From 'The Fast and the Furious' to 'The Fate of the Furious'

The Fast and the Furious movies have gone through several cast changes and genre evolutions over the last decade and a half, but one thing has remained the same: Dom’s necklace. The silver cross first worn by Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) in 2001’s The Fast and the Furious has taken on a greater significance with every new film. A symbol of his love for Letty, and a constant reminder that Dom is the Jesus figure of his crew, the necklace (custom-made for the films, per costume designer Sanja Hays) plays a key role in the events of the eighth movie The Fate of the Furious (in theaters now). Here, we trace the evolution of Dom’s necklace, from flashy accessory to unofficial cast member.

Warning: This post contains spoilers for every ‘Fast and Furious’ film to date.

— The necklace makes its debut when Dominic, an auto mechanic secretly running a crime ring, challenges Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker), an undercover cop, to a quarter-mile race in Los Angeles in 2001’s The Fast and the Furious. Dom wears it in just that one scene with a black sleeveless T-shirt, later to become a signature look.

— Dom and his crew move to the Dominican Republic, where they’re living undercover at the start of Fast & Furious (2009). Unbeknownst to the audience until 2015’s Furious 7, Dom privately marries longtime girlfriend Letty Ortiz (Michelle Rodriguez) while they’re in the Caribbean. In lieu of a ring, he wraps the necklace around their hands.

— During a traditional “Our fuel tanker heist went really well!” celebration in the Dominican Republic during Fast & Furious, Dom learns that the police are closing in on his crew. For Letty’s protection, he decides to leave her … with the necklace wrapped around a pile of cash on the bedside table.

— With Dom gone, Letty returns to Los Angeles and works on restoring Dom’s 1970 Dodge Charger (which crashed dramatically during the climax of the first film). She hangs the necklace from the rearview mirror. Dom finds it there after he learns of Letty’s “death.” The necklace remains a car ornament for the rest of Fast & Furious, except when Dom is fidgeting with it (as he does during a rendezvous with Gisele Yashar, played by Gal Gadot, who leads him to Letty’s murderer).

— At the start of 2011’s Fast Five, fugitive-from-the-law Dom makes his grand entrance wearing the cross with a black muscle tee. It stays put when Dom takes a flying leap off a bridge into a river and survives: our first indication that the cross may have quasi-supernatural powers of protection.

— With Dom and his crew hiding out in Rio de Janeiro, the Diplomatic Security Service, led by agent Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and police officer Elena Neves (Elsa Pataky), stages a raid on their neighborhood. Dom escapes, but Elena finds his necklace on the ground. Later, Dom (still a wanted fugitive!) breaks into Elena’s home and pulls his cross from her neck. “I don’t understand. Why come here? Why risk it all for $20 worth of silver?” she asks. “’Cause it’s worth it,” he replies. Elena — who, like Dom, lost the love of her life — lets him walk out the door. Dom wears the cross for the rest of Fast Five and is still wearing it in the final scenes, when he and Elena move to a hideout in the Canary Islands.

— Dom is still wearing the necklace at the beginning of 2013’s Fast & Furious 6, when he finds out from Hobbs that Letty is still alive. Elena gives him her blessing to find his old girlfriend, and he leaves her to follow Letty’s trail to London.

— It turns out that Letty survived her car crash with severe amnesia, allowing criminal mastermind Owen Shaw (Luke Evans) to turn her against Dom. Though Letty attempts to shoot him, Dom tries to jog her memory by challenging her to a street race and handing her the necklace. “It belongs to you,” he says.

— Letty has the necklace wrapped around her hand when she returns to Owen Shaw’s headquarters. When he questions her loyalty, she hands him the necklace and says, “Keep it.” Shaw tosses it onto a table.

— In the end credits sequence of Fast & Furious 6, we relive Han’s car-crash death from 2006’s Tokyo Drift. This time, however, it’s from the perspective of Owen Shaw’s brother Deckard (Jason Statham), who deliberately rams his car into Han (Sung Kang). He leaves Dom’s necklace at the crash site as a sinister message.

— When Dom goes to Tokyo to retrieve Han’s belongings in Furious 7, the necklace is among them. Dom vows revenge on the killer and resumes wearing the necklace.

— At the end of Furious 7, Dom is pulled from an explosion and isn’t breathing. As Letty holds him and begs him to live, clutching his cross, she regains her memories, including the memory of their secret wedding vows. (“Wherever you go, I go. You ride, I ride.”) Dom opens his eyes and breathes again.

— In The Fate of the Furious, Dom, Letty, and the necklace are honeymooning in Cuba, where Dom is approached by cyberterrorist Cipher (Charlize Theron). To recruit him, she shows him evidence that she has kidnapped Elena and the infant son he didn’t know he had. There is a scene of Dom pensively using a soldering iron before he leaves Letty behind. Later, it is revealed that Dom has hidden a tracking device in his necklace, which he hangs on his son’s cell in Cipher’s plane. The tracker enables Deckard Shaw (once a cold-blooded murderer, now a good guy!) to find the location and rescue the baby. Alas, Elena’s fate reveals that even Dominic Toretto’s necklace can’t protect everybody.

Read more from Yahoo Movies:

• The Gospel According to Dom: Just How Catholic Are the ‘Fast and the Furious’ Movies?

• ‘Fast and Furious’ Costume Designer Sanja Hays on the Challenges of Dressing Dom’s Crew

• ‘Fast & Furious’ Cheat Sheet: Untangling the Franchise’s Twisted Timeline Prior to ‘F8’ (Spoilers!)