The Fast Saga is giving Luke Hobbs another spinoff, but it’s avoiding the opportunity to reunite him with his former partner, Deckard Shaw.

Fast X is the latest model of the long-running film franchise, with its immediate predecessors being both a ninth main entry in the series and a spinoff. The latter — Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw — was a vehicle for Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham’s characters to bounce off each other. Strangely enough, the next spinoff won’t be a sequel but a solo film centered around Johnson’s Luke Hobbs. Given the current status of the series as a whole, the decision to continue things this way has already been scrutinized by fans.

The Hobbs movie seemingly won’t feature Shaw at all, despite both characters being back in the main franchise. This only exacerbates one of the sticking points of Hobbs & Shaw, not to mention avoiding an organic reason for a sequel to it. Here’s how not following up on the most controversial entry in the Fast Saga could lead to an even bigger beef: this time, with moviegoers.

Hobbs & Shaw Was the Fast Saga’s Most Controversial Entry Yet

There was already “beef” between Dwayne Johnson and the crew behind the Fast Saga following a now-deleted social media post that the actor made concerning some of his co-stars in the series. Though he and franchise “driver” Vin Diesel would seemingly bury the hatchet over the supposedly overblown message, things got a lot spicier following the announcement of Johnson’s spinoff movie Hobbs & Shaw. Tyrese Gibson, who plays Roman Pierce in the series, decried the film, both for Johnson’s “going solo” and the effect it had on delaying Fast 9. Given the fact that it wasn’t a main entry in the series, Hobbs & Shaw also went in a wildly different direction.

Taking the “generic action blockbuster” direction that the series had been driving toward since abandoning its street racing/crime roots and putting things into third gear, Hobbs & Shaw was simply too removed from the usual scope of Dom and his family. Its villain in Idris Elba’s “Black Superman,” combined with the outright ridiculous sequences in F9, only made many fans see the series as getting long in the tooth. Despite all that, the movie was still relatively successful, though perhaps not quite to the extent that the studio was hoping for. Thus, the next spinoff is going in a different direction by focusing on only one-half of its predecessor’s duo.

The Next Fast Saga Spinoff Is Avoiding a Hobbs & Shaw Reunion

As mentioned, the Hobbs will seemingly be based solely around Dwayne Johnson’s Luke Hobbs, with Fast X setting the character up to be hunted down by Jason Momoa’s Dante Reyes. Likewise, the movie also has Owen Shaw going off to protect his mother, Queenie, who’s also become one of Dante’s targets due to her having helped Dom Toretto in the past. It’s the perfect setup for the two crossing paths again in a Hobbs & Shaw sequel, especially since the new spinoff is meant to bridge the gap between Fast X and the 11th main movie. This could mean that it’s part of the “trilogy” that Vin Diesel said the franchise’s conclusion would be spread throughout. Doing so might be due to the diminishing returns seen in the series’ box office.

The lack of follow-up to Hobbs & Shaw is despite its central threat Eteon still being out there. Not dealing with this could leave a major plot point dangling in the wind when the series wraps up, especially since Dante’s hunt for Hobbs will take precedence. It may have been that the controversy of the first film was too much for Paramount to want to make a direct sequel to. At the same time, part of the beef-squashing required to bring Dwayne Johnson back to the franchise may have involved giving him a solo movie where he didn’t co-star with a major name. There’s even the chance that Hobbs and Shaw won’t reunite until the final movie in the series, if at all. Regardless of the explanation, it’s incredibly odd that the first spinoff movie in the franchise will be something of a one-and-done in terms of its story.

To see Hobbs’ big return, Fast X is now playing in theaters.