Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) needs us to trust him one last time — and after nearly 30 years of completing one mortality-defying stunt after the next, the least we can do is tag along for one more Mission: Impossible adventure. The eighth (and potentially final) film in this decade-spanning saga, The Final Reckoning, is the culmination of Ethan’s work. Where its predecessors were more or less self-contained, The Final Reckoning will take everything we know about Hunt and his impossible missions and flip it on its head. No corner of his past is off-limits, which means it may be time to brush up on the parts of the franchise that some would rather overlook. Here’s everything you need to remember before tuning into The Final Reckoning.
The Langley Heist, Mission: Impossible
Ethan’s assault on the CIA headquarters in Langley is one of the most iconic moments in the M:I saga, and in some ways it’s still informing the character’s future. In Mission: Impossible, Ethan and his allies break into Langley to steal the CIA’s NOC (non-official cover) list, which contains the cover of every operative in the field. To break into vault housing the list, they need to get past its Gatekeeper, Willian Donloe (Rolf Saxon). Ethan’s team spikes his coffee, he gets a tummy ache, and the rest is franchise history. Ethan, meanwhile, makes off with the NOC list, but not without leaving some evidence behind, a knife. As we’ve seen in a few Final Reckoning trailers, Donloe is finally set to return — and he’s held onto that knife for the past 29 years. How he’ll react to meeting Ethan face to face remains to be seen, but hopefully he’ll be willing to aid in the fight against the Entity.
The “Anti-God,” Mission: Impossible III
Mission: Impossible III is primarily focused on the hunt for Owen Davian (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) and the weapon known as the “Rabbit’s Foot,” a mysterious device that gives Ethan his fair share of troubles. Before discovering that the Rabbit’s Foot was actually a biological superweapon, the IMF are totally in the dark about its destructive power. The secrecy surrounding the object leads Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) to speculate that it’s something called the “Anti-God,” a mystery tech that has the power to wipe out society as we know it. Ethan has obviously faced plenty of these kinds of weapons in his tenure at the IMF, the Rabbit’s Foot being one of them — but with the Entity on the rise, this may be the biggest threat he’s faced yet.
The source code in the submarine, Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning
The Final Reckoning is a direct continuation of Ethan’s mission in Dead Reckoning — and together, they were once two halves of one story — so it’s probably wise to rewatch the latter beforehand. Dead Reckoning introduced a handful of major changes to the status quo: the loss of Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), the rise of the malevolent AI known as the Entity, and the introduction of new allies like Grace (Hayley Atwell), Degas (Greg Tarzan Davis), and Paris (Pom Klementieff). All that is important to remember going into The Final Reckoning, but the Russki submarine introduced early in the film could be the most important piece of this still-forming puzzle.
The Entity didn’t just spawn out of nowhere; the details behind its creation are still a mystery, but we do sort of know where it came from. It was first truly unleashed on the Sevastopol, a stealth sub posted in the Bering Sea. It’s activated using the cruciform key that becomes Dead Reckoning’s biggest MacGuffin — and once the Entity comes online, it tricks the crew of the Sevastopol into attacking themselves with a live torpedo. The sub now rests at the bottom of the ocean, but Ethan will have to return to the scene of the crime if he wants to get the edge against his enemy. The Sevastopol could be the site of a major setpiece in Final Reckoning, and yet another jaw-dropping stunt for Cruise.
