Mission: Impossible – ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Reckoning introduces a new villain to the franchise with Esai Morales’ Gabriel, and he has a surprising past with Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) worth explaining. The seventh Mission: Impossible movie puts Ethan Hunt back in a position where he is forced to save the world from an unimaginable threat. The latest installment sees Tom Cruise’s IMF agent work with familiar faces and some new ones in a race to acquire the key and stop a new AI villain known as The Enтιтy. They are met with opposition along the way, namely Mission: Impossible 7‘s villain, Gabriel.

There is a strong track record of Mission: Impossible movie villains who oppose Ethan Hunt and the IMF, with the two most recent installments focusing on Solomon Lane (Sean Harris). Mission: Impossible – ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Reckoning takes the franchise in a new direction with the introduction of Gabriel and his ᴅᴇᴀᴅly ᴀssᴀssin Paris (Pom Klementieff), as well as the terror-inducing threat The Enтιтy poses. While the movie brings back former antagonist Kittridge (Henry Czerny), Esai Morales’ character also has a past with Ethan Hunt. Here is a breakdown of Gabriel’s history, plan, and more in Mission: Impossible 7.

Gabriel Serves The Enтιтy & What He Wants

Gabriel Sees The Power Of The Enтιтy As A Good Thing

The introduction of Gabriel in Mission: Impossible 7 is as the leader of the Enтιтy’s followers. Gabriel is quickly established as a skilled, manipulative, and menacing threat who has enough charm to get his way and is cunning enough to outsmart others. He is aided constantly by the powerful AI he serves, which allows him to not be detected at airports and gain information he would otherwise not be privy to.

Gabriel commands a group of like-minded individuals who want to follow The Enтιтy and live in a world where the artificial intelligence program runs the world one way or another. The trade-off is Gabriel doing most of The Enтιтy’s dirty work and being a vessel for its thoughts and plan. The reason that Gabriel serves The Enтιтy in Mission: Impossible 7 is simplified to his desire to inflict more pain and suffering upon the world.

He has a reputation for this behavior, and the movie indicates that Esai Morales’ character now wants to see it happen on a larger scale. This is why he seeks out the Key in Mission: Impossible 7 so that The Enтιтy will remain free and in charge.

Gabriel’s Past With Ethan Hunt & Who The Girl Is That He Killed

Ethan’s Conflict With Gabriel Is Personal

The big reveal before Mission: Impossible – ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Reckoning‘s ending is that Gabriel and Ethan Hunt have a past together. The previously unexplored relationship in the franchise is included through brief flashbacks that show an encounter between the two men many years ago. The interaction left a lasting imprint on Ethan Hunt and Gabriel, so much so that both men instantly recognize each other when they cross paths again.

This is partially due to Gabriel knowing that Ethan was part of The Enтιтy’s plan, but it is clear he would remember Ethan even without the AI. The exact nature of their history is a bit more ambiguous. The key detail that connects Gabriel’s past to Ethan Hunt’s in Mission: Impossible 7 comes with the reveal that the villain killed someone close to Ethan years ago. The flashbacks show Gabriel shooting a woman named Marie before Ethan was able to save her.

Mission: Impossible 7 does not reveal much else about Marie, only that she was an important woman in Ethan’s life. This leaves it up for debate if she was a love interest, a relative, or something else. The scene is used to parallel Gabriel being responsible for Ilsa Faust’s death in Mission: Impossible 7.

Gabriel Is Responsible For Making Ethan Hunt A Spy

Ethan Joined The IMF Because Of Gabriel

Despite what little Mission: Impossible 7 reveals about Gabriel and Ethan’s past together, the movie does make the franchise’s newest antagonist responsible for the entire series in a way. This is because Ethan says that Gabriel created him in a sense as a result of his actions. Gabriel killing Marie put Ethan in a position where he could either choose life in prison or become part of the IMF. Using his particular set of skills, Ethan joined the IMF and began his life as a world-saving spy.

This gives Mission: Impossible 7‘s Gabriel a greater importance to the franchise overall. The reveal of Gabriel’s past also means bringing a better understanding of Ethan Hunt’s origin and motivation. It stands to reason that a desire to get revenge on Gabriel for Marie’s death was a driving force behind Ethan joining the IMF, even if he never found his oldest foe until Mission: Impossible – ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Reckoning.

This confirms that Ethan Hunt did not willingly choose the spy life, even if he now always chooses to accept his mission ᴀssignments. He was forced into a position where becoming a spy was the best outcome and one that might award him revenge.

Was Gabriel In Any Previous Mission: Impossible Movies?

The Villain Shares Strong Ties To Ethan

The way Mission: Impossible 7 introduces Gabriel as a figure from Ethan’s past might leave audiences confused about his presence in the franchise overall. However, Gabriel was not in any previous Mission: Impossible movies. ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Reckoning Part One is the first time that Esai Morales plays the villain character and this part of Ethan’s origin was established. The franchise is effectively using Gabriel as a means to explore Ethan’s past at long last. This does mean that his introduction is somewhat of a retcon for the series, considering Gabriel has never been seen or mentioned before Mission: Impossible 7.

Gabriel & The Enтιтy’s Plan In Mission: Impossible 7 (& What Went Wrong)

Ethan Outsmarted Gabriel And The Enтιтy

Gabriel and The Enтιтy have an elaborate plan in Mission: Impossible 7 that is meant to end with Gabriel in possession of the key. This included orchestrating events that would lead to the White Widow being left with a choice of whom to sell the key to, needing to kill either Ilsa or Grace, and finally acquiring the completed key on the train. Although the plan might have changed along the way, the ultimate plan was for Gabriel to escape the train with the Key and be the only person to know the location of The Enтιтy’s source code.

Ethan Hunt ruins Gabriel and The Enтιтy’s plan before it takes shape in Mission: Impossible 8‘s story. This is because Ethan sneakily steals the Key back from Gabriel during their fight on top of the train. Gabriel’s reaction to finding Ethan’s lighter in his pocket instead of the Key after escaping the train confirms that the plan did not go as expected. The switch means that Ethan leaves the train with the completed Key and the knowledge that he needs to locate the sunken Russian submarine Sevastopol to access the source code after Paris tells him the truth.

While Paris saving Ethan’s life and telling him about Sevastopol was part of The Enтιтy’s predicted outcome, Ethan having the Key was not. It appears that the plan was meant to include Ethan learning of the location he would need to go next to stop Gabriel and begin a hunt to find his old nemesis. Instead, Gabriel losing the Key in Mission: Impossible – ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Reckoning means he is the one who will be on the hunt for Ethan. This changes The Enтιтy’s plan moving forward, as it will have to predict Ethan’s behavior and find the notoriously hard-to-catch spy.

Gabriel Will Return In Mission: Impossible 8

Gabriel And Ethan Will Have Their Rematch

Mission: Impossible – ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Reckoning will not be the end of Gabriel’s story, as the villain is confirmed to return in Mission: Impossible The Final Reckoning. It would be incredibly strange for the franchise not to bring him back based on where ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Reckoning leaves his story, unless The Enтιтy betrays him after failing to accomplish the plan. This is not expected to be the direction Mission: Impossible 8 goes, as the sequel should instead provide plenty of opportunities for Gabriel’s past, motivations, and more to be explored.

Where Gabriel Ranks Among Mission: Impossible Villains

Mission: Impossible III Features The Franchise’s Best Villain

Gabriel joins an impressive roster of Mission: Impossible villains who have faced off against Ethan Hunt in these movies. Gabriel was certainly set up with the possibility of being the most impactful of them all, especially given his dark history with Ethan. However, the execution has not been very strong yet. Esai Morales gives a solid performance, but hasn’t been given a lot to do in the role compared to some of the other standout villains of the franchise. This is partially because the first film kept so much of his story a secret.

In terms of the other villains, Gabriel certainly ranks above Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol’s “Cobalt” (Michael Nyqvist), who barely gets any dialogue and is largely a non-enтιтy until the end of the movie. Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott) in Mission: Impossible II was meant to be a mirror of Ethan, but was never very interesting as a character. Jim Phelps (Jon Voight) in the first movie had a nice personal connection to Ethan as his mentor-turned-traitor, but the twist meant he only really became a villain in the third act.

Gabriel ranks somewhere along the same lines as Solomon Kane (Sean Harris) from Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation and Mission: Impossible – Fallout. Kane is the only other villain to appear in two movies. However, like Gabriel, he is a formidable villain with a strong performance, only for the plot around him to feel a little flimsy.

In the end, there are two Mission: Impossible villains that easily rise to the top for very different reasons. August Walker (Henry Cavill) from Mission: Impossible – Fallout is a true physical threat to Ethan as a younger and more ruthless ᴀssᴀssin who storms through the fight scenes like a freight train. Conversely, Mission: Impossible III‘s Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is a menacing villain who sends chills down your spine just from talking. Hoffman delivers the best performance from an actor in a villain role in this franchise, giving Ethan someone to truly fear.