Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning Shockingly Ignores A Major Franchise Character (And It May Ruin the Movie)

Spoilers for Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is obsessed with the franchise’s past. That’s understandable to a degree since it’s technically the “Part Two” to Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning. However, the 8th film is seriously fixated on every corner of the saga’s mythos; the Rabbit’s Foot from Mission: Impossible III gets retconned into a prototype version of The Entity. Shea Whigham’s Jasper Briggs gets retconned into the son of Jim Phelps (Jon Voight), the baddie of the first Mission: Impossible. Footage from previous installments like Ghost Protocol and Fallout is peppered throughout Final Reckoning.

Yet, one cornerstone of the saga gets ignored in this final chapter of Ethan Hunt’s (Tom Cruise) story. A majorly important character that Reckoning director Christopher McQuarrie introduced in his first Mission: Impossible outing, Rogue Nation, somehow never even gets a mention in this closing chapter. Poor Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), once co-lead of this saga, but is totally forgotten about in The Final Reckoning. That’s a move too nefarious even for The Entity to pull off.

How Do You Forget Ilsa Faust?

In Rogue Nation, Faust debuted as someone even more skilled than Hunt – a woman who could get him out of any jam when the world’s savior got in over his head. Trapped between secret identities, her dark past, and MI6 loyalties, Faust was a complicated figure who yearned for nothing more than to run off and leave the espionage world behind. By the time Mission: Impossible – Fallout rolled around, she was firmly part of Hunt’s main IMF gang alongside Benji (Simon Pegg) and Luther (Ving Rhames).

Dead Reckoning saw her status as a go-to Ethan Hunt comrade reaffirmed and even hinted at a potential romance between the two characters. Unfortunately, Faust met her end at the hands of the film’s main baddie, Gabriel (Esai Morales). It was already strange that a master fighter was taken down solely by one 60-year-old man, but that wasn’t the end of how bizarrely the last Mission: Impossible movies handled Faust. The Final Reckoning never brings her up once. It’s like she never even existed. All kinds of Mission: Impossible lore (even various snippets from the widely derided Mission: Impossible II) show up, but not the co-lead of Rogue Nation.

During The Final Reckoning, Nick Offerman’s General Sydney confirms that this installment takes place only two months after Dead Reckoning. The wounds from Gabriel’s actions are still fresh in people’s minds, as seen by his former henchwoman Paris (Pom Klementieff), who is still haunted by his last words to her. Yet, despite Ethan being constantly reminded about characters he let down decades ago in Mission: Impossible III, like his wife Julia Meade (Michelle Monaghan) or Lindsey Farris (Keri Russell), Ilsa Faust never even gets name-dropped. Ethan’s first face-to-face encounter with Gabriel in months doesn’t even inspire Ilsa to get referenced, as Ethan finally exacts vengeance on his rival for a lifetime of wrongs.

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Ilsa Deserved More

Ilsa Faust’s absence stands out so strongly because of The Final Reckoning’s obsession with every inch of Mission: Impossible lore. With that kind of fixation, how did Faust slip through the cracks? The subplot of Hunt, having possible romantic sparks with Grace (Hayley Atwell), makes Faust’s absence even stranger. It’s fine for Ethan to have a romantic life after Faust’s passing; however, exploring that so soon after Dead Reckoning does come off as odd and makes Faust’s erasure feel like an excuse to normalize a new Ethan Hunt romance with Grace.

Moreover, The Final Reckoning constantly emphasizes all the losses in Hunt’s life and the sacrifices of characters like Luther to ensure a brighter tomorrow for the world. How on Earth does Faust’s sacrifice (which Luther previously described as being done so that Grace could live) not come up as a major extension of that theme? This motif in Mission: Impossible’s final outing feels hollow with Ilsa erased from the franchise. It’s like she never existed, despite being such an important and enthralling player in McQuarrie’s first three Mission: Impossible installments. This character was a massive sign that a new era of Mission: Impossible cinema had arrived. She’s the signifier of the man who directed half of the eight franchise entries. How on Earth did nobody even breathe a mention of her name in The Final Reckoning?

Thankfully, Ilsa’s character and Ferguson’s performance left such a profound impression on the last few Mission: Impossible installments. This character will live on despite not getting the proper curtain call she deserved. The Final Reckoning, on the other hand, is certainly weaker for failing to acknowledge one of the saga’s most important figures. Despite a 170-minute runtime and a determination to point at every nook and cranny in the Mission: Impossible lore, The Final Reckoning somehow failed to provide closure or even nod at the one and only Ilsa Faust. How could they bungle such an easy mission?

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is now playing in theaters.