Sicario: Day of the Soldado’s Ending & Sequel Setup Explained

Sicario: Day of the Soldado is, if anything, bleaker than the first movie, and doubles-down with a distressing ending that teases more darkness to come in Sicario 3.

In Sicario 2, the series’ focus shifts from drugs to human trafficking. Following a domestic attack, the US government decrees the drug cartels as a terrorist threat and wants to wage a more traditional War on Drugs. Josh Brolin’s Matt Graver suggests pitting the various sides against each other in a civil war scenario similar to the Middle-East, with America stepping in once the battle’s already been fought. To do this, he puts together a team – including Benicio del Toro’s Alejandro Gillick – to kidnap the daughter of Carlos Reyes, leader of one of the cartels, intending to frame it as an act from a rival gang.

Related: Read Our Sicario: Day of the Soldado Review

This does not go to plan. Isabela Reyes figures out the double-bluff, and later the corrupt Mexican police lead an ambush on Matt, Alejandro and their squad; the cops are killed but Isabela escapes, with Alejandro set off after her while the rest return to the US border. Sicario 2 then pivots, with the very public fallout of the botched operation leading to the mission being called off and it commanded that the duo racing for the Mexican border must be burned. This creates an ethical debate for Matt, who brought both of them into the fray, and sets up a morally conflicted ending.

• This Page: What Really Happens In Sicario 2’s Ending
• Page 2: Alejandro’s Survival, Sicario 2’s Final Scene, & Sicario 3 Setup

What Happens To Matt?

When Alejandro actives his tracking beacon, initially intended to be used for a pickup but now a marker for assassination, Matt leads a task force to take out him and Isabela. However, during his attempt to cross the border as a Mexican migrant, Alejandro is identified by a new smuggler he crossed paths with earlier. He attempts to talk his way out, but winds up taken out into the desert where he’s shot in the head.

For Matt, this is both a relief and a horror. He was struggling with the command to kill Alejandro given the pair’s close working relationship and the fact he was the one who called upon the sicario in the first place, so this frees him of the killing task. However, it still sees his friend murdered, a loss which weighs heavily on him, to the point that when attacking the smugglers to reach Isabela, he takes her instead of killing her as instructed.

Across both Sicario and Soldado, Matt has been personified by his willingness to do what is necessary regardless of typical morality. The rules exist for the illusion of protection, but what he does exists above that. Indeed, he opens the movie saying he could pick off a suspect’s family one-by-one all day. Yet in seeing that callousness applied by others so close to home, he’s forced to check himself. In the final shot, the seeds of doubt are planted and he questions his very nature: is the sacrifice too much?

What Happens To Isabela?

Isabela Reyes has a similar change across her arc. She starts off as a dangerous teenager, fighting classmates and successfully threatening teachers, but the moment the protection of her kingpin father is gone she’s forced to recognize isolation and fend for herself. She’s in danger from everyone, and in Alejandro begins to see the human cost of her life of privilege. The world she inhabits in is unexpectedly fragile, especially with the US involvement, and safety is found elsewhere.

Watch: Our Sicario 2 Interview With Isabela Moner

After saving her at the end of the film, Matt says he’ll put her in witness protection. The act says more about his journey towards compassion, but also goes some way to summarise her ultimate powerlessness, changing hands as a commodity no less than the immigrants the cartels trade in.

What Happens To America’s War On Drugs?

The first Sicario made a big point about the questionable legality of the nevertheless Washington-approved inter-agency mission, with Emily Blunt’s Kate Mercer only involved because the CIA needed an FBI agent. Sicario 2 comes at the story from another angle – with Kate absent and Matt the lead, it’s one of knowledge – and in doing so has less concern for the public face… until it comes crashing down.

In Day of the Soldado, how the US is trying to silently influence the cartel power balance is revealed to the public through the botched mission. The President loses confidence and everything crumbles. It’s the realization of what Kate threatened at the end of Sicario, and highlights how fragile the brutish approach to international relations is the moment it’s outside of hushed conversations in dark rooms.

Page 2 of 2: Alejandro’s Survival, Sicario 2’s Final Scene, & Sicario 3 Setup

About The Author

Alex Leadbeater
(1121 Articles Published)

Screen Rant’s Managing Editor, Alex Leadbeater has been covering film online since 2012 and been a permanent fixture of SR since 2016. Based in London, he oversees a global news & features team based in NY, LA and beyond. You may have also seen/heard him on the Total Geekall podcast, unaffiliated YouTube channels, BBC Radio and CBC News.

Growing up in the English countryside on a mixture of Star Wars, The Simpsons and Aardman, Alex is a lifelong movie obsessive. Despite a brief jaunt in Mathematics at Durham University, film writing was always his calling. He’s covered a wide range of movies and TV shows – from digging out obscure MCU Easter eggs to diving deep into deeper meanings of arthouse fare – and has covered a litany of set visits, junkets and film festivals. He once asked Tom Cruise about his supposedly fake-butt in Valkyrie (he swore it was all real).

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