Chapter 16
Chapter 16 begins with Katniss waking up in the hospital in Distirct 13 from a Morphling-induced nightmare after she's been shot in District 2. She is wakes up when dream Peeta says, "Always." If this dream sounds familiar to you, it's because it already happened in Mockingjay Part 1. Since it seems like they borrowed that scene from this chapter, it's highly unlikely it'll be repeated in this movie, but then again you never know.
Instead of that scene, it would be interesting to see something that Katniss wasn't present for: the discussion that the commanding officers in District 13 had about the incident and how they can take advantage of it (they shoot propos of Katniss in her hospital bed showing off her scars later on in the chapter). This would be a great opportunity for the movie to introduce President Coin's more conniving side. It's possible she doesn't see what happened to Katniss as a bad thing, and that maybe gives her ideas later on that affect some of her more drastic choices involving Katniss and what she's willing to do to secure her position of power once the rebels gain control of the Capitol.
We see Johanna Mason for the first time in a while after Katniss wakes up and after a conversation with her and another one with Gale afterwards, the next scene in the book is Katniss talking to Plutarch Heavensbee. He explains to her that since the rebels have taken District 2, the Capitol is now cut off from the rest of the country and because they were more focused on their overly luxurious lifestyles (Panem et Circenses - Bread and Circuses), they cannot afford to sustain themselves from much longer. In the meantime, the rebellion is taking time to regroup and film a pretty big propo - Finnick and Annie's wedding. We don't know if Philip Seymour Hoffman was around for this scene. Hopefully he was but if he isn't, Katniss will most likely have the conversation with Haymitch (or Finnick or Boggs). It's also possible that Effie will be present for the latter part of the conversation for the wedding and to maybe explain the Capitol lifestyle since she's one of the few people in District 13 who is originally from the Capitol.
Speaking of the wedding and Effie, I'm really excited to see her there for the prep and the wedding itself. The wedding is the happiest thing that happens in the book and as we've seen, Effie certainly brings a certain degree of levity to the scenes she's in. I hope she says one of my favorite lines from the book- "It's been so long since I've seen anything pretty" - originally said by Octavia.
In case you couldn't tell above, I'm really excited to see Annie and Finnick's wedding cake that Peeta had decorated. I'm also hoping we get to see him work on it. Katniss has not seen Peeta since he was very unstable and by the time she sees him again later on in the chapter, he seems calmer and more well-adjusted. At least well-adjusted enough to intricately frost a wedding cake "under heavy guard," as Haymitch put it in the book, so it would be interesting to see how he got to that point, maybe working with Delly Cartwright or whoever is filling her role.
Of course since the happiest thing in the book happens in this chapter, it is immediately followed by one of the more heartbreaking scenes in my opinion. Katniss realizes that any illusions Peeta had about her before he was captured and tortured by the Capitol has been destroyed. He's done putting her on a pedestal and that upsets her. Even more upsetting to me personally is Peeta remembering the story about the bread on his own, even the dandelion. Then he says another one of my favorite lines from the book that 98% of me is sure is going to make it into the movie (the other 2% is hoping and praying tbh)- "I must have loved you a lot." FEELS.
Previous Mockingjay PT 2 Countdown posts
Chapter 15