The Gray Man ending explained: Was the conspiracy revealed?

If you found The Gray Man a little confusing along the way, you need The Gray Man ending explained. Here’s a breakdown of the conspiracy and Six’s mission.

Ryan Gosling played a man with no name. Everything about him was scrubbed after he was released from prison to become a Gray Man for the CIA. He was only known as Six, but one thing he knew was that it made him dispensable.

Things were going well for him, though, at first. That was until he started to uncover a conspiracy within the CIA thanks to Four, who hands Six a necklace with a data card that proved Carmichael was dodgy. Suddenly he found himself on the run while trying to save an innocent girl (Claire) with a heart condition.

What did Carmichael want in The Gray Man?

Carmichael certainly was dodgy. It turned out that he and his hired contractor, a psychopath by the name of Lloyd Hansen, went to Harvard together. Carmichael hired Lloyd when it was clear Six was becoming a problem. Why do a job yourself when you can get a psychopath to do it for you? All Carmichael wanted was to run the CIA the way he wanted.

Six decided that he needed to expose everything. Before he could get to the data to the media, he needed to save his handler’s niece. Lloyd went straight for Donald Fitzroy and his niece Claire knowing that they would be the best way to expose Six.

Well, Lloyd wasn’t the best choice for getting Six. While he didn’t care about putting Claire at risk to get to Six, it was soon clear that Lloyd didn’t care about anyone or the secrecy of the mission. The trouble in Prague that made international headlines made it clear to Suzanne that she would have to stop Lloyd.

The Gray Man ending explained: Did Six get away?

There is a big shootout at the end of The Gray Man. Six and Lloyd get their showdown, but it’s not Six who gets the final shot in. Instead, it’s Suzanne after Dani, a CIA agent working with Six to expose Carmichael, gets Claire away. Suzanne is angry about Prague and all the other innocent lives lost. That wasn’t her mission, and so she decides to kill Lloyd.

She then allows Six and Claire to live. However, Six will need to take the fall for everything, and Claire will be in Suzanne’s custody after the death of her uncle, Fitzroy.

Now if only Six was willing to go back to prison. The first time he went knowing that he went down for the right thing (he killed his abusive father). He wasn’t going back for the sake of the CIA. Oh no!

While Dani decided to fall in line with Carmichael and Suzanne’s story of the events for self-preservation, Six decided he was going to break out of the hospital he was being held in. He wasn’t going alone, either. He managed to get Claire, who willingly went with him.

That’s where we end things. Carmichael’s aim to get the CIA the way he wants it hasn’t fully been exposed yet. He got the data and managed to destroy the USB. Suzanne thought that she had Claire right where she wanted her. Six is somewhere out there with Claire, and we know he’s likely to go on a mission to expose Carmichael and Suzanne. We need The Gray Man 2 to see that happen.

What did you think of The Gray Man? Did you find the movie a little confusing at first? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

The Gray Man is available to stream on Netflix.