Netflix's 'The Gray Man' Ending Explained

While many wouldn’t have enjoyed The Gray Man as a befuddling, unnecessarily complicated storyline, as Collider reported, the way the characters are fleshed out should redeem its many perceived flaws. 

The film follows Ryan Gosling’s character Six who is a Sierra agent from the CIA sent on a mission with Ana De Armas’ character, Dani Miranda to take out a target. When Six decides not to engage because of a child, he manages to eventually kill the man through an elaborate scheme involving fireworks and debris. It is here that he finds out that his boss, Denny Carmichael (Regé-Jean Page) is into some shady business. In his attempt to get to the truth and figure out the extent of Carmichael’s influence, he is met with Lloyd Hansen (Chris Evans), a private contractor working for Carmichael in extracting the thumb drive with information. Hansen, without any inhibitions resorts to extortion and kidnapping and Six, the man of honor, bravely decides to save the day for them all. In all this commotion, Dani is fighting Dhanush’s character Lone Wolf or Avik San for said thumb drive. In the end, he relents and hands it over to her.

However, there are some consequences when a private contractor ends up dead and extraction in Prague goes terribly wrong, Jessica Henwick’s Suzzanne Brewer pins the whole thing on Lloyd Hansen and escapes without any repercussions for her actions. Six is taken back to prison and his friend Claire (Julia Butters) is taken to a secure location for (again) extortion. However, Six escapes almost immediately and removes Claire from that secure location to flee. 

While there isn’t much resolved in this film, since all the villains Six was supposed to take down are still going stronger, the only good thing that happened was the world is now rid of Lloyd Hansen. This kind of ending sets up the storyworld in a quite realistic sense while acknowledging that everything going right is never what happens with good people. Additionally, the film does a great job establishing the characters we are likely to see again soon. Character dynamics too were explored well, making sure to take the time to breathe between the nine action set pieces and set up some great human connections.

Additionally, The Gray Man has definitely made its mark with Netflix, especially with such a big budget of $200 million. A franchise should definitely be in the works because it would still be exciting to see how the motivation from capturing Claire drives Six to push Denny Carmichael and his seedy tactics into the ground. Possibly, we could even see Brewer rising up the ranks by turning on Carmichael. Dani, who is still a part of the CIA, now muzzled by Carmichael’s plans, should also soon be a part in the scheme revolting against the boss man. A week after the film started streaming on Netflix, the platform confirmed that there will be a sequel with Joe and Anthony Russo returning as directors.

The Gray Man is currently streaming on Netflix.