‘Carry On’ Ending Explained: Who Are the Bad Guys in Taron Egerton’s Netflix Movie?

Carry On, which is now streaming on Netflix, wants to be the next Die Hard. Starring Taron Egerton, this action movie takes place over Christmas, and therefore, despite having nothing else to do with Christmas, it is technically a Christmas movie. ‘Tis the season!

Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra (The Commuter, Jungle Cruise, Black Adam), with a script co-written by T.J. Fixman and Michael Gree, Carry On stars Egerton as Ethan Kopek, a TSA agent at Los Angeles’s biggest travel hub, LAX. Ethan gets roped into a terrorist scheme by a mysterious traveler (played by Jason Bateman), and now he’s the only one who can prevent a dangerous package from boarding a plane.

Also starring Sofia Carson, Danielle Deadwyler, Logan Marshall-Green, Sinqua Walls, Theo Rossi, Josh Brener, and Dean Norris, Carry On is a high-stakes action thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat. It’s more about the action, and less about the plot. But there is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it explanation for this terrorist scheme. Read on for a full analysis of the Carry On plot summary and the Carry On ending explained.

Carry On plot summary:

The movie opens with a man in a black baseball cap killing some shady Russian dudes, and taking an ominous suitcase from the crime scene.

Cut to: Ethan Kopek (Taron Egerton) and his girlfriend Nora (Sofia Carson) have just found out they are going to have a baby. The couple both have jobs at Los Angeles’s biggest airport, LAX—Ethan as a TSA agent, and Nora as the airport’s director of operations. But Nora knows Ethan is not happy as a TSA agent, and pushes him to re-take his exam to become a police officer, which he failed the first time around.

Ethan and Nora go to work on Christmas Eve, one of the busiest travel days of the year. Ethan, misunderstanding Nora’s conversation with him, asks his boss for a promotion. He gets it, and he’s put on scanning duty for the first time, thanks to his friend Jason (Sinqua Walls) who offers to swap with Ethan for the day. Little do they know that this switch-a-roo throws off the plans of a dangerous terrorist, listed in the credits only as Mysterious Traveler (played by Jason Bateman). Hey, that’s the man in the baseball cap from the beginning of the movie!

Traveler and his accomplice, Watcher (Theo Rossi) had been prepared to kidnap Jason’s family, in order to threaten him into letting a suspicious carry-on bag through the security scanner. When Ethan takes Jason’s place, Traveler must quickly re-adjust his plans. Luckily, he learns Ethan has a pregnant girlfriend. Perfect! Traveler slips Ethan an earpiece, and calmly informs him that he either lets this suspicious bag through security, or his girlfriend will die. Ethan begins to call 911, but is convinced by Traveler to hang up the call.

Ethan tries to secretly raise the alarm by writing a note to one of the police officers who works in the airport, Lionel (Curtiss Cook). But Traveler intervenes, and slips Lionel a drug that induces a heart attack. Lionel dies, and Traveler tells Ethan it’s his fault. Realizing that the Traveler really will kill Nora, Ethan allows the man with the suspicious bag—the same bag from the begining of the movie—through security. The scanner reveals what looks like a bomb. Before he lets him go, Ethan sees that the man with the suspicious bag’s name: Mateo Flores.

Meanwhile, Detective Elena Cole (Danielle Deadwyler) is on the case of those dead Russian guys from the beginning of the movie. She finds a recording device at the scene of the murder, and on the distorted audio, makes out the word “Novichok.” That’s the Russian word for a deadly chemical weapon, “one of the deadliest nerve agents ever made.”

She calls in an alert to Homeland Security. A Homeland agent, Agent Alcott (Logan Marshall-Green) joins her on the case. They learn that a TSA agent called 911 from LAX, but that a police officer, Lionel Williams gave the all clear—and then died of a heart attack less than an hour later. Pretty suspicious! Elena decides to go speak to this TSA agent, Ethan Kopek. Agent Alcott insists on coming with. In the meantime, Elena has LAX police conduct random passengers searches in the wing where Ethan works.

Back at LAX, Ethan manages to sneak Mateo Flores’s name onto the list for a random passenger search. Another TSA agent, Phil (Dean Norris) takes Mateo into a room for a bag search. Traveler confronts Ethan, and remotely activates the chemical weapon. He explains that, with the airport’s ventilation system, everyone in the airport will die—far more people than if Ethan lets the weapon get on the intended flight. The only way for Ethan to save everyone is to let the Traveler go, and allow him to walk Ethan through disarming the weapon.

Ethan complies. In the process, he realizes Mateo is a victim just like him—he has an identical earpiece in his ear. Traveler has kidnapped Mateo’s husband, and is forcing him to play along. Ethan manages to disarm the weapon. Traveler tells Mateo to kill Ethan, and a fight ensues. But Mateo is using a gun made of plastic, which Traveler previously told Ethan could only be fired so many times, before it would melt in the shooter’s hands. Ethan can’t warn Mateo in time, and the gun disintegrates, causing Mateo to accidentally shoot and kill himself.

Traveler confronts Ethan himself, but not before Ethan manages to switch the contents of the bag into a slightly larger, but otherwise identical bag. Ethan rolls out the bag to Traveler, who is able to confirm with his phone that the weapon is still inside the bag. Traveler takes the case, and goes to board his intended flight: a flight to Washington, DC. But because it’s too big to fit in the overhead bin, a flight attendant takes the bag to the plane’s cargo.

Carry On ending explained:

Agent Elena learns that Agent Alcott is not who he says he is. She manages to ditch him, and gets to the airport on her own. Elena’s “guy in a chair” explains the motive behind this attack: A congresswoman, Grace Turner, is advocating for a defense act that would make a lot of money for weapons manufacturers. But the act doesn’t have enough votes. So, defense contractors have devised a fake Russian terrorist attack, intending to kill the congresswoman, blame the Russians, and garner more sympathy votes for the bill. For once, the Russians are not the bad guys. Instead rich, American private weapons contractors are. Clever!

Ethan realizes that if they ground the plane, Traveler will activate the weapon and kill everyone on board. It’s up to him to sneak into the cargo pit and disarm the weapon. He did it once, and thinks he can do it again. Unfortunately, Traveler confronts Ethan in the cargo pit. A fight ensues, and Ethan manages to lock Traveler in an airtight freezer unit, and kills him with the chemical weapon.

Now, as far as I know, freezers and refrigeration units are not a normal thing to have in a plane cargo. But maybe some plane experts can correct me? In this case, I’m inclined to suspend my disbelief, for the sake of making this movie make sense.

Anyway, Ethan saves the day. One year later, he and Nora have had their baby, and are taking a vacation to Tahiti. It’s revealed that Ethan is now a cop, just like he always wanted. It’s a happy ending.