19 Years Later, 'Final Reckoning' Retcons an Underrated 'Mission: Impossible' Sequel

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Ethan Hunt's world-saving reign has finally come to a conclusion with Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning (now in cinemas), which concludes the story established in 2023's Dead Reckoning and wraps up 29 years of franchise lore all at once. The Final Reckoning ties back to the seven previous Mission installments in a number of ways. Still, the most notable aspect is how it retcons a key aspect of J.J. Abrams's Mission: Impossible 3 (2006). Here's everything you need to know about how The Final Reckoning ties back to M:I 3.The Final Reckoning picks up several months after the events of Dead Reckoning. In the meantime, the nefarious artificial intelligence known as the Entity has grown exponentially in power, taking control of cyberspace and the entire world's nuclear arsenal. To destroy the Entity, Ethan must locate its source code, which is stored on the sunken Sevastopol submarine at the bottom of the Baltic Sea. "In Dead Reckoning, you got the sense that the whole thing that made the Entity scary was that it could manipulate information, and basically erase truth," our review noted. "But in The Final Reckoning, it's just a mad computer program with the keys to all the nukes on planet Earth."M:I 3 found Ethan Hunt pursuing ruthless arms dealer Owen Davian (Phillip Seymour Hoffman), who possessed a device known as 'the Rabbit's Foot,' an unspecified piece of technology which threatened to bring an end to mankind. After Davian is captured and subsequently freed, he kidnaps Ethan's wife, Julia (Michelle Monaghan). Ethan then delivers the Rabbit's Foot to Davian to secure Julia's release. It's revealed that IMF Director of Operations John Musgrave (Billy Crudup) was working with Davian to secure the Rabbit's Foot so that the IMF would have cause to attack Middle East countries in a bid to 'stop the terrorists overseas and spread democracy,' a particularly 2006 flourish.During The Final Reckoning's marathon 24-minute cold open, Ethan and Grace (Hayley Atwell) are kidnapped by arch villain Gabriel (Esai Morales), who holds them hostage and monologues his evil motivation. In Dead Reckoning, Gabriel acted as the Entity's human emissary. But in the intervening months, the Entity has decided it doesn't need Gabriel's help to take over the world.
Gabriel explains that the Rabbit's Foot was the core module which 'contained a malicious code' --or 'a primordial digital ooze,' if you will--which was used to build The Entity, 'a weapon that the West never could have made on its own.'
Davian had previously wanted to harness the power of the code within the Rabbit's Foot, similar to Gabriel's role in Dead Reckoning as the Entity's human emissary. In the ensuing years, as The Entity became more self-aware, it realized it could dominate the world of its own accord and didn't need any puny humans. There was only one thing that could plausibly stop the Entity from achieving its goals: the Rabbit's Foot, then located on the Sevastopol submarine. So the Entity sank the Sevastopol, dooming its source code to a watery grave.Follow the events of M:I 3, the Rabbit's Foot was confiscated by the U.S. government, where it quickly fell into the hands of Director of National Intelligence Denlinger (Cary Elwes), whom Gabriel killed on the train car in Dead Reckoning. Denlinger hoped to use the Rabbit's Foot to eliminate foreign technology deemed a threat to the U.S. When he deployed its use on the Sevastopol, circa 2012, the Rabbit's Foot gained sentience and birthed the Entity. It then sank the Sevastopol. In the ensuing decade, the Entity operated covertly, gaining intelligence from world governments and taking full advantage of its human mouthpieces, greedy also-rans like Davian and Gabriel who hoped to harvest its power but were no match for the Entity itself.Arguably, the most interesting and least dwelt-upon detail in The Final Reckoning is that Ethan helped to create the Entity by giving Davian the Rabbit's Foot in exchange for Julia's life at the end of M:I 3. In the cold open, Gabriel tells Ethan and Grace that it was clear Julia was Ethan's only weakness, and his eagerness to see Julia freed resulted in his handing over to Davian. After Ethan killed Davian, he returned the device to the IMF, where Delinger got his hands on it.Mission: Impossible 3 never stated outright what the Entity was, but the implication was that it was a weapon of mass destruction. At one point in that film, Benji (Simon Pegg) refers to it as an 'anti-god.' But considering The Final Reckoning's reveal, the only way to make sense of M:I 3 would be to assume the characters themselves didn't know what the Rabbit's Foot was at the time.
Abrams's 2006 sequel would suggest the characters were smarter than the audience, with no need to explain the central MacGuffin as it's so incredibly obvious to everyone at the IMF. But if that were the case, why didn't Davian's possession of the Rabbit's Foot raise more governmental alarms? Similarly, how did Denlinger's covert use of the device go undetected for so long? It's a pretty silly plot device, one which undermines the proficiency of the IMF and Ethan Hunt himself, but it goes to show no one saw the possibilities of AI back in 2006.19 Years Later, 'Final Reckoning' Retcons an Underrated 'Mission: Impossible' Sequel first appeared on Men's Journal on May 24, 2025