Mission: Impossible director Christopher McQuarrie Talks Isla Faust’s Absence In The Final Reckoning

SPOILERS AHEAD.

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning director and co-writer Christopher McQuarrie has been talking about why the eighth and final instalment of Mission: Impossible doesn’t feature a return of fan favourite Ilsa Faust despite considerable backlash to her death in Dead Reckoning (2023).

Speaking with Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, McQuarrie explained that Mission: Impossible has always emphasised the permanence of death, using it as a way to not only build emotional stakes for the audience but maintain realism. While McQuarrie acknowledges the disappointment surrounding her death, he felt that undoing it would undermine this important continuity, saying:

It’s the cost versus benefit. The death of essential characters has followed Ethan throughout every one of these movies. I don’t think up until that point a character that resonated so deeply with the audience had died, and I know there were people who were dissatisfied with the way it happened, which is where I thought that wouldn’t motivate me to undo the one thing that gives Mission: Impossible teeth, which is death is permanent.

READ OUR REVIEW OF MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – THE FINAL RECKONING HERE

This will come as a blunder to many who believed that the red-headed agent would make a surprise comeback in The Final Reckoning, despite her on-screen death previously and relationship with Tom Cruise‘s Ethan Hunt. Several fan theories have explored every avenue to debunk her death, with some of the most popular suggesting that Ilsa Faust faked her death as part of a covert strategy to protect herself against the Entity.

Others theorised that the title ‘Dead Reckoning’ suggests a journey through death and past consequences, believing that Ilsa’s death would lead to a future comeback. Some even believed that her death was an illusion on behalf of the Entity itself. Perhaps Ilsa’s absence in The Final Reckoning might finally encourage fans to accept the loss of one of Mission: Impossible’s most beloved ing characters.

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is in cinemas now.  

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