Is Captain Phasma dead or alive, coming back for Episode 9?

Warning: SPOILERS for Star Wars: The Last Jedi ahead

When we last saw Captain Phasma in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, she was about to be dumped down the garbage chute of a crumbling First Order base, mere minutes before it was blown to bits. The chrome-armored leader of the Stormtroopers gets to have another shot at Finn in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and their fight ends with Phasma taking a tumble into what seems like certain doom. But hey, if the character could cheat death once, surely she could do it again, right?

Speaking at a post-screening Q&A, director Rian Johnson called Captain Phasma "the Kenny from South Park of this series." For the younger readers out there, this is a reference to how Kenny would die in every episode during the show's early seasons, yet always return for the next episode. South Park has eased off that joke in more recent years, though it still occasionally comes up.

Johnson also commented on the imagery of Phasma's face staring up at Finn when the former Stormtrooper cracks her helmet. "I think we were talking about it, and it was Daisy [Ridley] actually who said it should just be Gwendoline [Christie]’s beautiful, piercing eye. Just this perfect blue eye behind this metal monster. I loved that image." Would it still be beautiful after her descent into the fiery rubble? That's something for JJ Abrams and Chris Terrio, who are currently writing Episode 9, to decide.

For what it's worth, Christie apparently has a scenario constructed in her head that would explain her survival, and even Mark Hamill hopes Phasma comes back from another devastating loss. "I think she’s got to survive," Hamill said. "She falls through the flames and lands on a big pile of rubbish."

Echoing one of his lines from The Last Jedi, Hamill said: "No one's ever really gone."