Argylle, the Matthew Vaughn spy movie that stars Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Rockwell, Henry Cavill and more, is constantly trying to keep the audience on its toes with plenty of twists and turns, betrayals and revelations, so it's fair to get a little lost in the midst of it all. Let us help you with our breakdown of the Argylle ending right here.
Do note, we are going to be discussing major SPOILERS in this piece. So if you haven't seen the movie yet, here's how you can watch Argylle right now.
Before we get into the major questions surrounding the Argylle ending, let's go over the basics of the plot first. Argylle follows author Elly Conway, whose series of spy novels that feature the titular spy Argylle as her main character are a hit. But it's not just avid readers who like the books, but secret espionage agencies as well. Elly's latest book somehow is practically identical to a real-life incident, which puts her in the crosshairs of the Division, a covert spy ring led by Director Ritter (Bryan Cranstone), and a renegade spy named Aidan (Sam Rockwell). Both are racing to get files that would expose the Division and think Elly is the key. So Elly gets involved in a real-life situation that is way over her head. Or so it seems.
Let's break down the Argylle ending.
What happens to Elly Conway in Argylle?
Aidan rescues Elly from a group of the Division’s men on the train and recruits her to help him locate the files that will help to take down the Division. He wants her to think what would happen next in her books, which leads them to London to locate where the hacker with the files would be. It works, as they track down the hacker's notebook. However, as Elly's confidence is rising in how she helped track down this key info, she overhears Aidan talking to someone on the phone saying he would like to shoot Elly as he can't stand working with her.
This causes Elly to run. She calls her mother, Ruth (Catherine O'Hara), and begs her and her father to come to London to help her. When they meet up the next day we see that Elly's father is Ritter. Things get more complicated when Aidan tracks them down. With Aidan pointing a gun at Ritter, Ruth grabs Elly and points a gun at her and begins talking in a different accent, which greatly confuses Elly. Aidan is able to shoot Ruth in the chest and knock out Ritter and, amidst all the confusion, convince Elly to come with him again.
They end up going to France to meet Alfie (Samuel L. Jackson), the former head of the CIA who reveals to Elly she is in fact a spy herself, Agent Rachel Kyle. Aidan confirms this, explaining he and Elly were partners, but she had an accident while trying to track down the file to expose the Division. While in the hospital, Ritter and Ruth, who is in fact the Division's lead scientist, brainwashed her to become Elly Conway and encouraging her to write her spy stories, believing she would eventually reveal what happened with the file in her writing, as they are all based on her own experiences.
This jolt helps Elly gain her memories back, which allows them to go get the file from The Keeper (Sofia Boutella). However when looking over the files, Elly finds info that indicates she is still involved with the Division, but before she can tell Aidan, Ruth arrives, saved by a bullet proof vest she was wearing when Aidan shot her, knocks them out and takes them back to Division headquarters.
There, Elly wakes to see Ritter destroying the file. He also wants to find Alfie, but Aidan won't talk and Elly doesn't know the exact location. Elly remembers who she is now and will help. But when they go to interrogate Aidan, Elly shoots him, convinced he was never going to give up Alfie, but she thinks she can use what she knows to help locate him. She does find the house, however, Elly’s plan is actually to send the Division's files from their server to Alfie, but a security measure put in place prevents this and she'll have to handle it directly in the server room.
After Aidan awakes (Elly shot him in a place near the heart where the bullet would go straight through) he teams up with Elly to fight their way through a horde of goons to get to the server room. There, Ritter finds them and is about to kill them when Elly's cat attacks him, allowing for Aidan to kill him. Unfortunately, they needed Ritter to help send the files from the server room.
But there is one more option — sending the files via the satellite antenna, which requires no additional security. Unfortunately, as they do this, Ruth arrives and uses a music box to trigger Elly into fighting Aidan. She is about to kill him when Keira (Ariana DeBose), an agent Elly and Aidan worked with but they thought had died, kills Ruth and turns off the music. They send the files to Alfie and blow up the Division headquarters.
The movie closes out with Elly reading her latest book at an event. Aidan, Alfie and Keira are all their to support her, as it seems that both the Argylle series and all of their real-life spy careers are at an end. Taking questions from the audience during the event, one fan raises his hand and looks like the spitting agent for Elly's Argylle character (Henry Cavill). He says he doesn't have any questions, but she may have some for him.
What does the Argylle mid-credit scene mean?
After Cavill's surprising appearance in the real world of the movie, a mid-credit scene offers another major easter egg. It starts outside a tavern called The Kingsman. Inside, a young Aubrey Argylle (Louis Patridge) asks the bartender for a drink, using a very specific phrase, which indicates that he was sent there, almost certainly as a new recruit for the Kingsman agency, the operation at the center of Vaughn's Kingsman franchise.
It then cuts to a poster of an Argylle book and reveals that Argylle book one will serve as the source material for Argylle 2, should there be one.
There are a couple of big takeaways from these quick scenes at the end of the movie. One, these it establishes that the characters in Argylle and at least the Kingsman organization (if not the main characters) share a universe, leading to a potential crossover in the future.
As for the tease that Argylle book one would be used for an Argylle sequel, that takes a bit more explaining.
What book is Argylle based on?
The Argylle movie is based on the Argylle series by Elly Conway, which has recently been revealed to be the duo of Terry Hayes and Tammy Cohen. However, the movie was well in development before any Argylle books came out, in fact, the first Argylle book was published on January 9 of this year.
The first book is more of a straightforward spy novel, depicting a dangerous mission that the Argylle character takes on. So should there be an Argylle 2, it will be based on that.
Vaughn and script writer Jason Fuchs simultaneously conceived this story idea for a fun meta angle, but according to some reports the events of the movie are going to be similar with what is expected in book four of the Argylle series, though it hasn't been written yet.
Argylle is now playing exclusively in movie theater worldwide. It will eventually make its way to Apple TV Plus to stream.
