Who dies in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One?

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is out and it continues to impress the audience and critics alike. It continues to deliver on great practical stunt work and story that everyone has come to love from the franchise. But for the first time, we also witness a major character death that leaves the audience heartbroken.

Disclaimer: The following article contains spoilers for Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One

Usually, it’s the villains who have died in the franchise. All the early Mission: Impossible movies killed their villains. Rogue Nation kept Solomon Lane alive. But then he was killed off in Fallout along with Henry Cavill’s August Walker.

Since Dead Reckoning is the first of a two-part story, the villains were expected to survive. But the same cannot be said for the good guys!

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Denlinger and other character deaths in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One

Ilsa Faust met her maker

Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa Faust (Image via Paramount)

Contrary to what most first parts do, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One did not let the villains win. But it did kill off at least one significant character of the franchise, Rebecca Ferguson’s Ilsa Faust.

She had been a franchise regular since Rogue Nation and made the story more impactful in all three movies. She developed a “will they, won’t they?” loving relationship with Ethan, and all fans “shipped” them.

However, she was “fridged” to motivate Ethan Hunt against Gabriel. With the franchise supposedly approaching its finale, the stakes needed to be at an all-time high. As a result, Faust’s death was used to perfectly raise the stakes and increase the tension among the viewers.

She was initially able to fake her death, thanks to Ethan. But that won’t be possible a second time around as Gabriel drove a knife through her.

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Denlinger was the second major character to die

Cary Elwes as Secretary Denlinger (Image via Paramount)

Cary Elwes’ secretary Denlinger was revealed to be one of the villains in the film. He wanted to control the Entity and turn the US into a dominant military power. He proposed an alliance with Gabriel as he was the only other person who knew what the key unlocked.

Since Gabriel wanted to prevent anyone from reaching the Entity’s source code, he killed Denlinger to tie up all loose ends. He also tried to kill Paris, but she managed to survive in the end.

Surprisingly, there were no other major deaths besides these two significant ones, as the franchise may be saving the biggest of them for the final outing.

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Why Ethan Hunt might die in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two

Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt (Image via Paramount)

We’ve seen Ethan Hunt go through countless death-defying missions by this time. The pattern for most franchise heroes is to end up dying in their final films. Iron Man perished in Avengers: Endgame, Wolverine in Logan, James Bond in No Time to Die, John Wick in Chapter 4, Arnold’s T-800 in Terminator: Dark Fate, and many more.

Now, the same is expected from Ethan if Dead Reckoning Part Two is indeed supposed to be the final film. There’s a chance that director Christopher McQuarrie might subvert these expectations by actually giving Ethan a retirement from the IMF, so he could be brought back just in case there’s a Mission: Impossible 9.

But it’s likely that Hunt will finally sacrifice himself while killing the Entity in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two, which releases on June 28, 2024.