When we last see Imperator Furiosa, she’s in her moment of triumph.

Evil has been vanquished. The monstrous Immortan Joe has been killed. Her ragtag insurgent army have struck a blow against the patriarchy. She and her compatriots are being winched skyward into the Citadel alongside the Gigaghorse. ¹

Meanwhile, the impoverished ragtag remnant of humanity are being washed in cleansing water after finally freed from Immortan Joe’s tyrannical grasp.

So, that’s that, then? All’s well.

Rather, I would posit that Furiosa’s problems are just beginning. Like George W. Bush standing in front of the Mission Accomplished banner declaring the end to major combat, Furiosa is on the verge of finding out that the facts on the ground and the post-Immortan Joe strategic landscape is quite a bit more difficult than at first glance.

The film’s climactic final chase scene culminates with – spoiler alert – Nux the War Boy, flipping 2,000 horsepower of nitro-boosted War Rig in a narrow pass, killing himself and Immortan Joe’s heir apparent Rictus Erectus ² and blocking the advance of the combined armies from the Citadel, Gas Town and the Bullet Farm.

The army is certainly diminished after the pitched battle and the massive detonation of the Gas Town tanker, but much of their equipment and cars remain intact just on the other side of the pass. These armies are likely to clear out the rubble of the War Rig and Doof Wagon and advance on the Citadel, probably within hours.

The movie had suggested an uneasy peace, a detente, really – between the Bullet Farm / Gas Town / Citadel regional powers. The first two were certainly willing to join Immortan Joe and chase the fleeing Furiosa and her truck full of McGuffins despite the chase not being in their direct interests. Joe may have been a dictator, but he was a dictator they could do business with.

The situation that led to that uneasy peace is now upset if not totally wiped out. Their smartest move is now to cut out the middle man and seize the Citadel and its valuable commodities – food and water – for their own.

While the Citadel is a defensible position from a strategic standpoint, Furiosa is in a poor tactical situation. She has no army beyond few underage War Boys, and most of Joe’s equipment – now hers – is left in the hands of her enemies. Her supply lines to Gas Town and the Bullet Farm have been severed, so resupply is not an option either.

In short, she has no ability to project power to protect the peasantry gathered at the foot of her towering palace. Holing up for a long siege in a well-stocked citadel might be an option at least for awhile, but even that has its limits, as the Jewish holdouts learned when confronting Lucius Flavius Silva’s Roman legions at Masada in 74 A.D.

In the face of all of these problems, Furiosa’s more difficult task will be consolidating her political power into a viable ruling coalition. Like the eponymous queen in the movie Elizabeth she’s likely to spend most of her time just asserting control inside the castle walls in large and small ways.

Immortan Joe needed some sort of command structure at the Citadel. He does seem like the micromanaging type, but he couldn’t make every decision himself. So Furiosa’s first task would be to find and purge some of the more disreputable characters and sycophants still skulking around the halls like Sidney Blumenthal. This being a post-apocalypse and all, she need not worry about the niceties of due process and could just toss them out the nearest window.

Even with them gone, loyalties will be an issue. Furiosa and the cadre surrounding her simply isn’t enough people to put together an interim government let alone keep the Citadel running smoothly and its hangers-on and its remaining career civil-service staff happy. The women shown being being milked might appreciate being freed, but they might not like suddenly being without steady work in a wasteland with no other prospects except to stand around in the desert with a pan waiting for someone to dump water on them.

There’s a question of what Furiosa can even accomplish.

Furiosa’s rule in the Citadel leaves her, like Immortan Joe, in control of the food and water supplies. She can’t just turn on the spigots and leave them on or toss cabbages from the balcony, as both water and food are finite resources. The peasants who aren’t busy being killed by attacking armies are likely to find their essentials-of-life situation improved, but probably not as much as they’d like.

Even with best intentions, Furiosa is likely to find herself making many of the same choices as her predecessor by using food and water supplies she controls to control others. Embracing the status quo like this can be devastating to the political fortunes of a “change you can believe in” leader like Furiosa.

It’s entirely possible that she, like Eisenhower, would manage to parlay her military prowess into a successful political career. Her ability to rise in the ranks from kidnapped child to one of Immortan Joe’s most trusted Imperators driving his rig on vital supply runs suggests a certain political savvy to go along with her fighting skills.

Or she might find that ruling in hell is a much less desirable option than merely serving there.

1. Immortan Joe’s double decker ‘57 Caddy / war wagon / mobile throne might be my favorite prop – or even thing – ever made for a movie. It is undiluted production design magnificence.
2. Best character name ever. Ever. I like to think they were parodying ridiculous, implausible screen names like Stone Hopper, Stacker Pentecost and Cypher Raige.