Argylle Ending Explained: I, Spy

This article contains massive spoilers for "Argylle." 

In June of 1970, writer Richard Matheson published the short story "Button, Button." It would inspire a radically unique cinematic adaptation as well as several other  official and unofficial retellings. One of its central themes is identity. The characters discover, to their horror, that they don't know themselves, let alone those around them.

That theme is a tenet of the spy genre, and it's no surprise why the genre continues to enjoy such rampant popularity despite the Cold War (arguably the most prolific period for espionage) three decades removed. It has become nearly inextricable from the action genre (thanks in large part to James Bond), and also directly addresses the blurring of reality and fiction where cinema excels. After all, what is spycraft (in the way the movies see it, anyhow) but another form of acting? Furthermore, if someone is called upon to pretend to be someone else for a living, it seems logical that such a person might begin to actually lose their true identity, especially if they're exposed to outside influences like brainwashing or other mind manipulation techniques.

Director Matthew Vaughn is no stranger to the spy genre, having helmed three movies in the "Kingsman: The Secret Service" universe about clandestine groups of spies around the globe. Now, with writer Jason Fuchs, he adds another notch to that belt with "Argylle," a movie about — well, a secret group of spies doing secret stuff around the world. If that sounds suspiciously similar to "Kingsman," then you may not be surprised what turns up in the film's post-credit sequence. In many ways, "Argylle" feels like the feminine flip-side to "Kingsman" and its masculine perspective, while also heavily playing with other tropes of the spy movie, particularly those concerning identity, reality, and the ways they can be thrillingly all mixed up.

Inside a dimly lit club deep within sunkissed Greece, the cunning, dashing, and all-around brave secret agent Aubrey Argylle (Henry Cavill) is putting the moves (literally and figuratively) on the terrorist LaGrange (Dua Lipa), a member of an evil spy organization known as the Division. Suddenly, she reveals his cover's been blown. Attempting to pursue Lagrange, Argylle is devastated to see a member of his team, the master tech whiz Keira (Ariana Debose), has been seemingly fatally shot. Ordered by his superior, Fowler (Richard E. Grant) to continue pursuit, Argylle finally gains the upper hand thanks to his trusty companion, Wyatt (John Cena). But things take a turn for the worse when LaGrange reveals that Fowler is secretly the head of the Division as well as the good guys. LaGrange kills herself, Argylle and Wyatt cut communication with Fowler, and wonder what their next move will be.

In the first of many rug pulls within "Argylle," it's revealed the incident was just the fictional narrative of Book 4 of the "Argylle" novel series, written by the successful author Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard), a woman who turned to writing after a debilitating ice skating accident. Despite being notably single (save for her cat, Alfie), Elly is self-described as being in a relationship with her work, turning down a date so she can work on Book 5. Upon finishing the manuscript, Elly wakes up to see that her mother, Ruth (Catherine O'Hara), has already read it, and is unsatisfied with the book's "cop-out" ending as only a mother could be. Promising mom that she'll meet up with her for the weekend and hash out a new final chapter, Elly boards an Amtrak to travel home, given her fear of flying.

On board she's pestered by an insistent "fan" of her books, Aidan (Sam Rockwell), who soon claims he's a real spy and says she's in danger. Elly is suddenly attacked by numerous assassins and is only able to escape thanks to Aidan's help as the duo parachute off the train.

Aidan explains to Elly that her Argylle novels have predicted so many real-world spy incidents so closely that the real-life Division is now after her, and Elly begins to break a little further from reality, seeing visions of Argylle speaking to her directly. Brushing it off as her mind struggling to keep up with the new trauma and stress, she tries helping Aidan track down what happened to a missing Master File full of declassified dossiers of Division agents by attempting to write a new book chapter at the very location in London where Aidan's hacker contact failed to show.

As Elly uses her intuition to discover the hidden location of the hacker's apartment, she and Aidan are unaware they're being watched by the Division's dastardly head honcho, Ritter (Bryan Cranston). At the apartment, Elly and Aidan discover the hacker's log book which will reveal the location of where the stolen Master File has been hidden, but unfortunately it's encoded. After being attacked by Division goons, they escape once again, and Elly begins to trust Aidan as he keeps insisting, only to overhear a conversation he has in which he tells someone he wants to "put a bullet in her head." Frightened, Elly sneaks away and contacts Ruth, who reassures her that she and her father will rush to London.

Upon meeting her mom at the hotel suite they agreed to rendezvous at, Elly's dad appears, and it's none other than Ritter. After surreptitiously taking photos of the hacker's log book, Aidan appears, and it's revealed both Ritter and Ruth have been Division agents this whole time (as evidence, Ruth now has an English accent). Aidan manages to save Elly once again, and explains he's taking her to a man who can answer her questions.

At a vineyard hideaway in France, Elly meets Alfred Solomon (Samuel L. Jackson), the ex-director of the CIA who went into hiding after Ritter framed him as incompetent when Solomon nearly exposed the evil Division. As it turns out, Alfred sharing a name with Elly's beloved cat is no coincidence: the real agent Argylle is... Elly. Her real name is Rachel Kylle (or R. Kylle for short), a CIA operative who was working with her partner in love and war, Aidan, to stop the bad guys and expose the Division. Indeed, Elly's Argylle books aren't fictionalized predictions of what is to come; they're recalled memories of what has already happened, meaning that the opening mission involving Argylle, Wyatt, and LeGrange really happened, with Elly and Aidan in place of the fictionally idealized beefy men.

Where Elly seemed to be living out a "Romancing the Stone"-style narrative of a mild-mannered author suddenly caught up in one of her novels, everything has been a "The Bourne Identity"-type scenario. After her mission to find the hacker and the stolen Master File went south, a hospitalized Rachel was set upon by Ritter and Ruth, the latter a doctor who specializes in mental manipulation. Seeing that Rachel was suffering from a severe case of amnesia, the duo decided to reprogram her mind, creating the Elly persona. She confused her recalled memories for creative inspiration, writing what she believed were fiction novels. Elly's latest book came too close to revealing too much, so Ritter wanted her extracted or eliminated.

Elly discovers that her true self is nearly the opposite of who she's been programmed to be: she's actually a dog person, all of her anxieties were implanted, and it turns out that deep down, Elly/Rachel still retains her well-honed physical combat skills. That last discovery proves even more valuable when, after decoding the hacker's book, Solomon discovers the Master File's location: it's with the broker Saba Al-Badr (Sofia Boutella), and only R. Kylle may claim it.

In Arabia, Elly (now in "disguise" as Rachel) and Aidan meet up with Saba, but not before sharing a dance and an almost-kiss, their prior relationship beginning to reemerge. Once Elly gets her hands on the Master File, she's dismayed to learn that amongst the other dossiers of Division agents is one for Rachel Kylle, too — she's a double agent. Ruth then turns up, coaxing Elly to remember how Rachel had assassinated the hacker who stole the Division's Master File in his apartment before the hacker's dead man's switch safeguards exploded, leading Rachel to barely escape with her life and causing her amnesia.

After being drugged and taken to the Division's headquarters, Ritter cautiously welcomes Elly back to the fold, wondering how much of the old her has returned. Elly shows him by agreeing to help interrogate Aidan, who's being tortured by some Division goons to try and extract Solomon's location from him. Upon confronting Aidan, Elly shoots him in the chest, effectively killing him. Elly reassures Ritter and Ruth that she can figure out where Solomon's location is in France, using a combination of the Division's computers and her own memory to triangulate.

However, Elly proves once again that the only one who truly knows her is, in fact, her. 

Her visions of agent Argylle speaking to her was her inner voice, and the truth of her condition was summed up by Aidan just before she shot him. Despite all that has been done to her, the goodness in Elly Conway couldn't have been faked or programmed, and she'd actually been a double, double agent this whole time. As proof, Elly reveals that she'd been using the search for Solomon as a ruse to hack into the Division's mainframe and send Solomon the Master File directly, all while Aidan's wound proves not at all fatal as it had seemed. Unfortunately, the Division has added a few new extra security measures since Rachel's time there, and Elly discovers that she'll have to transfer the file manually.

Elly explains to Aidan that she got the idea for shooting him in a narrow, 2-inch area just around the heart that wouldn't kill him (as long as the bleeding was instantly stopped, which a flashback shows Elly did) from a fan email during her author days that described the idea as a potential way for Keira to be brought back from the dead. Now that he's back on his feet and she's retrieved her memories, Elly and Aidan are finally reunited as a team, and the two tear apart the Division's headquarters with style. Vaughn employs his most gleefully gonzo visual concepts for this section of the film, illustrating cinematically the way the narrative has spiraled into insanity along with Elly's rollercoaster emotional and mental journey.

One of these concepts is a moment where, after gunfire causes the base's hold of crude oil to spill all over the floor, Elly learns that she actually does have an ice skating background, and she constructs a makeshift pair of skates from some knives before tearing off onto the "ice," stabbing and blowing away bad guys as she does. After Alfie the cat helps defeat the evil Ritter, Elly and Aidan make their way to the top of the base, which turns out to be a giant oil tanker in the middle of the ocean. Running to the main satellite linkup, Elly begins the download of the Master File to Solomon, only for Ruth to turn up with the main trigger device she'd used to reprogram Elly's mind: an ice skater music box. Turning it on and ordering Elly to murder Aidan, the lovers fight, and a heartbroken Aidan nearly allows Elly to end his life. Fortunately, Elly retains just enough control not to smash her boyfriend's head in, and Ruth is killed by none other than a back-from-the-dead Keira, who reveals that she herself was the "fan" who'd emailed Elly about her own resurrection. The now-reunited trio sail away on a motorboat from the Division tanker as it explodes just moments after Solomon receives the Master File.

If all of the proceeding sounds suspiciously like a particularly wild spy novel, that's no coincidence, either, as it's revealed that Elly has taken those real-life events and rewritten them into the new, and supposedly final, fifth "Argylle" novel. At a Q&A session for the book's release, Elly explains that Solomon was honored for bringing the Division to justice, Keira has gone on to parlay her technical inventions for the spy world into beginning her own, Steve Jobs-like tech company, and "Argylle" and "Wyatt" continue to remain a team. As proof, we see Aidan in the front row of the audience, beaming at his girlfriend's success while brandishing Alfie the cat (and a bottle of nasal spray).

However, can identity, reality, and knowing oneself be challenged and changed this many times without some loose ends? After all, wouldn't there be some blind spots in such a deceptive world of spycraft, even without the added problem of brainwashing? In answer to that unasked question, a person without a question raises their hand (a detail Vaughn as well as most of the film's actors must have chuckled at including, given the awkwardness of so many public Q+A's). This man stands up, and in a thick Southern accent he claims he doesn't actually have a question for Elly, but admits she must have some for him. Indeed she — and we — do, because this man appears to be the real agent Argylle, or at least someone who Elly/Rachel patterned him after physically. Who is this mysterious stranger, and how far does the rabbit hole of Rachel's unknown past go?

In a mid-credits scene, it seems that rabbit hole may go all the way into Vaughn's "Kingsman" universe, as we're treated to a moment set 20 years earlier in The King's Man pub. Granted, such a pub hasn't been established within the "Kingsman" films — their headquarters has traditionally been a tailor's shop — and yet, in reality, a "King's Man Tavern" was briefly open to the public as a promotional pop-up experience for 2021's "The King's Man." Is this a cheeky meta-reference, a legitimate cinematic universe crossover, or both?

To further complicate matters, we see a young Aubrey Argylle (Louis Partridge) order a cosmopolitan from the bartender, "with a twist," he says (more meta humor, naturally). The bartender responds by handing Argylle a box with a pistol inside of it, grimly observing that Argylle "must be in real trouble if they sent you to me." After confirming his name, Argylle gives a mysterious grimace, and we then see a poster reminiscent of the covers of Elly's Argylle novels that states: "Argylle: Book One: The Movie. Coming Soon."

Last year, Vaughn revealed in an interview on Josh Horowitz's podcast (via ScreenRant) that he hopes "Argylle" will kick off not just its own trilogy, but also mark the expansion of both the "Kingsman" films and "Argylle" into a spy-centric cinematic universe of its own. So while the crossover between "Argylle" and "Kingsman" certainly is an intentional one, it remains to be seen whether the Kingsman organization actually exists within the "Argylle" universe or is a meta-fictional part of it instead, an analogue in the same way that Elly Conway is not exactly Rachel Kylle, and Aubrey Argylle isn't exactly himself. Like Elly's mind, like the world of spies, like "Argylle" itself, it's all far from perfect, but there's something compelling about that colorful, messy, goofy stuff swirling around in there. 

Perhaps the best way to enjoy it is to adopt a Socratic view: to paraphrase what the philosopher allegedly once said, all we know is that we know nothing.