NOTE: This post contains spoilers for the ending of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One.
The fuse is lit. And the beginning of the end for Ethan Hunt and his team of merry IMF agents has been initiated. The seventh installment in the franchise sees Tom Cruise once again going for death-defying theatrics, alongside newcomer Hayley Atwell, playing new character, Grace, and fan favorites Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg reprising their roles as Luther and Benji.
This time they need to beat a mysterious villain named Gabriel (Titans and Ozark) to get two keys that will allow them to destroy an all-powerful AI device known as The Entity.
We're going to go into detail about the movie's ending below, but first a quick recap of what leads up to those final moments. Warning — spoilers ahead:
Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One, what happens at the end?
As revealed within the first act of the movie, The Entity is actually the real villain of this story. This all-powerful AI has become self-aware, and does not want to be destroyed, sending Gabriel and his henchman Paris (Pom Klementieff) after Hunt and the team to ensure they take possession of the two keys that can destroy it.
Grace has the first key, and the IMF has to rendezvous with The White Widow (Vanessa Kirby) in Venice to get the second key, and to find out what the keys do and where the Entity is before she can sell the key and any info she has to an unspecified buyer.
However, things go sour. And, while Ethan non-lethally dispatches of Paris, further events lead to a hand-to-hand fight between long-time franchise mainstay, Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) and Gabriel which results in her untimely tragic death.
A distraught Ethan and team then have to figure out how to intercept The White Widow before she sells the second key to a buyer — later revealed to be Eugene Kittridge (Henry Czerny reprising his role from the first Mission: Impossible film) – aboard a train and get the key from her, then get off the train before the deal can be made.
They use Grace and a patented IMF mask to disguise her as The White Widow, to make the deal with Kittridge and get information about The Entity, but Gabriel and Paris infiltrate the train and pose a threat to Grace.
Ethan, vowing to get on the train to save Grace before anything can happen to her, jumps off a mountain and parachutes onto the train to save Grace from Gabriel’s men, but not before Gabriel blows up an oncoming bridge to leave the train to its doom.
Ethan and Grace manage to stop the train from flying off the collapsed bridge in the nick of time with the help of a dying Paris (who defects because Ethan spared her life previously), who tells them The Entity is in a submarine in the middle of the Arctic; all while Gabriel escapes the train convinced he has managed to grab both of the keys.
Little does he know that Ethan managed to grab both keys, and found a way to escape the train, but leaves Grace in the care of Kittridge as a potential introduction to her recruitment into the IMF.
Ethan rendezvous with Benji with the keys to The Entity in his possession, armed with the knowledge of where to find The Entity, and the will to complete the mission, leading to the storyline for Dead Reckoning – Part Two.
Who survives Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One and who doesn't?
As stated above, this installment will be the last time we see Rebecca Ferguson’s Ilsa Faust. Why they decided to kill one of the best characters in the franchise is an absolute mystery. But as far as we can tell, she is officially out.
Additionally new favorite baddie, Pom Klementieff’s Paris, does not survive, but at minimum dies a semi-heroic death, aiding Ethan and Grace in their search for The Entity, and saving them from falling to their deaths from a dangling train car.
Grace, Kittidge, and Community agent Jasper Briggs are left unscathed on the train, with Grace telling Kittridge “she accepts” the choice — alluding to how Ethan, Luther, Benji, and other IMF agents began their careers with the Impossible Missions Force.
Ethan and Benji naturally survive unscathed, hell-bent on finding and destroying The Entity. We don’t see Luther in the movie’s conclusion, but we assume he’s somewhere unharmed. And we do see the villainous Gabriel escaping on a truck empty-handed, frustrated he was beaten by Hunt. We can guarantee he will be rallying to try and stop the heroes from completing their mission in the next film.
What can we expect from Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part Two?
Grace being in Kittridge’s possession but informing him she accepts, means she’ll most likely be made a full-fledged IMF agent. It’s possible this character is being set up to continue the franchise after Ethan Hunt has stepped down. Rumors have suggested that Dead Reckoning – Part One and Part Two will be the grand finale for Ethan Hunt’s character. And given the similarities between Grace and Ethan, it’s not hard to imagine that’s where they’re going with this.
As far as the storyline for Part Two is concerned, there’s no other logical narrative progression to go with other than to have Ethan and the IMF race against Gabriel towards The Entity beneath the depths of the Arctic Ocean, to try and finish their mission in destroying the all-powerful AI device.
Without Ilsa, Ethan is in a highly emotionally compromised state, but whether or not he kills Gabriel out of revenge or necessity is an open question. It’s incredibly possible that given the above, we may see Agent Hunt make the ultimate sacrifice to save the world and accomplish his greatest mission once and for all.
Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One is in movie theaters across the world now.
