The Final Reckoning has a great number of ties to previous franchise entries, but what it does with these two films is the most surprising.

The Final Reckoning. Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning is quite possibly Tom Cruise's last hurrah as Ethan Hunt. To really drive home that point — "our lives are the sum of our choices," after all — the film features several callbacks,

The Final Reckoning made good on its promise of an endgame with a NOC list's worth of callbacks, references to the series' storied history, and returning faces. Which makes one spy all the more noticeable by their absence.