History Headscratchers / MissionImpossible1996

*** And even if he didn't have any kind of heart attack... Max: "Okay, something's clearly wrong with the connection here. Say, go to the other car with the laptop and try there. Meanwhile, I'll keep trying here on another laptop just in case." Luther: "Uh-oh..."

** I think Jim was dissatisfied with his marriage. He asked Claire to seduce Ethan because it gave him a tactical advantage, but it still bothered him on a personal level. What ''really'' bothered him was when Claire asked him to spare Ethan's life; that's what confirmed that this ''wasn't'' just a job from her perspective and he actually had feelings for Ethan. He interpreted this as "Claire is cheating on me" when it was really "Claire has a conscience." And considering that Claire did beg for Ethan's life, it seems unlikely that she killed Hanna in cold blood earlier. She may have agreed to a less-murderous version of the plan, only for Jim to crank the murder up to 11 behind her back. At that point she started feeling guilty but kept it to herself, finally trying to help Ethan at the end of the movie. So the most plausible story is that Jim, not Claire, killed Hanna.

** I think Jim was dissatisfied with his marriage. He asked Claire to seduce Ethan because it gave him a tactical advantage, but it still bothered him on a personal level. What ''really'' bothered him was when Claire asked him to spare Ethan's life; that's what confirmed that this ''wasn't'' just a job from her perspective and he actually had feelings for Ethan. He interpreted this as "Claire is cheating on me" when it was really "Claire has a conscience." And considering that Claire did beg for Ethan's life, it seems unlikely that she killed Hanna in cold blood earlier. She may have a agreed to a less-murderous version of the plan, only for Jim to crank the murder up to 11 behind her back. At that point she started feeling guilty but kept it to herself, finally trying to help Ethan at the end of the movie. So the most plausible story is that Jim, not Claire, killed Hanna.

* What exactly was going on between Jim and Claire? When Jim was trying to pin everything on Kittridge and said that the latter had "lousy marriage", did he really mean himself and Claire? He seemed to intentionally make Claire seduce Ethan - and yet he seemed to be genuinely jealous when Ethan gave in and to blame it on Claire... Or had they slept together even before the events of the movie? Was Jim already planning to kill Claire from the very beginning?

* What exactly was going on between Jim and Claire? When Jim was trying to pin everything on Kittridge and said that the latter had "lousy marriage", did he really mean himself and Claire? He seemed to intentionally make Claire seduce Ethan - and yet he seemed to be genuinely jealous when Ethan gave in and to blame it on Claire... Was Jim already planning to kill Claire at the very beginning?

*** But Kittridge isn't an enemy agent looking for a deal or something; he's Ethan's boss. An enemy would say "Let's meet in a neutral public location so you can feel safe that I won't abduct you", while a friendly agent would say "Let's meet in one of our safe houses, since we all trust each other anyway." By proposing a public meetup, Kittridge is acting like an enemy. And yes, from Kittridge's perspective they *are* enemies, but he's trying to pretend that they're still friends. In that context, he ought to propose a private meetup, and then if Ethan is suspicious then *Ethan* can propose a public meetup. But for Kittridge to start off that way just tips his hand with no benefit to Kittridge.

*** But Kittridge isn't an enemy agent looking for a deal or something; he's Ethan's boss. An enemy would say "Let's meet in a neutral public location so you can feel safe that I won't abduct you", while a friendly agent would say "Let's meet in one of our safe houses, since we all trust each other anyway." By proposing a public meetup, Kittridge is acting like an enemy. And yes, from Kittridge's perspective they *are* enemies, but he's trying to pretend that they're still friends. In that context, he ought to propose a private meetup, and then if Ethan is suspicious then *Ethan* can propose a public meetup. But for Kittridge to start off that way just tips his hand with no benefit to Kittridge

*** You're forgetting another factor with the idea: Luther Stickell. When he's introduced, he's stated to be one of the best hackers in the world. That means that any "programming the computer to turn itself off when the technician is out of the room" would be as easily reversible with his skills. As it's clear Ethan has knowledge of the room itself and its security measures, that means that if they had programmed that feature into the computer, Ethan would have know that, shared it with Luther, who would have figured out a bypass for it during the prep work for this task. They didn't go into this task half-blind. They went in knowing what they were going to be facing against, and prepared for it. So, even if the IMF had foreseen someone being crazy enough to break in and access their NOC list from the actual terminal, the fact is that Ethan and the crew were just CrazyPrepared, which is expected of anyone who works for the IMF.

*** And what exactly are they expecting to do this scenario where they have control? The idea was to tail Gilitzen to his buyer, right? But the buyer probably isn't some high-level target who arrived in person. It's probably some guy who ''works'' for a high-level target who's nowhere nearby. In that case, trailing Gilitzen leads you to some random agent and no further than that. And good luck if you've got any plans to trail that agent to his boss, because he'll be exiting "the situation you control" very quickly. There's no way of knowing which direction he'll travel, what sort of transport he'll use or how many armed guards he might have as backup. So you've got three choices: (A) Grab Gilitzen before he gets to his buyer, in which case you might as well grab him before he even gets the disk, (B) grab Gilitzen and his buyer together, in which case at best you've got some random agent and at worst the buyer has a lot of armed backup and manages to slip away with ''the real NOC list'', or (C) try to tail the buyer to whatever boss he's working for, in which case there's every chance that he'll slip away at some point with ''the real NOC list'' and all our agents are as good as dead. But if you give Gilitzen a fake NOC list, then that risk goes away. And sure, maybe Gilitzen checks the list when he's sitting at the computer and he notices it's a fake. In that case, you miss out on the chance of getting the buyer-agent in option (B) or the boss in option (C), because Gilitzen will scuttle the mission and bail on the buyer. But options (B) and (C) were always pretty terrible to begin with, so it's no great loss. And yes, if Gilitzen does notice the fake it's always possible that there'll be another attempt to steal the NOC list at some point. But then again...there will ''always'' be attempts to steal the NOC list. So long as that information remains valuable, someone somewhere will try to steal it. So it's no use deliberating putting the list in jeopardy just to draw out some thieves.