How do we know that is isn't exactly what was meant to happen? That out of everyone on Flight 180 you, me and Carter were meant to live? Maybe that was the design all along.
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Clear Rivers is a main character in the Final Destination series, serving as the deuteragonist of Final Destination and the tritagonist of Final Destination 2. She was a senior student of Mt. Abraham High School and was one of the students aboard Volée Airlines Flight 180, who after surviving a plane explosion foreseen by Alex Browning, assists him in "cheating Death" by rescuing the other survivors from their impending doom. In the sequel, she aids Route 23 visionary Kimberly Corman in saving the new set of victims. Aside from William Bludworth, Clear is the only character to have a significant role in more than one film in the series.
Clear was the seventh and final survivor of Flight 180 to die. In the alternative ending of Final Destination, she, alongside Carter Horton, survived after Alex died and she gives birth to Alexander Browning.
Biography
Life became shit after that. My mom couldn't deal anymore. She married this asshole who my mom with my real dad would have crossed the street to avoid this guy.
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Clear Rivers was born to a couple from Mt. Abraham, New York. Her biological mother died during childbirth, and her father married another woman. Clear was very close to her father and they would often stay at a cabin in the woods, and go fishing. However, one day Clear's father was murdered at a 7-Eleven store, and Clear's stepmother took another husband.
Clear's new parents often neglected her, so she decided to move out and live on her own. Unaware of her troubled past, the other students at Mt. Abraham High School found her mysterious and sly. Clear was one of the students qualified to board Volée Airlines Flight 180 for the school's annual field trip to Paris, France. She is of English descent.
Final Destination
When Alex warned the other passengers about his vision of the airliner exploding in mid-air, Clear left the plane on her own accord before it detonated killing the other 287 passengers.
When FBI agents Weine and Schreck interrogate her, she claimed that she believed Alex claims that the plane would explode. When the surviving students' parents arrive, she was given a ride home by Alex and his father. At the memorial for the victims, Clear presents Alex with a white rose to show her gratitude for her safety. After Tod Waggner's death, Clear showed up at his house and advises Alex to flee rather than face Weine, Schreck and Tod's parents who hold Alex responsible for his death. The next day when Alex visits Clear, she revealed that she believed Alex because she felt what he felt. When Clear and Alex sneak into the mortuary to observe Tod's body, the mortician, William Bludworth, tells them that Death is claiming the lives of those who were meant to die on the plane.
The next day while she and Alex discuss what the mortician said at a cafe, they encounter the rest of the survivors and witness Terry Chaney get ran over by a bus. Now convinced that Death is still after them, she helps Alex to rescue the remaining survivors, yet they only manage to save Carter Horton.
During a thunderstorm the next night, high winds blow loose live wire cables around Clear's house. She notices Death's presence and after Clear releases her dog Rex, a loose rotary clothesline that nearly impaled her earlier is blown into a portable pool of water that spills water around her, but Clear is able to jump onto the trellis before the cable conducts the water. She climbs onto the house and enters through the window as the wire hits the house's main breaker, short circuiting all her home appliances in her house and forcing Clear to run thorough the garage to escape in her car.
As the wire breaks through the garage door, Clear drives off and the rails of the garage door hits the car's windshields. She manage to drive though but the wire lands on top of the car, shutting off the car's battery and preventing her from escaping. The wire hits a spike that punctures a gasoline tank, that leaks under her car.
When Alex arrived at the house, he tried to knock the wire off the car with a shovel but it flew out of his hand into a tank of acetylene that propels under the car and ignites the gasoline leak, spreading the fire around the car. With no other options, Alex grabs the wire, despite Clear's pleas for him to stop, allowing Clear to escape from the car seconds before it explodes.
Six months later, Clear travels to Paris along with a recovered Alex and Carter to celebrate their survival. However, as Alex rethinks about their triumph over Death, she notices a reflection of a bus behind her, an omen from Terry's death earlier. Clear warns Alex, saving him from a speeding bus, yet also witnesses Carter's demise revealing that Death's plan is still in action.
Final Destination 2
In the six months between the ending of the first film and the start of the second, Clear and Alex "cheat[ed] death dozens of times" between them. Unfortunately, Death got Alex in the end - by smashing a brick into his head while he and Clear were talking in an alleyway outside his house. Nearby merchants called an ambulance after hearing the screams Clear, but the ambulance arrived way too late, as Alex was killed instantly by the falling brick.
Stalemating Death, she locked herself inside the Stonybrook Mental Institution, until a car pileup happened and survivor Kimberly Corman asks for Clear's help in cheating death. Clear tells her how the Deaths list works, explaining that the survivors are to die in the order they would've in the premonition. When Kimberly revealed that Her friends died last in her premonition, but they have been killed as the first, It dawned on Clear that death is working backwards. Clear tells Kimberly to watch out for the signs, asking if she's seen anything ominous or anything ironic, which she replied that she did.
Kimberly begs her to help her saying that she had cheated death, but Clear tells her that she hasn't given her current predicament. Kimberly became agitated, saying that she has a responsibility. Clear remarks that because her friends are all dead, especially given her sadness by Alex's death, Clear advises Kimberly to isolate herself and let the others perish, not wanting to risk her life for a stranger. Kimberly calls her a selfish coward and flips at the security moniter in front of Clear's cell before leaving. She soon realizes after the first death of a survivor of Route 23 that she has no choice and that more innocent people will die if she stayed locked up. So she decides to change her reclusive ways.
After Tim Carpenter's demise, Clear leaves the asylum and decides to help Kimberly. She revisited Bludworth, along with Kimberly and Officer Thomas Burke, who tells them that the only sure-fire way to cheat Death is via new life. While they're at a gas station, Clear has noticeably become paranoid, and remains alert of any possible disasters that could lead to their deaths. While trying to figure out what Bludworth said to them, Thomas recalls that there was a pregnant woman on the ramp the day the pileup happened. This lead them to believe that if she has her baby, it could break the chain and give all of them a clean slate. They then find the vehicle information, and the name of the pregnant woman named Isabella Hudson.
While Isabella was taken into custody, The survivors gathered in Thomas' apartment. Clear tried to explain to them how to evade Death, although none of the other survivors believe her, esp Eugene who gave Clear an attitude calling it bullshit, which leads to Clear to fire back to tell Eugene to stay alive as long as he believes that he can, and they all leave, with the exception of Rory. After witnessing Nora's death, and Eugene's failed attempted suicide because it wasn't his turn to die, the survivors are now convinced. She and the other survivors rush to the hospital after learning that Isabella has gone into labour.
As the group races to reach Isabella, they discover that they were all spared from Death once before because of the events set into motion by the survivors of Flight 180 through their deaths. Clear realizes that that's the reason why death is working backwards on the route 23 pileup survivors. The vehicle suffers a blowout, causing it to crash, and Eugene Dix is taken to the hospital for a severe injury.
After Kat Jennings and Rory Peters are killed, Clear, Kimberly, and Thomas rush to the hospital. Clear goes to find Eugene, while Kimberly and Thomas find Isabella. Clear couldn't find Eugene but Kimberly, and Thomas finds Isabella, and she and her baby are alive, and celebrated the moment However after Kimberly recalls her vision, it is revealed that Isabella was never meant to die in crash.
Death
Meanwhile in Eugene's room, the air vents close and two oxygen tanks start leaking. Something falls over and knocks into one of Eugene's life support machines, pulling its plug nearly out of the socket. The socket sparks because of the oxygen but doesn't ignite yet. Clear rushes to Eugene's room and opens the door which knocks the plug completely out of the socket, which then creates a spark and ignites the oxygen around Clear and Eugene, incinerating them both and ending the Flight 180 list.
Kimberly and Thomas see the fire from further down the corridor, and rush to Clear and Eugene. But before they get there, the hospital room explodes, hurling Clear's body out of the room and over Kimberly and Thomas's heads. Kimberly and Thomas duck to the floor, and when they get to their feet, the whole corridor is burning and Clear's charred body is laying at their feet ending her long cheating run with death.
Signs/Clues
- Kimberly told Clear, "In my opinion, you're already dead."
- Every time Clear was nearly killed, it always had something to do with explosions:
- The mortician tells Clear that she has such a fire in her.
- Clear previously hit a teen for smoking at a gas station.
- When Alex is using a cigarette lighter, there's a spark which looks like lightning.
- Clear saw someone drop a tank of propane.
- In the opening credits of Final Destination 2, there's a mask with black ink on its face. It's like it was burned, implicating Clear's death in which it shows how her skin was burnt.
- After Flight 180 blows up, behind Clear was an orange and red picture which might have echoed the explosion.
- Clear was originally supposed to die from an explosion while on board Flight 180, and from an explosion in her car, if it weren't for the intervention of Alex.
- The reason for Clear's death through an explosion might be Death mimicking the Flight 180 explosion, the disaster where Clear was originally supposed to die on.
- She is also nearly killed while in Thomas Burke's apartment when a canoeing boat falls and nearly impales her, and throws her out the window that the canoe hit. This foreshadows Clear being thrown down the hallway in the explosion that killed her.
- In the Flight 180 seat configuration, Clear was seated in "Seat 23", a nod of Route 23.
- In some versions of the film, the coloration of her death scene is warm (red, orange and yellow).
- In Clear's alternate death, when the spark ignited the oxygen, Clear smiles just before the room exploded. This could mean relief for her from the stress and paranoia, and given the fact that her loved ones have all died, it's very likely that Clear was ready to die.
- In the film (and promotional photos), as Evan Lewis climbs out of his apartment, the fire escape portion he is on looks like a seven with an explosion over it, foreshadowing Clear's death as the seventh survivor of Flight 180.
- Ironically, Eugene Dix, who died with her in the blast, was the sixth survivor of Route 23 to die, while Clear herself was the seventh Flight 180 survivor to die, and the seventh to die in the second movie.
Final Destination 5
At the end of the movie before Flight 180 explodes, Clear gets off the plane along with Alex, Tod, Carter, Terry, Billy, and Ms. Lewton.
Appearances
- Final Destination (portrayed by Ali Larter)
- Final Destination (novel)
- Final Destination 2 (portrayed by Ali Larter)
- Final Destination 2 (novel)
- The Final Destination (Archive footage, reference) (portrayed by Ali Larter)
- Final Destination 5 (Archive footage) (portrayed by Ali Larter)
Trivia
- Clear is referenced in the opening credits of Final Destination 5 by her charred body smashing into the screen.
- Clear was the first last survivor to die to not be a visionary. The second one was Nathan Sears from Final Destination 5. Chronologically, Clear would be the second one and Nathan would be the first.
- Clear is one of the five survivors in the series that's not a visionary to see signs and omens leading to their own death or someone else's. The others include Nathan Sears, Rory Peters, Kevin Fischer, and Lori Milligan.
- In the novelization and her alternate death, Clear smiles before the explosion, and her final thoughts are: "It's over. At least I can rest now."
- Kirsten Dunst was one of the first choices to play Clear Rivers along with Tobey Maguire as Alex Browning. Craig Perry confirmed that they also nearly cast Jessica Biel for the role.
- The way Clear looks and acts changes between films. In the first film she dresses more like a 'good girl' and has brown hair. She is also a lot more caring and nicer in the first film. In the second film she has changed due to her previous experiences. She still has her hair dyed blond since the events in Paris and Carter's death, but now she wears more bad girl outfits and she has a more of a mean attitude.
- She's one of the many people who appear in the opening credits of The Final Destination.
- In the alternate ending of Final Destination, Alex saves Clear from the wire that was meant to explode the car she was in, and instead from being electrocuted and passed out, he was caught on fire, and died. Since he was killed despite the design he was supposed to die in, they defeated death, leaving Carter and her to live the rest of their lives. A while later, she was revealed pregnant, and successfully delivered her child. The newborn boy had a small collar, written "Alexander Chance Browning" meaning Alex is the supposed father of the child. She then brings her baby to the memorial in which she meets Carter, and both of them payed their recognitions to Alex. This alternate ending inspired the rule that "new life defeats death" in the second film, since in theory the birth of Clear and Alex's son ensured that she and Carter were off the list for good.
- The Direction Commentary for Final Destination reveals that the name "Kimberly" was originally considered for Clear, but wasn't used. This name was later used for the main character in Final Destination 2.
- An unused ending (mentioned on the Direction Commentary) for Final Destination would have had Clear as the last person alive, but still pregnant and it would have been implied that Death spared her because she had "an innocent soul" within her. However, once the baby is born, the "shadow" that represents Death in Final Destination would be seen in the same room as Clear, implying that now that she's had the baby, Death is allowed to kill her again, and the movie would have ended, leaving the viewer to guess what happens.
- Clear is the only survivor of Flight 180 who dies the same way in the premonition and the real life.
- In the script of Final Destination, she is described as: The loner in the group, Clear wears dark colors against the insecurity of her sex appeal. She appears aloof and more wordy than the other students.
- In the script of Final Destination 2, she is described as: CLEAR RIVERS, 19, While still beautiful, this young woman bears few traces of her former self. Her eyes dart around suspiciously, maddened by chronic paranoia. Her hair is patchy, her eyes dark and haunted. Bordering on savage. Her movements are fidgety, erratic, always distracted by something unseen.
- In a TV edit for Final Destination 2, her death was slightly censored by cutting out the part where it shows a couple of frames showing her face getting burnt and her body flying off was also cut.
- She and Eugene are only two survivors from all movies who died together despite being from two different survival groups.
- Clear currently holds the record as the longest living known survivor to die in the entire series. She died 368 days after the Flight 180 explosion.
Final Destination 2 |
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Disaster(s) |
Route 23 |
Survivors |
Isabella Hudson | Isabella's baby | Kimberly Corman | Evan Lewis | Tim Carpenter | Nora Carpenter | Kat Jennings | Rory Peters | Eugene Dix | Thomas Burke | Dano Estevez | Shaina McKlank | Frankie Whitman |
Others |
Michael Corman | Detective Suby | Nikki | Tawny | Mrs. Jennings | Physician | Clear Rivers | Jean | Dr. Lees | William Bludworth | Skate Punk | Marcus Hudson | Man in Elevator | Deputy Steve Adams | Mr. Carpenter | Man with Hooks | Frank | Mrs. Corman | Peter Gibbons | Mrs. Gibbons | Brian Gibbons | Mrs. Peters | Rescue Worker | Dr. Ellen Kalarjian | Sheriff Mortimer Perry |
Locations |
White Plains, New York | Stonybrook Institution Psychiatric Treatment Center | Ellis Medical Complex | Bludworth Funeral Homes | Gibbons farm | Lakeview Hospital |