Salt Ending Explained: What Side Is Angelina Jolie On?
The following post contains spoilers for "Salt."
The 2010 film "Salt" stars Angelina Jolie as Evelyn Salt, a CIA agent who is accused of being a Russian spy. The movie, directed by Phillip Noyce ("Patriot Games," "The Bone Collector"), reveals that she is one, but there is far more to it than simply that. She's been working as a double agent, set up to spy for Russia and waiting to be activated, but things have happened since she was put as a child into a secret Russian program. She's met a man (August Diehl), fallen in love, and gotten married. She's built herself a life. Oh, and then there was the reason she was made a Russian sleeper agent in the first place.
The ending reveals that she wasn't the only Russian child spy and that someone she never suspected is one as well. While the first thing you remember about "Salt" is likely the fuss made over the fact that the lead role was written for Tom Cruise, the ending was absolutely set up for a sequel. Over a decade later, we're still waiting — for good reason. If you tug on any of the loose threads in this film, the whole thing falls apart. But that doesn't mean it isn't fun to watch. Let's dig deep into the ending of "Salt," what it means, and if we'll ever see a sequel.
What you need to remember about the plot of Salt
North Korea takes CIA agent Evelyn Salt prisoner as a spy for the U.S., but she's released in a prisoner exchange. Her CIA colleagues weren't going to risk getting her out, but her arachnologist (study of spiders) boyfriend-then-husband threatened to make a public stink if they didn't.
Years later, Russian agent Oleg Vasilyevich Orlov (Daniel Olbrychski) reveals under interrogation that Salt is also a Russian spy. Her friend and colleague Ted Winter (Liev Schreiber) appears to believe that she's innocent. Salt asks her fellow CIA agents to find and protect her husband, then immediately escapes. The plan, revealed by Orlov, is to have a sleeper agent kill the Russian president (Olek Krupa) at the American Vice President's funeral to start a war. Salt appears to do just that, with Winter and agent Darryl Peabody (Chiwetel Ejiofor) in pursuit. She escapes again.
We learn in a flashback that years ago, Salt was a member of a group of children (called the KA) who were taught to speak English before Russian and manipulated to be sleeper agents in Moscow for the upcoming "Day X," where a big plan will take place.
While on the run, Salt finds Orlov on a secret barge in Washington D.C. with other Russians. Orlov kills Salt's husband in front of her, and she in turn kills him and every Russian agent there. She follows her original plan, disguising herself as a man and entering the White House with another sleeper agent (Corey Stoll) who launches a suicide attack. Salt then manages to sneak into a Presidential underground bunker behind Winter, who appears to believe she's a villain now. Russia responds to the death of their President by readying nuclear weapons. The U.S. President (Hunt Block), locked in the bunker, readies U.S. nuclear weapons codes, with Winter there to protect him.
What happened at the end of Salt
It appears that Salt is going to use this incredible and seemingly unbelievable break-in to murder the United States President. However, Winter attacks everyone in the room, including the President, who is knocked unconscious. When Salt gets to the window of the room, she realizes that Winter is another KA agent, Nikolai Tarkovsky. He says he knew all these years that she was a sleeper agent, but Salt reveals that she never noticed him during their time training.
Winter/Tarkovsky has missiles aimed and ready to hit Mecca and Tehran to start a war, when it's revealed that the Russian President wasn't killed by Salt, who used spider venom to fake his death. Winter figures out that Salt is no longer loyal to Russia. She says it's because they took everything from her, including the husband who Russia was initially supposed to recruit before she fell in love with him.
Winter/Tarkovsky reveals that Salt is going to be used as a scapegoat for the war, but she gets in and stops the nuclear launch. She's arrested and Winter/Tarkovsky pretends to be the heroic agent who took her down. He's getting ready to stab her as she's walked by in handcuffs, but she jumps over the balcony he's next to, strangling and killing him with the chain of her handcuffs. As she's being taken away in a helicopter, she reveals the information to Peabody and tells him she can take out the rest of the sleeper agents. After all, she didn't actually kill the Russian President. Peabody gets proof on his phone that she killed Orlov and the rest of the Russians, and he lets her jump out of the helicopter into the Potomac River. She runs into the woods as the movie ends.
What the end of Salt means
The ending of the film can feel a little murky during the first watch, though if we look back, we notice things like the fact that Salt only disables American enemies but actually kills the Russian ones. We also see in a flashback that her biggest concern is for her husband. The fact that the first thing she asks about when she's made is getting him protection reinforces that. To be fair, she also saved their dog and got him to a little girl who could care for him, which is movie-speak for "good person." Knowing that colors the ending quite a bit.
The reveal that Winter/Tarkovsky is another sleeper agent also lets us know that he resented the fact that this accomplished little girl didn't notice him when they were children, and that him scapegoating her was a little "screw you" to her for that. It's reinforced by the fact that Winter/Tarkovsky tells her he had to work to convince Orlov to rat her out so they'd have someone to blame.
While they never really develop the character of Peabody beyond someone who is driven to find Salt, he ends up being the most important ally she has in the helicopter. When he learns that the person who killed Orlov and company was Salt, through her fingerprints at the scene, this man who has done everything by the books since the beginning of the film is willing to let her jump out of the helicopter and escape. We're clearly supposed to ignore the fact that circling helicopters could easily spot a woman in the middle of the Potomac river.
What the end of Salt could mean for the franchise
The cliffhanger ending of "Salt" sets up a sequel where she finds other members of the KA program and takes them out. Though the ending (and two alternate endings) implies that Evelyn Salt gets away, it doesn't make sense. The woman jumped out of a helicopter into the river, but her head has to pop up at some point, and hers wasn't the only helicopter. There is only so long someone can hold their breath, even if they've trained. Still, if we're giving willing suspension of disbelief the benefit of the doubt, fine. Salt got away, and won't be caught.
In a since-deleted 2010 article on Moviehole (via Indiewire), Noyce said of another "Salt" film, "If there ever is a sequel, better it's directed by someone with a completely fresh take on what I believe could be a totally entertaining and complex series of stories." No one has stepped up to do so in 13 years. Still, in 2011, Kurt Wimmer, who wrote the original script (rewritten later by Brian Helgeland), was reportedly writing a script for a sequel. In 2012, after reports that Jolie wasn't happy with Wimmer's version of a sequel script, "Seven Years in Tibet" scribe Becky Johnston was hired for a new version, though that obviously didn't move forward either.
In 2014, the film's producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura mentioned a script to Den of Geek, saying, "I just read the 'Salt 2' script last week, and we'll be going into the studio soon ... it's an exciting script and has a very daring idea." Later in 2016, there was talk from Sony Pictures Entertainment about doing a TV series (with no mention of Jolie) that was called "a television remake" by ScreenDaily. Again, nothing ever happened.
Salt's alternate endings
There are two alternative endings to "Salt" on the home releases. In the Director's Cut, Winter/Tarkovsky doesn't just wound the President. He kills him. In addition, as Salt runs through the woods after getting out of the Potomac river, as a voiceover tells us that Salt has been declared dead. It then says the new U.S. President, Joseph Steppens, while in Moscow on a peacekeeping mission, puts flowers at the site of a plane crash that killed his family there in 1974. Since we know that Salt's parents were killed in a crash in Moscow, this is supposed to imply that the new President is also a Russian agent.
In the Extended Cut, the helicopter scene doesn't happen at the end. While being questioned by Peabody after the events of the safe room, Salt fakes her own death with poison in a fake tooth and then escapes. In this version, she doesn't kill Orlov on his barge earlier in the film. She ends up sneaking into the Russian spy school and killing him there. (He does try to stab her with a secret shoe blade first, though it's clear she went there to kill him anyway.) She throws his body in the water, and his ring — one all the little students were told to kiss in homage during their training — goes in after him. Then she blows up the school, which is concerning because we were just shown children in there.