Thomas Burke

Final Destination 2 (Main)

Map

Thomas Burke
Full Name	Thomas Burke
AKA	Officer Burke Bent Copper Handsome hunk (to Kimberly)
Gender	Male
Hair Color	Black
Eye Color	Brown
Place of Origin	White Plains, New York
Status	Alive
Occupation	New York State police officer (later moved to desk job after the events of the film)
Relations	Kimberly Corman－Friend Clear Rivers－Friend; Deceased Detective Suby – Superior
Actor	Michael Landes
First Appearance	Final Destination 2
Last Appearance	Final Destination 5 (closing credits)

Listen, I know you've gone over all this with Detective Suby, but would you mind telling me what happened? Burke, questioning Kimberly on how she knew about the pile-up.

Thomas Burke is a main character and the deuteragonist of Final Destination 2. He is a New York State Trooper.

Biography

Thomas was one of the stationed Troopers in the Route 23 sub-station. Besides highway patrol, he also performs secondary tasks such as police investigation and crime scene cleanup. During a stake-out with his partner, Thomas was reassigned to clean up the remains of Billy Hitchcock, avoiding a fatal shoot-out that took his partner's life.

Final Destination 2

Thomas looking at the news on Flight 180 on his computer.

When Kimberly Corman stalls her SUV in the middle of the road after having a premonition of a pile-up on the highway, the drivers behind her, including Thomas, complain about her interruption until vehicles ahead crash into one another and explode on the highway. As a result, Kimberly is later interrogated by Thomas at a police station, where she explains that her vision was very similar to Alex Browning's vision, and that they are now all on Death's List.

Thomas remembers his previous event.

Thomas and the other survivors disregard this until survivor Evan Lewis dies the next day, alarming the survivors about the incoming danger. After researching the Flight 180 disaster, Thomas willingly agrees to help Kimberly save the group from death, now with the aid of Clear Rivers, the last survivor of Flight 180.

At Clear's suggestion, they meet with mortician William Bludworth, who helps the latter by telling her that her new life can defeat Death. Kimberly believes that pregnant survivor Isabella Hudson can save them; however, this proves false since Isabella was meant to survive the pileup.

Thomas, after he saves Kimberly.

After Clear and Eugene Dix's deaths, Kimberly sacrifices herself for Thomas' safety by driving a van into a lake; however, Thomas rescues her and brings her back to the hospital for recovery, where she is revived and granted new life. This completely ruins the design and saves both of them. Having finally cheated Death, they go to a picnic with the Gibbons family, who tell them how their son Brian Gibbons was saved from Death by one of the survivors, Rory Peters. To everyone's surprise, Brian is incinerated nearby due to a barbecue grill malfunction.

Signs/Clues

• At the top of the page of the newspaper, there is a heading that says "COST OF COMMUTING | B2-3," which could possibly be referencing the Route 23 pile-up.
• When Kimberly's diary is shown, it says "Road Trip," but her keys are blocking the T, making it say: "ROAD RIP"
• When Sam and his friends are on their way to the bridge, Sam sees a log truck, foreshadowing the pile-up and Thomas' death.
• In the opening credits for Final Destination 5, logs and his coffee are seen crashing through glass, foreshadowing his premonition death.
• Burke's police call sign is Unit 13.

Final Destination Bloodlines

When the main characters of the film speak to William Bludworth, he mentions that there are only two ways to beat death, one of them being by dying, confirming that Kimberly survived. Although Thomas is not mentioned, it is heavily implied that he survived due to Kimberly disrupting Death's plan. The interview also confirmed that Kimberly and Thomas are the only two survivors of the franchise that defeated death.

Appearances

• Final Destination 2 (portrayed by Michael Landes)
• Final Destination 2 (novel)
• Final Destination 3 (photograph) (portrayed by Michael Landes)
• Final Destination 5 (archive footage in ending credits) (portrayed by Michael Landes)

Trivia

• He is the only survivor in the movie series to be an officer and interrogate other survivors himself.
• Kimberly and Thomas' deaths from the Choose Their Fate from the special features of the Final Destination 3 DVD are based on the real-life death of Brian Morse, who was trimming birch trees in Loveland, Colorado, when his gloved hand got caught in a wood chipper. He was pulled through the machine before anyone could help him, and his body was found inside, completely mutilated.
• Thomas and Kimberly are the only two characters in the Final Destination movie series who are still alive.
• It is possible Thomas was to have died from the flying gurney in the hospital explosion. Kimberly had pulled him down at the last second, and the gurney passed right over them, exactly where Burke's head would have been.
• In the script of Final Destination 2, he is described as: 30, rookie cop.
  • In an earlier draft, he was in his early 20s, and in the novelization, he is 24 (It's mentioned that he was 6 years older than Alex Browning, who was 18).
• In the opening of Final Destination 5, Thomas' death in the premonition is referenced by having the drink that spilled distract him from the road crash into the screen.
• His death in Kimberly's premonition won the 'Primo Premonition' in Dead Meat’s Kill Count of Final Destination 2.
• The original script to Final Destination 2 had Thomas drown alongside Kimberly. He attempted to resurface for air after diving into the lake after Kimberly, only for his pants to snag on the twisted bumper of the ambulance. He was later resuscitated by the EMT who Kimberly stole the ambulance from.
  • This may have occurred off-screen in Final Destination 2, explaining how Thomas cheated Death's list without contradicting how other survivors throughout the franchise cheated Death.
• In the early script of FINAL DESTINATION 2, there was more chemistry between Kimberly and Thomas. They owned real love and finally became a couple.