As fun as the Mission: Impossible saga is, there’s a lot about it that makes no sense. Plot holes and silly inconsistencies abound, issues that compounded exponentially with Dead Reckoning and its follow-up, The Final Reckoning. These films might be the two-part finale to Tom Cruise’s tenure as Ethan Hunt, and so they had to work overtime to create some common themes out of eight jarringly disparate films. The Reckoning duology answers some lingering questions, like the true nature of the forgotten Rabbit’s Foot from Mission: Impossible III. But by shoehorning an old enemy, Gabriel (Esai Morales), into Ethan’s past, it creates big holes in his backstory.
Their enmity began with Marie (Mariela Garriga), Ethan’s old flame and likely the first tragic brunette he ever tried to save. Dead Reckoning tells us, via flashback, that Gabriel murdered Marie decades before the rogue AI known as the Entity would pit them against each other. Given that this little tidbit is introduced randomly and with very little context, fans assumed The Final Reckoning would try to flesh out the character further. Unfortunately, we never learn who Marie truly was to Ethan, or why Gabriel would see fit to torture Ethan with her demise. It’s one of the film’s most frustrating blind spots, but The Final Reckoning does give us a consolation prize by complicating Ethan’s origins.
