TENET (2020) Explained

[Music] how's it going folks welcome to foundaflex on this explained video we're looking at the latest from chris nolan the sci-fi thriller tenant following a secret agent given a single word as his weapon and sent to prevent the onset of world war iii he must travel through time and bend the laws of nature to succeed nolan is known for making seriously big cinematic experiences and tenet certainly fits the bill i can see why he was so adamant for this to come out in theaters because he is the kind of filmmaker that makes truly massive scale films visually and in scope i mean crashing a live 747 into a hangar alone this is kind of like an extremely complex james bond flick an action-packed globe trotting adventure with a heavy sci-fi time travel bin and i really really enjoyed it there's something of how the story is kind of doled out in small pieces of a bigger puzzle that keeps building and building that's very satisfying this is overflowing with exposition and many story points and so many that it quickly gets difficult to even track what the hell is going on so i can totally understand why a ton of y'all were asking me to cover this one so i will do my best to address every single aspect and detail to the ever-expanding story and any questions about how everything works before we begin it's probably worth explaining what the palindrome of the title tenet even refers to it most likely originated from an ancient puzzle called the saitor square it's made of a five by five square of five word letters written in five lines saitor arrepo tenet opera and rotos the trick is no matter how you rotate the square words appear both horizontally and vertically this tying directly into the inversion time travel concept of the film and keep an eye out for references to each of the other words in the puzzle in the movie alright guys strap in because this is gonna be a long one so let's dive into tennin breaking down its massive story and many twists answering all of your big questions and the meaning behind the ending without any real context get used to it we begin at an opera house in ukraine in the box seats a bro is sipping on champers while outside someone else is watching and waiting in a van the performance about to start a gunshot rings out and dudes and masks show up causing total chaos smashing cellos and whatnot geez what did the cello ever do to you bro as in the van a russian guy orders our protagonist who i will just call john to get ready just as another official police van rolls up he hands over some fake badges to blend in and the crew joins the others descending upon the building they bring out some canisters of knockout gas funneling it into the vents and causing the crowd to quickly pass out the other split in search of something getting to the guy in the box suite john cryptically tells him we live in a twilight world and there are no friends at dusk he responds jon informs him he's been made and that this was all to get to him as well as a mysterious package he's told it's in the coat check room and zip lines him out of there down to the main floor where he hides amongst the others random firing's still going on hearing a bomb ticking an officer asks what he's doing and figures out that he's not legit yanking off his fake badge another shoots him allowing jon to run to the coat check discovering a strange metal object and rejoins the rest of the team he says he hasn't seen anything like it the guy assuring him it's legit he orders the others to help the crowd slinking through the floor to retrieve each bomb stop by another guy training the gun to his head curiously jon spots a bullet hole that goes backwards and the dude is shot his anonymous savior runs off spotting a red string on his back his guy is confused as he's not one of us but jon is just happy for the help he tosses the bombs into the upper tier and they explode moments later back in the van the others recognize they brought them the wrong guy and shoots him and they're promptly tortured by the russian gang tied to a chair at the train tracks where they're questioned and have their teeth removed as well john refuses to answer anything and goes for a suicide pill in his lapel volkov finds it noting its cia issue he sees the other guy barely alive still has his and john lunges forward getting the pill in his mouth eyes fluttering closed oh he can't be dead already right of course not he comes to on a boat a man fae welcomes him to the afterlife revealing that he's been in a coma since they got him out of the ukraine and rebuilt his mouth john grumbles asking why the fake pills a test faye tells him he learns the rest of his team didn't make it believing those responsible to be russians jon thinks someone must have talked not you fay says proudly showing his loyalty to die rather than give up his colleagues jon tells him that he resigns but well technically you don't work for us since you're dead and all duty transcends employment there's something else much bigger going on that they need his help with they explaining that everyone's survival hangs in the balance he has limited knowledge himself only able to provide a gesture in combination with a word tin it he tells him folding his fingers together he goes on it can open the right doors and some wrong runs as well john is perturbed like really that's all i told you and better get used to being in the dark john because things are only gonna get a lot more complicated and confusing going forward he's ushered away to a remote wind tower where he has to lay low until a replacement crew shows up and puts on a costume to blend in with the others riding back to the shore where there's a car waiting with the route set and everything for him convenient here he meets scientist barbara when seeing him she remarks how a vest and clipboard can get you in anywhere not anywhere he grunts at the locked door an obscure tenant he responds and as was told the word opens literal doors for him he wants to find out what they're doing as well as what threat they're actually facing trying to prevent world war iii she gravely states a nuclear holocaust he asks nope worse she raises the shutter to a gun range and tells him to pull the trigger but finds it empty he does so anyway and the bullet reverse fires how he stares stupefied she explains one bullet is like us traveling forward in time while the other is going backwards or inverted the entropy inverse she believes is caused by radiation triggered by nuclear fission apparently someone is making them in the future and sending them back to us she asked him to try it out first dropping the bullet and puts his hand out the bullet flying back into his hand due to the bullet actually running backwards in time he's still baffled wondering how free will comes into play here he's saying the bullet wouldn't have moved if he didn't put his hand there either way you ran the tape you made it happen at a y suggestion to john as well as the audience she tells him to not understand it but feel it instinct got it jon says he realizes that he's seen that kind of ammo before back at the opera siege her calling him exceedingly lucky as an inverted passing through his body would have been quite deadly he's still confused not exactly seeing armageddon here and she expands further on the concept as you could potentially invert pretty much everything such as a nuclear weapon that affects the future thusly an inverted one could affect the past so his next step is to find who is responsible for making the inverted bullets heading to mumbai to meet an arms dealer called singh but can't do it all on his own making a call to get some backup and meets the mysterious charismatic kneel he orders a drink for both of them diet coke for john as he doesn't drink on the job he says john mumbles that he prefers soda water no you don't neal smirks hmm does he know him already or something they discuss a method to get into his high-rise apartment using a bungee jump system of sorts they set up a launcher device with winch and line attached and when the line goes tight neil activates it launching them into the air ascending up the side of the building and sneaking right onto the terrace john takes out one guard as neil gets another seeing these guys are definitely pros he gets to jump on sing wanting to know who supplied the ammo but he's uncooperative bulking that he can't reveal anything his wife priya chimes in asking him to make a drink now getting that it's actually her operation and he is merely the figurehead she reveals they are looking for the russian oligarch andre sator who made billions in petroleum and apparently got these inverted items from the future functioning as a broker between then and now well then then and now anything that goes into record speaks to the future receipts bank accounts all these things leave a trail to be later discovered the real question she says is can the future speak back getting to sator will prove quite difficult michigan would take a fresh-faced protagonist to do so but luckily he's fresh as a daisy and she provides him with another contact in british intelligence there he meets crosby michael kane in his obligatory nolan film appearance who has more info on sator as well as a way to get to him he brings up soviet era secret cities ones not on a map that were home to sensitive industries one including satoru's hometown there was some kind of accident there after which it was utilized for underground tests two weeks ago a detonation was spotted where the town was saitor emerged from this blank spot with ambition and enough money to buy his way into british establishment through his wife jon questions he tells him that they are practically estranged and that's the way to get to him is through her they have one of two fake art pieces the other one turned up at his wife kat's auction house and sator bought it did she know it was fake jon wonders but it's hard to say the rumor is she and the fake artist are close he tracks cat down to her son max's school and makes an appointment with her telling her that she's supposedly the person to see about goya he hands over the fake painting and asks what it's worth she cools his jets as there's a lot of work to do before evaluation she stares asking where he got it and mentions her friend areppo he brings up the whole fraud thing and wants to make an arrangement you mean blackmail she corrects and sator is already well aware of it being a forgery it actually uses the drawing over her threatening her with police prison the works he's blackmailing her reputation using it to control her entire life and even being able to see her son she sighs leaving would have never been easy but now it's impossible she recalls a recent vacation of theirs and how she tried to love him again sitting on his boat and watching the sunset her seemingly happy he offers a backhanded way out she can leave if she agrees to never see her son again she got pissed and took max to shore and strangely when leaving saw another woman diving off the boat that vanished she remembers feeling envious of her freedom and she dreamed of diving off that boat for good too he asked if she knew it was a forgery she admits that she didn't and basically failed he's confused that he let a repo walk free but she tells him uh no he's not walking anymore he's dead john confused as he talked to him on the phone well guess not buddy he asked her to get the other drawing and that can maybe be her second chance as some of satori's goons take a seat don't worry they won't kill you she assures him he gives her his number with a kiss on the cheek telling her to not call from home she groans you won't take my calls might surprise you he yells back getting escorted to the kitchen by the dudes he jokes that he ordered his hot sauce an hour ago and proceeds to beat the crap out of every single one of them smashing one's head into a pantry fridge and kicking another dude down the stairs to outside kat witnessing this before being driven away like hey maybe this dude could help after all back at max's school she starts to dial and john is already there told you i'd surprise you he smiles and asks about the drawing learning it's being held at the oslo airport specifically it's at a freeport storage facility which operates in a similar capacity to swiss bank accounts holding art to be seen but not yet taxed allowing clients to view them before importing her company rotos has assets there including said drawing they send in neil to case the joint learning that they don't use sprinklers but halide gas displacing the air within seconds yet it only fills the vault specifically and includes a 10 second warning before activating he informs john of the setup as they consider how to get enough firepower in to trigger a lockdown neil boldly wants to crash a plane but not from the air silly that's ridiculous just off the runway and through the building to start a fire he introduces mahir whose team will work the plane a freight plane so no passengers and as far as the crew they'll just pop the escape slide and chuck them off they opt to use a distraction tactic of using gold to spill out all over the runway neil guaranteeing that no one will be looking at the building they set their plan into motion the facility dude taking neil and john through it while maher and his crew take over the plane tossing a grenade to blow a hole in the hole and dumps all the pallets of gold on the tarmac he cranks the lever forward the plane rolling through and they climb out just as it's getting closer to the building it crashes through the hangar obliterating it and comes to a stop well that was quite destructive and impressive the alarms go off neil's slightly asking you said 10 seconds right and the dude bolts they pull out lock pick kits as the room fills with gas and make their way through several doors out to the corridor they find the rotas logo one keypad blue and one red john cautiously steps inside noticing bullet holes in the glass neil wonders what happened here john clarifying it hasn't happened yet he picks a gun up off the ground and hears a sudden whirring coming from an odd machine in front of him which we learn are known as turnstiles a man in full tactical gear leaps out the two struggling and fighting seeing that he's moving in reverse meaning that he has been reverted thanks to the turnstile his assailant doing some wild backward moves that make their fight really weird looking neil comes across another or perhaps the same man and removes his mask a moment of familiarity washes across his face as he runs away john wrangles the gun back and just about to shoot neil comes in warning not to kill him he demands to know who he is and how they knew that they would be here but before he can interrogate further out of nowhere he sucked out under the door but again inverted more services arrive and neil and john play unconscious allowing them to get away without any consequence yet they were unable to find the drawing which was the original point of the mission damn backwards dude you blew it jon meets with priya in search of answers and she believes the antagonists were one in the same one regular and one inverted via the turnstile which was given to sator by the future for what he questions and she wants him to figure it out she posits a setup for sator what if they had something he needs specifically plutonium-241 it's currently in the hands of ukrainian services and is moving in a week giving them a chance to get it jon finds this unacceptable he's just gonna take all these bad guys out she's adamant that they need him alive as they have to stop satoru as well as some kind of attack coming from the future and only saitor can help them understand how he meets up with cat her curious about the drawing i'm joking he didn't think that she'd want it back then asked her to sit tight for now he's going to be posing as a diplomat giving a cover story of where they met he offers to give her a ride back to the yacht her worried as sator might think they're having an affair then he'll definitely want to meet me he shoots back or kill you she responds he takes his own speedboat there seeing sator watching in shadow above and it works just as they thought he immediately is all uh who's the american a friend she tells him casually the man you try to have beaten up and uses jon's cover story of him being a diplomat quite good with his fists for a diplomat he chups she's looking for her boy sator telling her he sent him off to pompeii even though she was supposed to be with him he excuses well you're busy with your friend say tori you're a big meanie john arrives at dinner and finally gets a chance to meet sator in the flesh but he quickly cuts to the chase asking if he's slept with his wife yet no not yet he jives back he then threatens him in an elaborate way asking how he wants to die telling him he's going to cut a hole in his throat and stuff his balls in the hole complex john mutters asking if this is how he treats all of his guests we're finished and he signals his goons but when jon asks if he likes opera he's got another hand to play and with this detour asked him to come to the dock the next morning phew that was close almost got the throat ball special later on the yacht cat laments wanting to take max back to london as he's missed too much school but sator is focused on the infamous drawing which we learn he has procured it revealed to kat under a close to her surprise turns out he got to the vault before the heist smiling that he has an instinct about the future chalking all of his success up to this well you're kind of cheating really but that's okay they all meet up for some windsurfing and to discuss business jon bringing up about the missing 241 that was taken from a nuclear warhead that surfaced at the opera house on the 14th he proposes a partnership and sadhur is lukewarm on the prospect believing him to be an intelligence agent their negotiation is cut short when a destruct cat severs satorn's line preaching to see you in hell as he flies into the water jon knows that he can't let him die and circles back to save him to catch chagrin asking why did he do that he reveals a bit more about the bigger picture here and that her husband is much more than an arms dealer and holds all of humanity's lives in his hands agoon approaches the door ordering satoru wants to see him and jon is able to hide cat being in there fibbing that he needs to put some pants on first before he leaves he hands her a gun suggesting she try not to use it he comes into satoru getting his blood pressure done boasting that he has the pulse of a man half his age cedor scott well seems to owe you my life but jon sticks to business about the plutonium and sator remembers his experiences as a youngster a part of a warhead exploded and the government needed people to find it he was given the first contract to excavate because literally no one else signed up due to how dangerous it was and even cuts out his own dude taking the creed that one man's death is another man's possibility for life he invites jon to stay the night and satoru returns to cat putting away her new gun and hopping into bed just as he enters it appears that he intends to kill her and throws a pillow at her she cries why didn't he just let her go and understanding more about satoru spits if i can't have you no one can she warns that if she screams jon will come but they're interrupted by a crony breaking the tension and sator awkwardly leaves as there's more pressing matters a helicopter lands john spying on the scene and watches as they carry off a large crate seeing in the engine room it's stocked with inverted gold no doubt payment from the future one goon tries to sneak a brick and sheepishly hands it back but a merciless sator elects to beat him with the gold instead hey at least it's a classy way to die gold to the face luxury death jon is sucker punched by a guard and brought to sator asking who he really is john states that the cia is responsible for two-thirds of the fissile material market but that's usually buying not selling sator states he tries using his twilight time code phrase but jon plays dumb calling the words beautiful and asking who the author is he isn't playing around telling him the next warning will be a bullet to the brain and ever cool john requests to let him go he'll spring the 241 and pay him off adding the wrinkle that his wife must do the exchange sator reluctantly agrees but won't be in contact tossing him the bloody gold bar as advanced payment for the job thanks he and neil figure out his system of the future he buries these time capsules and transmits the location to them and digs it up to collect the inverted material sent in a place that won't be discovered for centuries hmm complicated making it also occur instantaneously in appearance they scope out the truck's route and put their new plan together needing four vehicles that won't stick out and make sure not to set up anything on paper saitor's ignorance is our only protection they say which is possibly the most important theme of the entire story as we come to learn sator brings cat to another freeport noticing a guy in a nearby car with an oxygen mask showing off a room with a bunch of guns laid out on the table she stutters that this isn't her expertise but sador coldly tells her this is where the worlds are now colliding which she has always tried so hard to avoid she asks to leave and he doubles down boldly calling himself a tiger you don't negotiate with a tiger you admire it until it turns on you and you see its true nature she emotionally pulls jon's gun on him but he isn't afraid certain she won't shoot him in cold blood he sees despair not anger in her eyes he wrangles the gun away and beats her with it and spits on her for good measure almost losing his [ __ ] again but stops himself and checks his pulse pleased hey not too bad usually beating my wife really gets my pulse going neal and john pursue the truck counting down from 60 seconds as one by one their other vehicles move into position to box the truck in noticing their side mirror is broken john dons a fireman's outfit and hops on the truck as neil finishes counting down from five the front truck slams on its brakes the one behind crashing into them and obliterating the suv they kill their radio signal and jon rides the ladder to get right on top he attaches a small explosion device and hops through getting to work on the door and retrieves the package climbing back off with a ladder and john tosses the package in neil's car and hops back in speeding away well that certainly went smoothly he pries the case open still having no idea what the heck it is neil is confident is what they're after and it's really starting to look like neil knows a lot more than he's been letting on here he's confused by some chatter on the radio it's not an estonian but actually backwards suddenly a car going full speed in reverse blasts by them smashing into the mirror and swerves in between the other cars and pulls up right beside them zator is inside with an oxygen mask holding a gun on cat neil begs him not to hand it over warning that it's even worse than plutonium he stares in confusion as another car crashes backwards and flips over and throws the package over to them the other is leaving cat alone in the car jon goes after her and they have to hurry coming to a wall of cars up ahead he leaps over getting to the pedal and slams on the brakes just in the nick of time another car pulls up immediately opening fire neil calls in his cavalry and then jon is dragged out seeing people on the other side of the fence are all moving in reverse except cat he's taken to a room blue on one side and red on the other cat and sator are on the other side seeing a bullet hole in the glass he threatens that if he doesn't tell the truth she dies asking if he left it in the car jon tries to stall but he ain't having it shooting her in the stomach gravely telling him the next one will be in her head he yells he left it in the glove box as another saitor comes in asking where it is a baffle john saying uh didn't i just tell you like two seconds ago neil's surprise cavalry arrives and troops opened fire sator flees into the turnstile seeing what happened now on the other side them now sounding backwards putting a mask on her escorting her away ives asked if she was shot with an inverted round and introduces himself all thanks to priya apparently john is pissed wondering how sator knew so much turning on neil posterity he croaks something that big would not stay out of the papers he thinks it's bull as he somehow knew every move that we made thinking someone must have talked and accuses him nobody talked he explains what he's actually using is a temporal pincer maneuver not in space as is traditional but with time half of his team moves forward and monitors what happens so that they can then plan accordingly and go back he's worried as he told him where to find the 241. turns out that john lied calling it standard operating procedure as he wasn't certain that he wouldn't have actually shot cat regardless pretty cool john but do what you gotta do i guess he does have a convoluted plan to save cat wanting to invert her problem being that they just took control of this turnstile right now and we need to go back up to a week in time to make sure that she pulls through he remembers the other turnstile back in oslo and tasks neil with getting her there he on the other hand is going to go back solo to try to get to the 241 first neo puts a damper on his plan believing that what happened happened as in no matter what he does the outcome will remain the same he's gone anyway and is given a breathing apparatus and warned not to come in contact with his other self if the particles touch instant annihilation and further elaborates on what it will be like being inverted fire turns to ice and gravity will feel normal but actually will be reversed and gets the gps to track his previous whereabouts gotta follow the ball in the past he comes out on the other side seagulls flying backwards and when stepping in water the puddle splashes in reverse he finds a car speeding backwards to the heist now seeing the mask satoru moving forward and the other bullets ricocheting inversely he finds the case empty and sits nearby waiting for his moment an important reminder that due to him being inversed he is traveling further backwards while things normally progress forward in time he is effectively continuously ticking backwards on the clock he sees himself throwing it out and makes his way through the cars overhearing sator talking no longer backwards with mention of getting other sections of the algorithm to the hypocenter and gets sideswiped the car flipping over and now we understand the car we saw previously was actually driven by this john inverted sator comes up saying that he saw the handoff chuffing that he let him shoot cat for nothing but is impressed as he got his pulse so high he tosses a lighter on the gas trail going to the car which explodes but an inverted time it quickly turns to ice weird he wakes up later rescued by neil joking it's probably the first case of hypothermia from an explosion in history informing they are on their way to oslo john is disappointed realizing that he handed the 241 to him on a plate neil chiding that he warned him but didn't trust him he prods about who hired him but he is tight-lipped offering to explain his whole life story once this is all over listening to the recording of sator john wants to know what the mysterious hypocenter is as well as the algorithm neal reveals that the 241 is actually one section of a nine part formula rendered in physical form so that it can't be copied a black box with one purpose the inversion of the entire world around us as they reverse more and more in the future they're always swimming upstream however the algorithm can change the wind then what well then everything and everyone that's ever lived will be destroyed and now we finally are starting to piece together what is going on here after some rest and now on a truck they confront the paradox of this whole plan the so-called grandfather paradox if you go back in time to kill your own grandpa how are you alive to do it in the first place neil admits there's no straight answer but regardless the future is convinced that they can kick grandpa down the stairs and game the system without consequence could they be right john asks and he currently responds it doesn't matter as they believe it but there's another aspect jon considers by them being here now doesn't that mean that it doesn't happen and we do stop them not so fast as according to the contrasting parallel worlds theory we truly don't know the relationship between consciousnesses and multiple realities asking jon if his head hurts yes he grumbles same woo they make it back to the oslo freeport right when they were there previously seeing everyone now appearing to be moving backwards noticing that his arm is bleeding but guess what hasn't happened yet hearing the engine revving up they have to go now the rogue engine starts whirring up and explodes sending him launching forward getting attacked by himself from before now inverted the opposite of prior he stabs himself in the arm well there's where that injury came from and the suited john disassembles the gun and runs out the other side of the turnstile where he runs into kneel and did indeed see his face as we suspected tossing his helmet back and running off he gets to the door to let cat and kneel in the alarm going off and shooting out gas seeing the previous duo at the end of a hall he commandeers an ambulance and seeing himself on the other side of the so-called proving glass he knows he's gotta move hopping into the turnstile they joined john in the van bringing up how neal knew it was him that he saw last time but didn't tell him he smirks he knew he'd be okay besides what happened happened right additionally their policy is to suppress whose policy he asks ours my friend he says cryptically we're saving the world for what might have been we see cat as doing better but there's greater concerns sator now has the complete algorithm john has a plan asking to get priya here remembering that two days from now she tells him about the 241 and is hoping to get it out of his hands before everything else happened neil argues once again that there's nothing that he can do to change that we'll see he replies he explains to her what the 241 really is but she knows more than him as usual relaying about how the original future female scientist created the algorithm equating it to the manhattan project that scientist oppenheimer was concerned activating his device would wipe out the entire world but did it anyway and got lucky science for you while the scientists behind the algorithm rebelled splitting the device into nine sections and hid them in the past nine nuclear bombs held in various containment facilities he wants her to change things to keep the 241 and last piece out of his hands but she laughs if that universe can't exist we don't live in it he begs to warn him but she refuses reminding that ignorance is their ammunition he thinks on it so he was supposed to get it and lose it reassuring him that his part in their plan is complete calling him not the protagonist but one of potentially many but he thinks he's figured out where the detonation is supposed to occur asking to deal him in in exchange for her word that she keeps max and kate safe reiterating that he is basically trusting her to keep her words something so important and sacred to john she agrees but brings up that the word of an arms dealer isn't typically meant to be trusted they meet eyes at a rally point who has a team ready to invert and a turnstile of their own learning that tinnit was not founded in the past but will actually be established in the future cat asked if he's going to kill sator but no such luck his fitness tracker monitors his heartbeat is tied to a trigger if his heart stops and he dies the world ends just like that jon knows they have to make sure the bomb goes off sans the algorithm and has figured out where it's going down at his hometown of stahls 12 but refuses to tell neil the specifics knowledge divided my friend he tells him starting to get that whole ignorance's ammo thing don't pack bud she interjects he's missing her point as he intends to kill himself as it turns out he's dying from inoperable cancer electing to take the whole world with him just as he said about her if he can't have it no one can he asked her to think of what moment he might choose to end his life and remembers their recent vietnam vacation where things weren't so awful for a brief moment he flew from the yacht that day which no coincidence was the day of the kiev opera siege point being that he wasn't on the yacht at that time and it lists cat to go back to the yacht to keep him from killing himself as long as possible while they do their thing before they can act they have to inversely travel all the way back to the 14th the way things seem to work is to go back you have to be inverted and essentially go back that far in real time to where you're trying to reach too bad they don't have a delorean or something you can just punch that [ __ ] right in there boo boo boo boop 1955 thank you the soldiers stand in formation to pass through the turnstiles and apparently neil went through already what is this guy up to he offers to kat that she doesn't have to do this but she's insistent remembering his callous offer and what made her feel even worse is that she could feel if even for a fleeting moment that she considered it showing just how much she wants to be rid of satoru controlling her life he reminds her to not actually kill him and everything as the boat arrives offshore of siberia jon hands her a phone inviting her to leave a message if she ever feels threatened and to simply hang up she asked who gets it him responding posterity as more details are filled in about time travel this has come up a few times even if he doesn't do something about this at the moment he can always go back later and rectify it after receiving the message that's the whole gimmick here in a sense it seems ives briefs the group that they'll be dividing the troops into two separate attacks the red team moving forward in time and the blue team will be inverted who are curiously hidden out of view in shipping crates one soldier wondering why again ignorance you get you're supposed to not know but ives assures them that thanks to blue team's success in the future they have a better scope of the situation they're heading into as the blue team has discovered a separate entrance into the facility and a splinter team will go in to take care of deactivating the bomb algorithm consisting only of ives and john because of them even knowing the details of the algorithm they are at risk and they say that those who have seen it themselves are not even allowed to leave the field the knowledge of this information is too dangerous for them to have they set their time at 10 minutes and just as they are using both times to their advantage so too will sator to defend his stronghold and at least two in one absolutely massive and bombastic battle as the soldiers all converge on the base meanwhile kat and mihir take a boat back to the yacht and wait for him to take his copter to the upper siege before she moves into place she comes upon an attendant cleaning up the glass as she shattered technically earlier and excuses him to deal with it herself as well as set her own plan into motion removing the safety lines from the side of the deck as satoru's copter returns which remember is present-day sator about it into his own life and trigger the thing and everything however he doesn't know that this is present cat appearing confused as he thought that she and max justla for the shore but she brushes it off and appears to open up a bit lamenting that he wants to make things better and pushes her hair back on the battlefield things quickly become absolute time-filled chaos a reverse rocket going off and a soldier launched into the air by a piece of debris and bursting back into its original spot they breach the city limits while the splinter unit finds the back entrance they're trapped as they can't allow the others to see them the whole ignorance is their ammo thing and wheeler uses a quite clever and insane distraction an rpg hits the building as they both count down and up they fire again and thanks to the inverse rocket the building re-assimilates and blows up again this allows them to make their move as another truck arrives on the scene driving towards them and frantically honking their horn to get their attention not hearing this they make their way in and as soon as breaching the entrance a tripwire goes off sending down a wall of debris blocking the way out john amusing well looks like we're committed now back on the boat the tension ratchets higher albeit on a much smaller scale as saitor brings out something that he borrowed from the cia a suicide pill wistfully saying he can just take this and it's all over cat asks him not to as there's no doubt a lovely sunset and some vodka left sounds good to me but it's also an interesting detail that it's specifically a cia pill because as we saw these don't actually get the job done death-wise he starts believing something fishy is going on and leaves for a moment of business making a call neil on his own sees the trip bomb planted at the back entrance and runs off down the middle and to a turnstile keep telling o'neill's doing his own thing a lot here hives and john are stopped in their tracks by a locked metal door seeing a soldier shot on the other side in particular noting a red string on his uniform before they can even start to figure out what to do ives is shot by volkov and sator is on the phone obviously having figured out their ploy he condemns him for making a bargain with the devil he sold all of our futures he fires back you fight for a cause you barely understand with people that you don't trust because you tell them nothing well that's sort of the whole point when we all die our secrets are gone too faith is blind and all for nothing he scoffs satoru goes on that he's creating a new world comforted that the same sunshine will warm generations for ages to come john asks the million dollar question why do they want to kill us and unsurprisingly thanks to us the future is totally [ __ ] and there is no choice but to turn back that's how hopeless things have become neil comes outside and gets to a truck now moving the other way understanding that it was him that was honking when jon and i's went in earlier sator orders volkov to execute jon bizarrely the dead guy inverses back to his feet and he instead takes the bullet allowing jon to get through the two struggle and ives gets to his feet and the previously fallen soldier flees without a word volkov reaches out for a string but is eventually overpowered by jon who tosses him down into an eternal tube cat tries to keep things casual offering to lather saitor up with some sunscreen but her window to act is closing seeing her former self and max on their way back she can't handle it anymore pulling the gun crying that she can't let him think he won telling him that he'll be dying alone john gets the device while neil is busy getting some line ready cat asks what does he see now despair or anger she answers for him she's a vengeful [ __ ] that he's scarred on the outside and shows off her bullet wound and now he realizes too late this again is present-day cat whom he shot and everything and she shoots him and slides him off the sunscreen lube deck right off the side of the boat a distraught mehir informs the others that she killed him and uh oh they've got 10 seconds left to get this thing done a line drops down thanks to neil as the others all evacuate with seconds left he shrugs hoping things will go as they should and slams on the gas dragging the rope up with him the bomb sans algorithm explodes spotting ives and jon clinging on for dear life to the end of the rope all right they got the thing out of the thing or whatever hooray cat downs her drink staring at the approaching boat and does her majestic dive into the water previous cats seeing her also connecting back to her remembering this moment and longing for the freedom that that woman had turns out she was that woman and she did get that freedom after all alright she and mihir depart in their boat seeing that they are carrying saitor's body behind them don't want to have them potentially find a double i suppose john is confused as usual thinking that neil was inverted he's all oh yeah i changed halfway through thinking that they would need the help but there's more dangling threads how did they get the lock open wasn't me he shrugs ives grabs the algorithm and turns the gun on them remembering their pledge that anybody who saw it has to die he relents and disassembles it tasking them with hiding it and ending their own lives in their own way but still warns that he will track them down and kill them okay sure eyes you big softy knowing that they can't have contact with anyone they've established relationships with neil challenges john you're not even going to go back to london and check on cat in all business he shoots back no no too dangerous but neil's mission is yet to be complete and elects to go back in knowing that he's the only one who could have gotten the door open in time right ives agrees that he doesn't know a better locksmith than him and jon figures it out seeing the red string on his backpack remembering it also on the suited soldier on the other side of the door that saved his life now realizing that was neil inversely sacrificing himself and getting the door open cetalja he knows way more than he was ever letting on from the get-go and he was around even earlier than it might appear as it was also him that saved jon way back at the opera siege which also is today in fact big day showing us he has been quite a busy boy hopping around in time and illuminating there's a lot more complexity to their overall plan even though they just saved the world he can't leave anything to chance after all whatever happens happens proclaiming this an expression of the faith in the mechanics of the world but also isn't an excuse to do nothing fate john asks call it what you want neil concludes with a smile it's reality as we've seen throughout even though they are moving and changing events in time ultimately everything is as it is supposed to be however convoluted that is yeah one more major question remains who recruited neil in the future ah isn't it obvious by now it was you going on that he has a future in the past years ago for neil but years ahead for john he describes this is actually the end of a beautiful friendship but just the beginning for him obviously the whole operation is a temporal pincer ordered by jon in the future where have you been dude and neil walks off to his fate after this potentially earthbreaking event things went pretty much back to normal as neil recounts no one cares about the bomb that didn't go off catching back up with kat and max at a school priya is waiting in a car nearby clearly intending to take her out cat places a call which jon gets later popping in the back seat to her surprise he tells her it was never her job to tie up loosens it's his understanding now that they both have actually been working for him this whole time i'm the protagonist he boldly claims better tie up loose ends she sighs and he shoots her seeing cat and max holding hands and walking away together just to reiterate what's going on here john was actually the one behind this elaborate plan but doing so from the future manipulating the past as necessary and he creates this shadowy tenet organization at some point in the future to combat those trying to destroy the past which we are seeing the beginnings of here but of course gotta learn the whole thing piece by piece can't just dump all that at once on a dude you know and besides the less you know the better as we have seen time and time again a quite uplifting conclusion for things overall but i can't help but think of what was pretty much confirmed multiple times in the story what happened happened this means that everything we saw was already going to occur no matter what this also alarmingly must be the same for the dire situation in the future even though they stop the bomb it doesn't appear that they are actually able to prevent things from getting bad down the line because they have to for these events in the past to even happen so sure things are okay for the moment but the bleak future it appears is inescapable with that we've reached the conclusion of this explained video on tenet i can barely talk anymore so i'm just gonna wrap up with a reminder that you can send me requests for any movies or tv shows you'd like to see me explain my sending them my way on any of my social media accounts at foundflix what did you guys think of tenant and its ending are there more lingering questions you still have which nolan flick is your favorite let me know your thoughts down in the comments below make sure to like subscribe and follow thanks for watching found flicks see you next time

Channel: FoundFlix

Views: 1,567,344

Keywords: tenet 2020, tenet ending explained, tenet explained, ending explained, ending, explained, explanation, meaning, sator square, timeline, tenet, christopher nolan, trailer, clip, final scene, end scene, twist, spoiler, foundflix ending explained, foundflix

Id: Fv4kVX-B15o

Length: 39min 41sec (2381 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 16 2021