Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning Ending Explained: The Sum Of Ethan Hunt's Choices

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to avoid spoilers by reading this article after watching "Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning."

It's all led to this and, well, it couldn't have ended any other way. The fate of the world once again rested in the hands of Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt, the Impossible Mission Force's most invaluable agent, and he once again pulled off the impossible to save the day in the most over-the-top fashion imaginable. "Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning" really has been decades in the making, turning the otherwise standalone franchise into a closed circle full of callbacks, homages, and key retcons to plot points established several installments ago. It's no exaggeration to say that director Christopher McQuarrie, Cruise, and their creative team have transformed this story into one in which every action over the years, knowingly or not, brought our hero closer and closer to this end result.

But is it truly the end? That's the burning question on the minds of most audiences. "The Final Reckoning" certainly came with a sense of finality to it, starting with the title (or retitle, as it was originally meant to be called "Dead Reckoning – Part Two") and extending to the very plot of the film. No, Ethan doesn't go out in the blaze of glory, "No Time To Die"-style, like some fans may have thought he might. Instead, the sentient AI known as the Entity expands to a world-ending scale and threatens nuclear holocaust in an attempt to wipe all of humanity off the map. The blockbuster sequel builds to a conclusive note that wraps up this two-part story about the dangers of digital ... but also leaves the door open for further adventures down the line.

Needless to say, the entire ending of "The Final Reckoning" is sprawling, intense, and spectacular enough to deserve a proper breakdown all to itself.

I sure hope everyone did their homework and embarked on comprehensive "Mission: Impossible" marathons prior to the release of "The Final Reckoning," because director Chris McQuarrie and star Tom Cruise sure seemed to assume that we did so. The (potentially) final installment of the hit action franchise picks up mere months after the events of "Dead Reckoning" and quickly catches us up on several converging plot threads. We find out that the dangerous Entity has infiltrated the nuclear stockpiles of almost every world power, the cruciform key that Ethan Hunt and his IMF team recovered on the Orient Express in the waning moments of the previous film remains in his possession, and all roads lead to the wreckage of the mysterious Russian submarine known as The Sevastopol currently located somewhere in the depths of the Arctic Circle.

All of this proves crucial to their most pressure-packed mission yet, though first Ethan must put his scattered team back together again. After breaking Paris (Pom Klementieff) out of prison, recruiting Degas (Greg Tarzan Davis), and putting good ol' Luther (Ving Rhames) in charge of creating a "poison pill" meant to kill the Entity for good, all signs seem to be pointing up ... until the villainous Gabriel (Esai Morales) shows up again, this time hellbent on controlling the Entity for himself after his failure in "Dead Reckoning" to recover the cruciform key. His heartbreaking murder of Luther leaves Ethan with no other choice but to play Gabriel's game and turn himself in to the authorities. He narrowly manages to convince US President Erika Sloane (Angela Bassett) to "trust me one more time" and allow him to commandeer an aircraft carrier, send the rest of his team in search of a listening station in the Arctic, and concoct a scheme to have them transmit the coordinates for the Sevastopol in order to find the Entity's source code.

After some improbable reunions (enter Rolf Saxon's William Donloe, the poor man from the original "Mission: Impossible" scapegoated for Ethan's CIA vault break-in), unbelievable teamwork, and a death-defying underwater stunt in the bowels of the Sevastopol, our heroes pull it off and set themselves up for a final act taking place in the Doomsday Vault — the last remaining sanctuary where the Entity can survive the hellfire it intends to unleash.

Almost the entire final hour of "The Final Reckoning" is dedicated to as massive, tense, and thrilling a final set piece as we've ever seen in "Mission: Impossible" before. The action takes Ethan's team to South Africa and the fabled Doomsday Vault, a safe haven buried deep underground for those trying to survive the end of the world. Gabriel also knows this happens to be the logical place for the Entity to seek refuge after instigating nuclear war, which is why he forces Ethan to recover the AI's source code from the submarine in order to have leverage over it. Unbeknownst to him, however, the 5D optical data drive Luther secretly created before his death allows a "one in a trillion" chance to come out on top. By combining the Entity's source code with the poison pill and trapping it within the data drive, all within milliseconds of precise timing, it's theoretically possible to defeat the Entity and remove it from the world's digital infrastructure for good.

Unfortunately, "Mission: Impossible" rarely lets things go off without a hitch. Ethan and his friends aren't the only ones headed to the Doomsday Vault, as Gabriel surprises them with a literal ticking time bomb just waiting to go off ... before another complication arrives, in the form of Eugene Kittridge (Henry Czerny) and his lackey Briggs (Shea Whigham). In the shootout that follows, Gabriel's henchman triggers the bomb's countdown, Benji (Simon Pegg) is shot, and Ethan pursues the fleeing Gabriel on an analogue biplane in the show-stopping aerial sequence splashed all over the movie's trailers. In quintessential "Mission: Impossible" fashion, the team must divide and conquer. Benji walks the newly-accepted IMF agent Grace (Hayley Atwell) through some rudimentary hacking while complicated by Paris' improvised medical operation to save his life, Donloe attempts to diffuse the bomb with Degas, and Ethan finally catches up with Gabriel — all while the we watch the President's cabinet urge her to launch a preemptive nuclear strike, dooming millions to death.

Of course, our team achieves the impossible and saves the day at the very last second. With the Entity trapped and Gabriel killed, the world no longer has to fear the impending AI apocalypse. Ethan and his friends meet up one last time, disappearing into the crowd like ghosts and ready to fight another day.

No, your eyes did not deceive you. "The Final Reckoning" doesn't try to slip anything by audiences throughout the ending of the blockbuster. No mask gags, no sleight of hand tricks, and no red herrings whatsoever. Tom Cruise really did hang off a biplane hundreds of feet in the air, staring death in the face once again for little more than our mass entertainment. Ethan Hunt really did manage to save the lives of all his teammates in the end — not poor Luther or Rebecca Ferguson's Isla Faust from "Dead Reckoning," sadly, but at least his longtime pal Benji, the pickpocketing newbie Grace, and the nearly-wordless Paris all survived. Finally, the fearsome Entity really was safely contained (though, intriguingly, not destroyed for good).

"Mission: Impossible" movies usually opt for relatively straightforward grand finales, putting it's usual bag of tricks aside in favor of maximum thrills. The ending montage puts a fine point on it in "The Final Reckoning," clearing up any stray details. The President refuses to launch the US arsenal of weaponry, preventing needless deaths and the likely onset of World War III (with a little help from Nick Offerman's self-sacrificing General Sidney, who heroically prevents another underling from firing on the President in her bunker when she makes the difficult choice). The world is restored to normal, freed from control of the Entity for good. In the end, the good guys achieved everything they set out to do and moviegoers were able to enjoy a roller coaster ride in every sense of the phrase.

And now for the question of the day: Have Ethan Hunt and his IMF friends pulled off their final impossible mission, or is there more to come? The cast and crew have maintained almost complete radio silence on this front, refusing to give away whether director Chris McQuarrie or Paramount Pictures have plans to keep this highly-successful franchise going until Tom Cruise physically can't do it anymore. For better or worse, there is no official word on if "The Final Reckoning" represents the eighth and final film in the "Mission: Impossible" series.

That doesn't mean fans weren't given plenty of closure anyway, however. "The Final Reckoning" ends on as definitive a note as it gets, wrapping up every preexisting storyline ... from this movie and multiple other ones, as well. At the same time, the major implication of the final scene is that Ethan and his newfound squad remain out there somewhere, ready and willing to leap into action should they choose to accept their next mission. Whether we ever actually get to see that for ourselves, unfortunately, likely won't be resolved anytime soon. Cruise has already lined up other high-profile projects for himself, leaving a smaller and smaller window for the continuing exploits of the IMF. Either way, it's as satisfying and full-circle an ending as we could've hoped to get.

Should "The Final Reckoning" be the last we see of these characters, "Mission: Impossible" would become the rare big-budget franchise to end entirely on its own terms — and that's something our favorite IMF agent would certainly appreciate. For now, the safe bet would be to consider this last film as, well, the last film. But, as we know, it's always best to expect the unexpected when it comes to Ethan Hunt. "Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning" is now playing in theaters.