The following contains Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning, now playing in theatersThe Final Reckoning has the tenor and tone of a celebration — and a farewell. By the film's end, the lingering threads from previous films have been resolved, and Ethan Hunt has been given a perfectly fitting final mission that could easily write him out of the series (or just as easily reintroduce for further adventures).

The Final Reckoning's cast of characters includes a solid mix of younger heroes and long-time fixtures of the series, including one who doesn't make it out of the movie alive. Their death is one of The Final Reckoning's biggest emotional beats, as it heightens the stakes of Ethan's feud with Gabriel and further endangers the rest of the cast. The most telling element of the death is how it plays into The Final Reckoning's overall approach to giving the long-running series a sense of closure and clearing the stage for potential future new directions.

How Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning Kills Luther

After A Final Scene With Ethan, Luther Goes Out Like A Hero

The biggest franchise casualty in Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning is Luther, which plays into the generational shift at the heart of the story and serves as one of the franchise's most effective death scenes. Played by Ving Rhames, Luther debuted in 1996's Mission: Impossible as one of the disavowed agents that Ethan recruits to his team, with the expert hacker steadily becoming Ethan's most consistent ally. Luther has appeared in each entry of the series, the only character with that level of consistency in the franchise besides Ethan Hunt himself.

Luther is revealed to be ill when he's reintroduced in The Final Reckoning. He's shown with plenty of medical equipment while he's working on a "poison pill" to capture the Entity with. Gabriel tracks him down and steals the drive, also leaving a powerful bomb with Luther to stall him and Ethan. After saying goodbye to his "brother" and giving Ethan time to escape, Luther remains behind to disable the main explosive load of the device. This is at the cost of his own life, when the lower-yield explosives still set off and cave in the tunnels around him.

Why Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning's Biggest Death Is So Effective

Luther's Constant Presence In An Ever-Changing Series Makes His Farewell More Effective

The fairly episodic nature of the Mission: Impossible series has always benefited the franchise. It invites invention when there are few overarching conspiracies or planned-out directives for the series, allowing each film to feel unique. This helped the series serve as a sandbox for filmmakers like Brian De Palma and J.J. Abrams in the first half of the season, while giving Christopher McQuarrie and Tom Cruise the perfect excuse to keep challenging themselves with each subsequent film. This also means those few consistent elements like Luther feel more important.

Luther's calming and confident presence has been a great fixture of the series, giving Ethan a genuine connection that he can bounce off of. He's someone Ethan can be open with, with their interactions often serving as some of the sweeter moments in the series. Ethan and Luther's friendship has been a bedrock of the entire series, so seeing it end with Luther accepting his death for the greater good is a strong but inherently bittersweet note. He's always been around, so his death forces the audience to recognize that things are in motion that can't be undone.

It raises the stakes of Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning and forces audiences to question the survivability of the rest of the cast. It makes Benji's later brushes with death all the more frightening, because that character could easily follow Luther's example. It gives Ethan a more compelling grudge against Gabriel and heightens the stakes of their battle. It also gives Luther a heroic death, along with a certain amount of closure as he acknowledges his demise with grace under pressure and his belief that he's exactly where he needs to be to help people.

What Luther's Death Means For Mission: Impossible's Future

Luther's Farewell Gives The Film A Definite Sense Of Closure

Besides being a good way to give the fan-favorite character a heroic send-off, Luther's death also plays into an underlying element of The Final Reckoning. By the end of the film, the old IMF team has more or less disbanded, with Ethan and Benji going their separate ways after a silent farewell on the streets of London. Ethan is also implied to go into hiding to keep the Entity from falling into the wrong hands, a potentially final life-long mission for Ethan to take up in honor of Luther's work and his belief in Ethan.

Luther's death is just one of the ways The Final Reckoning clears the board for a new direction, with or without Ethan's direct involvement and close connections. The plot ends with newer characters like Hayley Atwell's Grace, Pom Klementieff's Paris, and Greg Tarzan Davis's Theo Degas still active, having worked together as a new IMF team under Benji for much of the film. If the franchise were to continue with those characters, Benji could now easily serve as mission command and a streamlined single connection to the series' past.

Luther's death helps give The Final Reckoning a sense of closure...

Luther's death is another clear sign that The Final Reckoning is meant in some ways to be a celebration and potential closing chapter for the franchise. The film brings back plenty of minor elements and lore references from across the series, but it also forces Ethan to confront his physical limits, emotional connections, and moral fortitude. By the end of the film, Ethan has seemingly accepted the heroic role that Luther truly believed was his destiny by taking the Entity and disappearing with it, giving him a possibly perfect farewell note for the character.

Luther's death helps give The Final Reckoning a sense of closure, even as it leaves the door open for the series to return. It means the series has tied off one more lingering concept, doing so with a clear love for the character and what he brought to the franchise. It's a fitting ending for Luther that helps heighten the emotional stakes of the film. Luther's death might be a tragic necessity in Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning, but it's a great final showing for the character.