Director Christopher McQuarrie explains why Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning didn’t bring Ilsa back despite the backlash to her death. Co-written and directed once again by McQuarrie, the eighth and possibly final film in the franchise follows Tom Cruise’s IMF agent and his team of operatives as they face off against the AI known as the Enтιтy. The Final Reckoning features the return of a few familiar faces from the franchise, but one of them is not Rebecca Ferguson’s Ilsa Faust, who died during the events of ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Reckoning.

During an appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast hosted by Josh Horowitz, McQuarrie explained why The Final Reckoning didn’t bring Ilsa Faust back, saying that in the Mission: Impossible franchise, death has always had lasting consequences, and that Ilsa’s death was meant to maintain those emotional stakes and realism. Despite the fan backlash, he felt that undoing her death would undermine the franchise’s credibility and impact. Read his full response or watch the portion of the video below:

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.

What Christopher McQuarrie’s Comments Mean For Ilsa In Mission: Impossible

Her Death Is Permanent

Though Ilsa Faust died during Mission: Impossible – ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Reckoning, numerous fan theories speculated that she was still alive and would make a comeback in The Final Reckoning. One popular theory proposed that Ilsa was only pretending to be ᴅᴇᴀᴅ, following Ethan’s earlier instructions in the movie. Supporters of this idea also cited the film’s тιтle, ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Reckoning, along with several Biblical allusions, as clues hinting at her survival. Her staged death could have been part of a calculated scheme to deceive and outsmart the Enтιтy.

However, despite these compelling fan theories, every indication is that Ilsa is actually ᴅᴇᴀᴅ. Since shortly after ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Reckoning was released in 2023, Christopher McQuarrie has tried to squash those fan theories by confirming that Ilsa is in fact ᴅᴇᴀᴅ and that viewers shouldn’t anticipate her reappearance in The Final Reckoning. Now that the film has been released in theaters, fans are finally coming to terms with the fact that one of the franchise’s best supporting characters is indeed ᴅᴇᴀᴅ.

Our Take On Ilsa Not Returning In The Final Reckoning

It’s For The Best

While fans understandably hoped to see Ilsa return, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning made the right call by honoring the franchise’s commitment to real stakes. As McQuarrie explains, death in Mission: Impossible carries weight, where danger is real and loss is permanent, and reversing Ilsa’s fate would have cheapened that emotional impact. Bringing Ilsa back from the ᴅᴇᴀᴅ would have been a twist more characteristic of the Fast & Furious franchise, and has no place in Mission: Impossible.

Source: Josh Horowitz/YouTube