Warning! This article contains major spoilers for Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One. If you've yet to watch the movie, turn back now!
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One features more death-defying moments than you can count, from Simon Pegg's Benji trying to defuse a bomb, seconds before it detonates to Tom Cruise's Ethan yeeting himself off a cliff face. It's hardly surprising; the franchise has always been chock-full of characters' close shaves – but unfortunately, this time around, not everyone makes it to the credits alive.
In the movie, after reuniting with his IMF pals, Ethan and Ilsa (Rebecca Ferguson) infiltrate a party being held by arms dealer Alanna Mitsopolis (Vanessa Kirby) in Venice. There, they hope to identify who Grace, Hayley Atwell's wily pickpocket, is selling The Entity-controlling key to, so that they can follow them to whatever it unlocks and destroy it. Things goes sideways, though, when Gabriel (Esai Morales) interrupts the shin-dig and orders Alanna, at the behest of all-knowing AI villain The Entity, to either kill Grace or Ilsa.
The characters scatter, which ultimately leads to a confrontation between Ilsa and Gabriel, and the former being fatally stabbed by the film's corporeal baddie. It's a moment that is supposed to hit especially hard, as earlier on, we learned that Ethan joined the IMF all those years ago after Gabriel murdered a woman he was once close to. In reality, though, Ilsa's death is just frustrating. So much so that several fans have convinced themselves that she's actually still alive and will appear in Dead Reckoning Part Two, and I really hope they're right.
Before we get into why, check out some reactions to the shock twist below...
Ilsa is not dead I will die on this hill pic.twitter.com/nBakpd96Z5July 13, 2023
the way even my siblings have said after watching that they don’t think ilsa’s really dead…. will be staying in delulu land that she’s alive and nobody can stop me pic.twitter.com/Wqg9eEoHEhJuly 15, 2023
Dead Reckoning #MissionImpossible not that bad. Would give 10 out of 10 if they keep Ilsa Faust alive.July 16, 2023
All I’ll say is pay attention to the few subtle looks between Ilsa and Ethan in #MissionImpossibleDeadReckoning .👀That Prologue sequence was put there for a reason. 😬I’m hoping for Part 2. 🙏 pic.twitter.com/ibJnQyUZGdJuly 17, 2023
(dead reckoning spoilers) i have deluded myself that ilsa is actually alive. literally everything points to it being a bait and switch. the whole thing is simply too strange. i gotta believe it's part of their plan to trick the entity and she'll be back in m:i8...July 17, 2023
Look at her and tell me she’s not up to something pic.twitter.com/Vlt20yQwQWJuly 16, 2023
So basically either Ilsa is alive or dead reckoning was really terribly written... God I hope she's aliveJuly 17, 2023
reasons why Ilsa is alive according to me, mayor of delusion land (#MissionImpossibleDeadReckoning #MissionImpossible #spoilers #mi7spoilers #missionimpossiblespoilers) pic.twitter.com/ucxiXcZjezJuly 11, 2023
proud member a the ilsa is still alive conspiracy club pic.twitter.com/ULLcyv3ebTJuly 16, 2023
I’m an Ilsa is alive believer and here’s why. Bring on Dead Reckoning (curious title) part 2 pic.twitter.com/z8sX7swhx5July 16, 2023
One Ilsa enthuasist has even knocked up a compelling thread as to how the disavowed MI6 agent could still show up in Part Two. Their arguments include the word "dead" literally being in the film's title, and how Paris, Pom Klementieff's henchman, suffered a similar injury at the hands of Gabriel, a significantly less skilled fighter than Ilsa, and lived.
Considering how the film opens, Ilsa faking her own death could make sense. Having been hiding out for days in the Arabian Desert, Ilsa finds herself ambushed by bounty hunters, and when Ethan arrives to help her, he finds his pal lying face down on the ground pretending to be dead. That last part is revealed in a flashback later on – before that, director Christopher McQuarrie lets us believe she really has bitten the dust for a little while. In the flashback, Ethan helps a wounded Ilsa onto a horse and shouts, "You're dead, stay dead." Hmm, foreshadowing, much?
"There's not a lot of going into detail about what happened. You do not talk about it," Ferguson told Indiewire, when asked about the process of receiving her Mission-related scripts. "There's always reasons why arcs go a certain way. I control my own destiny [as Ilsa], there are reasons why things happen." It's entirely possible, then, that Ferguson's schedule – she's been busy fronting Apple TV Plus series Silo and Denis Villeneuve's two-part Dune adaptation recently – just didn't allow her to have a bigger role in Dead Reckoning Part One. Not that that really helps take the sting out.
Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation was the first Mission: Impossible movie I ever saw, so Ilsa Faust is an important character to me, given that that's the one she was introduced in. (Don't worry, I caught up with the series after and quickly became a fan). I loved that she was Ethan's equal, as opposed to the likeable but more damsel-like female characters who have crossed his path before.
Thandiwe Newton's Nyah in Mission: Impossible 2 came close, but much like Mission: Impossible 7's Grace, she was a highly skilled thief who got swept up in the world of espionage, not a bonafide secret agent like Ilsa. It's extra galling, then, that Ilsa winds up facing Gabriel in an attempt to save Grace, literally dying so that Grace can go on to replace her as the IMF gang's only woman operative. God forbid Ethan Hunt have two capable women on his team. (In the name of good faith, I had better point out here that it's pretty clear Paris will be some sort of ally to him going forward).
Deciding on Ilsa's demise was "really tough," McQuarrie said in an interview with USA Today. But it was one we knew we had to make for the movie to have stakes and for the movie to remain Mission. Mission is primarily Ethan's journey (and) there is this continuum that the people closest to him, he tends to lose them. It was a really tricky conversation for us to have, and we knew that there would be some reactions to that, but we also knew this is the reality of the world that's been created over seven movies."
Talk about fridging! Was Ilsa the only character getting in the way of Ethan's journey? He's known Luther and Benji longer than he's known her, so if McQuarrie really wanted to up the stakes heading into the eighth chapter, wouldn't it have worked better to kill either of those two off? That said, how well you know someone doesn't really seem to matter when it comes to the IMF.
In the scene immediately after Ilsa's death, Luther, Benji, and Ethan give Grace "the choice" to join the task force. Given her lack of experience in the field, and the fact that she's just had a pretty scary, life-threatening few days, Grace is initially reluctant. She proposes that she help them out this one time, then she goes back to her life, to which Luther replies, "What life?" and reminds her that she's in grave danger now... She's also wanted by the police for art theft, fraud, and various other crimes.
Grace breaks down talking about Ilsa and says she's "the reason she's dead". Luther interjects with a firm no, and adds, "She's the reason you're alive." It's a subtle line, but it could mean that the team know more than they're letting on.
Grace then questions whether the IMF boys will protect her, which prompts Ethan to admit that they can't promise to because, as proven a few hours before, things can go terribly, terribly wrong. He does vow, however, that if she joins them, her "life will mean more to [him] than [his] own."
"You don't even know me," Grace claps back, to which Ethan replies: "What difference does that make?"
On the surface, it's a sweet sentiment but read a little deeper into it, and it's a truly bizarre and sour note to hit following a main character's death. It inadvertently suggests that a stranger on the street is just as important to him as his nearest and dearest and, more crucially, that his years knowing Ilsa essentially counted for nothing in the end. My personal love of the character (and Ferguson) aside, I really hope Part Two sees her return to trick The Entity, kill some guys with her thighs, save the day, and prove that's not the case.
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One is in cinemas now, while Part Two is set for release on June 28, 2024. For more on our Mission: Impossible coverage, check out:
