Mission: Impossible - Final Reckoning: The Complete Timeline Explained

Introduction: Your Mission, Should You Choose to Accept It...

 Ethan Hunt's final reckoning is here, and it was more than just an epic conclusion to the Entity saga. The film dives deep into the past, filling in gaps and revealing new truths that change our entire understanding of Ethan's journey from the very beginning. In other words, it’s packed with retcons. If you found the plot a little complex (or even convoluted), you're not alone. This post is your guide. We're going to dive into the Final Reckoning timeline, straighten out all the twists and turns, and see how this "final" chapter wraps everything up for the IMF's best agent.

 

 Rewriting the Past: The Retcons That Change Everything

 Final Reckoning wastes no time in adding new layers to events we thought we knew, starting from the very beginning of Ethan's career.

 

 

1993: The Choice that Made an Agent

We first learned in Dead Reckoning that before the IMF, Ethan Hunt's life was shattered when a villain named Gabriel targeted someone important to him named Marie. Ethan failed to save her and was found with her body, leading to a choice: spend life in prison or join the IMF.

 Final Reckoning adds a small but telling detail from Agent Jasper Briggs, who sarcastically asks Ethan, "Let me guess, you were framed?"—which is likely the simple truth.

 

1996: The Sins of the Father 

Remember Jim Phelps, the IMF traitor from the first film played by Jon Voight? It turns out he had a son, who later changed his name to... Jasper Briggs, the very agent hunting Ethan. Briggs' father disappeared when he was seven, and he joined intelligence to find out why. He discovered his father was a traitor killed by Ethan Hunt in 1996. Refusing to believe his dad was a villain, Briggs has blamed Ethan ever since, believing he was framed.

 

The Fate of William Donlo

You might also remember William Donlo, the CIA analyst from the 1996 Langley heist. As punishment for his failure, Donlo was reassigned to a remote cabin on St. Matthew Island, Alaska. What began as an exile turned into a new life when he met and married an Inuit woman named Topisa—a development that becomes crucial later on.

 

The Rabbit's Foot: The 20-Year-Old Mystery Solved 

For nearly two decades, Mission: Impossible 3's "Rabbit's Foot" was the ultimate MacGuffin—we knew it was dangerous, but we never knew what it was. Benji once speculated it could be a world-ending technology his professor called the "Anti-God".

 

Final Reckoning reveals Benji was right. The Rabbit's Foot contained primordial source code for a weaponized AI that would eventually evolve into the Entity.

 

 

2012: The Birth of the Entity 

The timeline between Ghost Protocol and Rogue Nation is now a critical turning point. In 2012, U.S. intelligence, under Director Denlinger, decided to test the AI from the Rabbit's Foot. They sent a copy to Russia's top-secret submarine, the Sevastopol, to sabotage its stealth capabilities. But the plan backfired catastrophically. The AI went rogue, combined with the submarine's own advanced AI, and tricked the crew into launching a torpedo at itself, sinking the sub to the bottom of the ocean.

This new, hybrid AI—the "AI baby"—is what became the Entity. To control it, one doesn't need the original US or Russian code, but the unique, evolved source code now locked away in the Sevastopol's defense system, known as the Podkova. The only way to access the Podkova without it self-destructing is with a two-part cruciform key.

2025: The Final Reckoning

By 2025, the Entity has become sentient and is more powerful than ever. Having ousted its former human agent Gabriel for his failures, the AI has a new, terrifying goal: human extinction.

The Entity's Doomsday Plan 

The AI has started a doomsday cult of fanatics who have infiltrated governments worldwide. Its plan is simple and horrifying:

• In four days, it will seize control of the world's nuclear arsenals and wipe out most of humanity.

• Before doing so, it needs to hide from the ensuing destruction.

• It has chosen the perfect shelter: the "Doomsday Vault" in South Africa, an incorruptible, airtight data server built to survive the apocalypse.

• It needs Ethan Hunt to let it into the vault, promising to guide the few survivors into a new world.

 

 

 Luther's Sacrifice and the "Poison Pill"

While the world teeters on the brink, Ethan's team is fractured. Luther has fallen mysteriously ill but has been working on a countermeasure: the "Poison Pill". It's a special algorithm derived from the Entity's own code that, when combined with the source code from the Podkova, creates a digital toxin.

This toxin doesn't destroy the Entity—which would crash all of cyberspace—but instead deceives it, allowing it to be controlled and manipulated. Tragically, Gabriel tracks Luther down, steals the poison pill, and leaves Luther in a room with a ticking nuclear bomb. Luther manages to prevent a nuclear detonation, saving London but sacrificing himself in the conventional blast. His death leaves only one poison pill in existence, now in Gabriel's hands.

 

The Climax: Countdown at the Doomsday Vault

With Luther gone, the stakes are clear. Ethan has the Podkova. Gabriel has the poison pill. Both are heading for the Doomsday Vault in South Africa, each needing what the other has to control the Entity.

Retrieving the Podkova

First, Ethan must get the Podkova from the sunken Sevastopol. He turns himself in to US President Erica Sloan, convincing her to give him an aircraft carrier and a submarine to reach the wreck in the Arctic. Meanwhile, Benji's team, with the help of a redeemed William Donlo, secures the sub's coordinates from the St. Matthew Island listening station. After a brutal underwater fight with a cultist and a near-death experience, Ethan retrieves the Podkova.

The Final Confrontation 

At the Doomsday Vault, Gabriel reveals he has planted his own 30-megaton nuke, believing that by destroying the Entity's only shelter, he can force it to stand down and submit to his control. The plan is now twofold: capture the Entity and disarm a nuke. Luther’s poison pill was pre-programmed to trick the Entity: when combined with the Podkova, it will cause the AI to download itself not into the vault's servers, but onto a special optical drive prison.

Ethan goes after Gabriel to retrieve the pill. The chase culminates in a thrilling dogfight with retro-analog planes. Ethan manages to get the pill, sending Gabriel falling from the sky without a parachute. As he plummets to safety, Ethan plugs the poison pill into the Podkova.

 

Grace's 100-Millisecond Window

Back in the server room, the Entity begins downloading onto the optical drive. But there's a catch: the moment it's on the drive, it will think it's safe and immediately launch the world's nukes. The team has just 100 milliseconds—one-tenth of a second—to unplug the drive after the download completes. Any sooner, and the Entity isn't captured; any later, and the world ends.

With her fast hands, it all comes down to Grace. As Benji guides her through a gunshot wound, she times it perfectly, unplugging the drive at the exact moment and trapping the Entity offline. The world is saved.

Conclusion: The Weapon in His Hand

With the Entity safely imprisoned on the drive, the world is pulled back from the brink. President Sloan calls off her preemptive nuclear strike, and even Jasper Briggs finally understands the truth about his father and shakes Ethan's hand.

Twenty years after the Rabbit's Foot set these events in motion, Ethan Hunt holds the world's most dangerous weapon in the palm of his hand. Whether he destroys it or guards it forever is left to our imagination, but if there's one person who can be trusted to do the right thing, it's him.

This may have been marketed as the final mission, but with hints of more to come, it seems an agent's work is never truly done.

What did you think of the ending? Do you believe this is the last we'll see of Ethan Hunt? Let me know in the comments below!