Sony PicturesdAfter 28 Years Later reintroduced us to a Britain ravaged by the Rage Virus for nearly three decades, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple introduced a little bit of light at the end of the very dark tunnel. Mainly, that there may in fact be a cure for the virus that has turned thousands of people into the feral Infected.Since the British mainland was quarantined after the outbreak of the Rage Virus originating in 28 Days Later, society has broken down, with survivors congregating in little pockets of civilization. But “civilization” may be too generous a word — even in isolated villages like the one that Spike (Alfie Williams) grew up in, humans have degraded to their brutish, primal instincts. But nowhere is the degradation more real and terrifying than in the cult of Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell), the Satan-worshipping psychopath who terrorizes the countryside with his band of child soldiers that he calls his “Fingers.”The Bone Temple inevitably finds Sir Lord Jimmy and his Satan-worshipping cult face-to-face with Dr. Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes), the good doctor who has dedicated his life to building a memorial to the dead with a temple built from their skulls. But their arrival interrupts a crucial discovery about the Rage Virus that Dr. Kelson has just stumbled upon — a discovery that will likely have huge ramifications for the upcoming third 28 Years Later film.Warning: Spoilers ahead!28 Years Later: The Bone Temple Ending ExplainedSir Lord Jimmy and his Fingers arrive at the Bone Temple. | Sony PicturesAfter Jimmy Ink (Erin Kellyman) spots Dr. Ian Kelson consorting with the Alpha Infected he’s dubbed “Samson” (Chi Lewis-Parry), she understandably mistakes him for “Old Nick,” aka, the Devil. She’d been taught by Sir Lord Jimmy that the Infected are the Devil’s children and, with Kelson’s friendly behavior with Samson and his red skin from the iodine he uses to ward off Infected, he certainly looks the part. She returns to Sir Lord Jimmy with her discovery, and he’s rattled but excited. He announces that he’ll meet Old Nick on his own first, before he’ll introduce his Fingers.But when Sir Lord Jimmy meets Dr. Kelson, he instantly realizes that he’s just another human. They have a surprisingly genial conversation — with Sir Lord Jimmy confiding that Dr. Kelson is one of the few people he’s ever liked — but it ends with Sir Lord Jimmy telling Kelson that he will have to pretend to be the Devil when he brings his Fingers the next night, or he’ll murder him.It’s this scene that Nia DaCosta found to be the most thematically rewarding for her: in which the two wildly different storylines collide and bring together the nihilism of the Jimmys’ reign of terror and the tenderness of Dr. Kelson’s storyline. “It's about these two opposing worldviews and answering the question of how do you create meaning when life feels meaningless?” DaCosta tells Inverse. “You have a character like Jimmy who's like, ‘I want to hurt people and that's how I find meaning in this weird, fake religion that I invented because of my childhood trauma.’ And then Kelson is like, ‘I find meaning in us and each other.’ He's like, ‘There's no God, there's no devil, but there's hope because there's us.’ And I think that's really beautiful.”Dr. Kelson puts on a show worthy of the Devil. | Sony PicturesThat doesn’t mean that Dr. Kelson doesn’t dedicate himself wholeheartedly to playing Old Nick. He digs out all his best heavy metal and punk records, covers himself in black paint, and rigs up a pyrotechnics show that sets his whole bone temple aflame. But he also accelerates his plans to experiment on Samson. For the past few weeks, Dr. Kelson had realized that Samson was responding to the morphine that was in his darts, and had even started to seem lucid whenever he was under the influence. Working off theory, Dr. Kelson gives Samson a final cocktail of powerful antipsychotics, which seems to cure him of the Rage Virus. Dr. Kelson sends Samson off and Sir Lord and his Fingers arrive, greeted by the pyrotechnics show and a fistful of hallucinogenic powder to the face. As they all hallucinate, Dr. Kelson puts on a wild lip-sync performance of Iron Maiden's “The Number of the Beast,” fully convincing them he’s Old Nick — except for Spike, who remains masked for fear that Dr. Kelson will recognize him. But Dr. Kelson does, and diverts from his and Sir Lord Jimmy’s agreed-upon plan: he proclaims that Sir Lord Jimmy is indeed his son, but just as how the son of Christ was crucified, so must Sir Lord Jimmy be crucified. Hubbub ensues: Sir Lord Jimmy fatally stabs Dr. Kelson, but Jimmy Ink (who had been starting to defy Sir Lord Jimmy’s rule) manages to impale Sir Lord Jimmy on an inverted cross. Later, Samson — now fully lucid and having fought off a horde of Infected who recognize him as human — arrives to carry Dr. Kelson’s body away, while the Infected rip Sir Lord Jimmy apart.What Does This Mean For the Rage Virus?Samson may be the first person cured of the Rage Virus. | Sony PicturesWe’ve learned more than just the fact that there’s now a cure for the Rage Virus. Throughout The Bone Temple, we get glimpses of the world through the Infected’s eyes. We see that the virus clouds their perception of humans, making them appear like red-eyed monsters. That’s what makes them attack humans — not bloodlust, but fear. As Samson becomes more lucid under the effects of morphine, and then antipsychotics, these horrific visions start to lessen, and he starts to get flashes of his memories from before the outbreak. The virus, it seems, had simply repressed his human mind, not destroyed it entirely. And when he’s finally cured, he seems to retain his memories of Dr. Kelson — as well as his brute strength from being an Alpha, fighting off a horde of Infected with the same brutality that he had as an Infected.But has the cure for the Rage Virus perished with Dr. Kelson? Is it now immoral to slaughter all Infected without remorse, if a sliver of their original humanity is still present? Those are questions that Spike, Jimmy Ink (who reveals her real name to be Kelly), and one other familiar face may have to grapple with.What is Happening in 28 Years Later 3?Jim’s back! | Peter Mountain/Dna/20th Century Fox/Kobal/ShutterstockThe Bone Temple ends with Jim, now living in a cottage with his daughter, spotting a pair of humans fleeing a group of Infected. Those humans are Spike and Kelly, who have now abandoned the Jimmy wigs and gone off on their own. Jim rushes to save them, and... that’s it.It certainly sets up a third 28 Years Later film, which has been confirmed with Boyle set to once again direct Alex Garland’s script. But DaCosta is mum about what the third film can entail — mostly because even she didn’t know what was planned while she was directing The Bone Temple. “No one knew what the hell was going to happen in the third film,” DaCosta says. “Except for Alex. Alex knows everything.”But DaCosta had to make sure that she left the pieces in place for the third film. “By the end of my film, [I was] making sure I didn't do anything that would get in the way of the third film. But Alex wrote the script, so I just was following his lead,” DaCosta says.So we’ll have to wait however many more years until the third 28 Years Later film, which is currently in development, answers those questions.28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is playing in theaters now.