“Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” arrived in theaters last month with plenty of intrigue. Would the latest Ethan Hunt adventure top 2018’s “Fallout” (spoiler alert: it didn’t)? What other action set-pieces would happen besides that absurd motorcycle jump Tom Cruise did off a mountain (answer: plenty)? And which IMF member wouldn’t make it to next year’s “Dead Reckoning Part Two” (another spoiler alert for those who haven’t seen the movie yet: you’ve been warned if you read on)?
Unfortunately, Rebecca Ferguson‘s Ilsa Faust dies in the latest “M:I” blockbuster, losing a standoff fight on a bridge with Esai Morales‘ Gabriel in Venice, Cruise’s Hunt unable to reach her in time. It’s a sad end for a character first introduced in 2015’s “Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation.” But EW reports (via a new podcast interview with Empire) that director Christopher McQuarrie worked closely with Cruise on their decision to kill off Fergusion’s agent. And according to McQuarrie, it felt like an organic end to the character’s time in the series.
“It was one of the earliest conversations. We were on the set of “Top Gun[: Maverick]“, we were already talking about it,” McQuarrie said about Faust’s death. “We knew that that emotional arc was of a certain emotional tone… Ilsa is a wonderful character, and a character of which I am enormously proud, and Rebecca is an actor of such unmitigated power and presence. And yet, where we had gone with the character from “Rogue [Nation]” to “Fallout”…[the] place you took that character would either make less of her, it would suddenly become frivolous… or she would just become a romantic interest.”
“It was never about creating a character who was defined by her love story with Ethan Hunt,” McQuarrie continued. “Their relationship transcends a traditional loving story… They’re doomed to be together and yet doomed never to be together… It felt like that story was looking for its resolution and so we said this has got to happen.” Of course, the “Mission: Impossible” franchise has never been about Ethan Hunt’s love life. Most of the IMF agent’s romantic relationships in the series are transactional as much as they are contextual: beautiful women working in deceptive geopolitical arenas who happen to cross paths with him. The exception there is Michelle Monagan‘s Julia Meade, Hunt’s wife in “Mission: Impossible III,” reduced to non-romantic cameo parts in later installments.
But just because Ilsa and Ethan’s romance isn’t primary to their movies doesn’t mean Faust’s death didn’t raise the stakes in “Dead Reckoning Part One.” If anything, it demonstrates how exacting a villain Gabriel is (even if the tacked-on backstory between him and Ethan feels flimsy). “What really needs to happen in the story is the stakes have to be real, they can’t be implied,” McQuarrie said about Ilsa’s death. “We have to have the courage to let [Ethan] fail, and it has to cost, the mission has to cost, and without that, the villain simply will not have a threat…what you’re seeing in the escalation of the story is what it costs Ethan personally in Venice.”
With Ferguson gone, could that mean another IMF regular could get offed in “Dead Reckoning Part Two,” like Simon Pegg‘s Benji Dunn or Ving Rhames‘ Luther Stickell? The loss of Luther would be a blow, considering he’s been in all seven franchise installments. Said McQuarrie on potential character deaths, “we explored them all;” then he hinted that “Dead Reckoning” has two parts. So there’s always a possibility another major series may happen in the next movie. Of course, audiences will have to wait to find out until June 28, 2024, when “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two” hits theaters.
