Mr. & Mrs. Smith Ending Explained: Going Out On A High Note

They say that with any good story, you can guess the ending just from the very first scene, at least to some degree. This is definitely the case with the new Prime Video series "Mr. & Mrs. Smith," which opens up with a different Mr. and Mrs. Smith, both of whom seem to be enjoying a quiet, happy life off the grid. This peace is quickly disrupted, however, with them noticing the first few signs of a mysterious army closing in on them. Instead of running away again, this time the couple chooses to fight back; Mr. Smith is shot down early on, and Mrs. Smith walks out of cover to give a defiant, reckless final stand. It doesn't end well.

In the final moments of the season 1 finale, "A Breakup," it's that first episode's opening scene that's meant to play in the back of every viewer's head. Our new Mr. and Mrs. Smith (now played by Donald Glover and Maya Erskine) are in the same basic situation: John's been shot, and Jane's got no choice but to face her attacker completely on her own. Even though she knows the odds are against her (this time, she's just got one bullet left), she opens the door anyway. If she has to die, she's gonna go down swinging.

But unlike the 2005 movie, the TV show doesn't give us that satisfying ending where John and Jane defeat their spy agencies and live happily ever after in rediscovered marital bliss. Instead, the camera cuts to outside the apartment, where we see the flash of three gunshots ring out. We don't know exactly who hit who, but the implications aren't promising.

One gunshot would imply that our Jane shot first and won. Two gunshots would imply that our Jane was shot first, then the other Mrs. Smith shot our John immediately after. But three shots? The most likely case is both Mrs. Smiths got their shots in, but it was Parker Posey's Mrs. Smith that had the better, more fatal aim. Then, in the short pause between shots two and three, she must've walked into the bathroom and killed John.

We know it couldn't have been our Jane who shot twice, because she told John she only had one bullet and she was on truth serum while she said it. It's technically possible that she shot the other Jane and took her gun to deliver the final blow fast enough to match up with the flashes we saw through the window, but that's definitely not the most likely scenario. Odds are, the two Smiths we've been following are dead, just like the runaway Smiths in the opening sequence.

Of course, the real answer to this ambiguous ending is that it depends on whether the show is renewed. If it is, we'll likely find out that our Smiths survived and lived to go on at least a few more adventures. But if "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" is just a single-season show, viewers are left with two choices: They can either optimistically believe that our heroes survived, or they could make peace with the more realistic scenario that they're both dead. The latter might seem unsatisfying; what was the point of John and Jane's reconciliation if they were just going to die a few minutes later? But one can argue that it fits in perfectly with a few of the show's big running themes, regardless of how much it hurts.

From the first episode, it's been clear that "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" is far more grounded than the 2005 movie of the same name. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were fun together, sure, but nothing about their characters' lives made any sense. We can accept the nonsensical premise that these two top-notch assassins never picked up on one another's real careers, but it's a little too far to suggest that they've both hidden guns throughout their home without either of them ever stumbling upon one of the other's many hiding places. The movie still works, however, because the premise isn't meant to be interpreted as anything more than a metaphor for a struggling marriage. Married life can be tough, the movie tells us, but by opening up to your partner, you can still make things work.

The show flips everything around; Jane and John are still married, but they know exactly what the situation is from the very beginning. They aren't casually dodging missiles on their missions either; they're working on smaller tasks like delivering a cake or protecting a sleazy corrupt businessman. The show takes much greater pains to show us how this spy agency works and how it interacts with an otherwise normal world. We still don't know everything about the mysterious Hihi, but there's never any doubt that the show itself knows. The series sells us fully on the idea that there's some sort of method to Hihi's pandemonium, even if we might never get to see it. Most importantly, it's embraced the more realistic idea that this assassin lifestyle is not the sort of thing you can walk away from. Unlike the movie, rebelling against your own spy agency is presented in the show as a death sentence.

But assuming it's not a complete death sentence, where would the show take the Smiths in season 2? We've already seen them go through all the typical stages and milestones of a relationship. We watch them begin as work partners in episode 1, start dating in episode 2, have their first real fight in episode 3, go on their first double date in episode 4, and experience the trials and joys of parenting in episode 5. In episode 6, they go to marriage counseling; by the penultimate episode, they've broken up. Finally, after a bitter ultra-violent gunfight in the finale, they reconcile.

John and Jane's truth serum-induced reunion is a wildly cathartic, romantic moment between the two, a much-needed sequence of pure joy and connection after several episodes of growing misery. They're back together even before Jane realizes it wasn't John who killed her cat, or before John figures out it wasn't Jane who rigged his mother's house with explosives; no longer hiding behind their self-destructive defense mechanisms, they've broken through their marital rough patch and come out stronger on the other side.

It's a follow-up on the movie's main lesson, that full honesty is the best policy in marriage, except this time the couple's lies to each other are made up of smaller, more personal, and more realistic betrayals, most of which are barely connected to their jobs as assassins. The show also goes one step further and declares that honesty isn't enough; a good marriage requires both partners to put in more work to be there for each other. Thanks to Jane's conversation with John's mother (and John's conversation with Hot Neighbor), it's only now that the Smiths seem genuinely up for that challenge.

By the time the other Smiths enter the house and explain how they're going to kill them, our Jane and John have finally become the cool, loving power couple we've been rooting for them to become this whole time. Their conversation in the panic room, with John bleeding out and Jane comforting him, is as close as the two have ever been with each other. Even if they died in those final moments, they at least died knowing the other loved them, that all those hurtful things they said to each other in previous episodes weren't as true as the things they said while writhing on their bullet-torn living room floor.

The other thing that helps ease the blow is the realization that there was probably no way out for either of them, even if they somehow managed to best the other Mrs. Smith in the hallway. As we saw in the first episode's opening, Hihi is an extremely powerful, nearly omniscient organization with a seemingly never-ending supply of agents at its disposal. Some viewers might be disappointed that the show doesn't have the main Smiths fighting against an entire army of people like the movie Smiths had to do, but all this omission really does is further reinforce just how hopeless their situation will be even if they survive the finale. These Smiths are far more vulnerable than the movie Smiths; they have to deal with inconveniences like foot callouses or low phone batteries on a regular basis, something the '05 Smiths were too cool to ever struggle with. We're not even sure if they could fight their way past two Smith agents, let alone a whole army of them.

"A Breakup" leaves us with the haunting implication that our two heroes, who've finally grown enough to form a healthy and honest partnership, have been ripped apart from each other once again. If the show chooses to end here, it will go down as a bold miniseries that leaves us with just enough room to either lie to ourselves about the main characters' survival or to appreciate the tragedy of the situation for what it is. It's a beautiful eight-episode tale of two lonely, alienated people who knowingly sign on to a dangerous spy mission and unexpectedly find love along the way. Sure, they die at the end, but as the sheer romance of their final conversations together argues, it was still worth the trouble.

But if the show doesn't turn out to be a miniseries and season 1 gives rise to season 2, then the show will have to grapple with the unprecedented question of where to take the Smiths from here. The movie gave the Smiths a happy ending, but in the more grounded world that season 1 has set up, the Smiths will have to fight through a lot more obstacles to get there. More importantly, the show will have to grapple with the question of what happens after a couple gets back together after such a chaotic, terrible stage in their relationship. Unlike the movie, the show seems fully aware that things aren't going to be effortlessly peaceful between its leads going forward. There will still be plenty of plenty of pain ahead for them, both with Hihi and each other. But now, thanks to some truth serum and a little bit of marital gunfire, they both know they're willing to put in the work.

"Mr. & Mrs. Smith" is now streaming on Prime Video.