'Black Bag' Movie Ending Explained: What Does Severus Symbolize?

Black Bag’s ending ultimately revealed the identity of the mole inside MI6, the rat Agent George Woodhouse had been looking for since the beginning of the film. But even though this plotline seems to be the film’s central conflict, I don’t think Steven Soderbergh’s movie was just about the mole or agency’s secret weapon, Severus. The running theme of the film was adultery, where 3 out of 5 special agents suspected of being the rat were unfaithful to their partners. The irony here is that the one who wasn’t cheating on his partner was actually the one who had stolen Severus, a Stuxnet polymorph developed by the MI6 that could melt down a nuclear reactor core. At one point in the film, George Woodhouse asked his senior, Arthur Stieglitz, why on earth the SIS would create such a weapon of mass destruction, to which he simply replied, Because they could. Well, cheating is kind of similar: you can be unfaithful to your partner, but that doesn’t mean you ought to.

Spoiler Alert

So, back to business, newly promoted Col. James Stokes, the newly promoted agent, was the one who stole Severus because he wanted to trigger an attack on Russian soil, causing political unrest and chaos in the hostile country. Arthur and James planned a secret operation where they handed over a physical copy of Severus to a dissident Russian general named Vadim Pavlichuk and his right-hand lieutenant, Andrei Kulikov, who were working with a network of exiled militarists to overthrow the current Russian regime due to their mismanagement of the war. Yes, they didn’t like the fact that their country was needlessly attacking its neighboring states, and in order to stop them from committing further war crimes, Vadim decided to sacrifice a few innocent lives through the nuclear reactor meltdown. But yes, George and his wife, Kathryn, finally caught the culprit. Before Vadim and Andrei could do any damage, Kathryn reported their activities to the CIA, who sent a drone to blow them up while they were en route to Mexico. Meanwhile, Kathryn informed Arthur that she knew all about his secret operation, and it would be in his best interests to close it down before it cost him his job and he was executed for treason. And last but not least, George, aware of James’ betrayal, invited him to his house along with 3 other suspects, where he played another game with them, forcing James to finally confess to his crimes while being recorded on a hidden camera. James tried to shoot George, but the gun Kathryn had put on the table was fake. But because James tried to pull a trigger on a fellow agent, it gave Kathryn all the reason in the world to shoot the traitor down and kill him on the spot.

The secret weapon in the film itself is a direct reference to the Roman emperor Severus Alexander, who was killed by his own army because he tried to bribe the enemy forces to make them surrender. It was similar to what James did in the film, as he shared his company’s secret with the general of a hostile country and, therefore, in the end, was shot dead by an agent of his own country. But that’s not all. The way Severus malware worked also tells a lot about the characters in the film. Each of the five suspects whom George had been investigating had been hiding something or the other. For example, Freddie Smalls and his wife, Clarissa Dubose, were both having affairs outside their marriages, but whenever they asked their partner where they had been and with whom, they would often refuse to share the details because, in their chain of work, everything has to be confidential. They would use the “black bag” to hide their adultery and bury the truth, allowing them the benefit of denying anything and everything that could be held against them.

Being an agent gave these people an excuse to lie to their partner’s face, like Freddie, who was sleeping with the agency’s psychiatrist, Dr. Zoe Vaughan, while she was still in a relationship with James, the traitor. Even George’s father, who was a former spy, cheated on his mother multiple times and was never caught because of his profession until his son went on to become a better agent than his old man and exposed him in front of everyone. I believe all these lies that these agents had been telling to each other symbolized the polymorph, which, as soon as it came out of the “black bag,” caused an emotional meltdown, destroying everything the person held dear. For example, Clarissa knew that her husband was cheating on her, but she couldn’t confront him because Freddie could have easily denied the fact, something he tried to do during the dinner night at George and Kathryn’s place. It wasn’t until George opened his black box and exposed him in front of his wife, telling Clarissa the exact time and location when Freddie went to meet his mistress. George didn’t know the mistress’ name at that point, but Severus had already done the damage. Clarissa lost control of herself and stabbed Freddie in the hand.

As Freddie correctly stated, half an agent’s life is in the black box, which makes it extremely difficult for their partners or closed ones to trust them. And this is one of the reasons George viewed everyone with suspicion, even his wife, because most of the time, he wasn’t sure if the people were lying due to their professional obligations or their own personal reasons. When George found the movie ticket in their bedroom’s trash can, he wasn’t able to confront his wife about it, likely because he didn’t want to put her in a difficult spot, or maybe because he believed that if she really had stolen the weapon, then she would make up an excuse and lie to his face. This piece of evidence was planted by James to sow a seed of doubt between the perfect couple, as he knew that George, being an agent himself, wouldn’t be able to confront Kathryn, and would go on investigating her, and he went on spying on his wife by hacking an agency satellite, falling straight into James’ trap. 

It wasn’t just the lies that the agents had stuffed into their black bags, but also their past trauma, emotional stress, and their fears. At the beginning of the film, George commented on his wife, telling her that it was boring how much she thought about money, possibly suggesting that Kathryn grew up in poverty or around a greedy mother. Money was one of the reasons why George started suspecting his wife in the first place. Even when she had a session with Zoe, the agency psychiatrist brought up how Kathryn used to panic over money, to which Kathryn quickly retorted that she wouldn’t end up like her mother. Now we really don’t know what exactly happened to or with Kathryn’s mother, but it could be speculated that her inclination towards money has something to do with her past or her mother, which she had refused to share with anyone, even her husband, and possibly hid it in the black bag so she didn’t have to ever confront her past. But no matter how much she tried to suppress her trauma, it would eventually come out, sometimes in the moment when she would least expect it, for example, in the closing scene of the film.

In Black Bag’s ending, when the couple was going to make love, all Kathryn was thinking about was the seven million pounds James had deposited in an offshore Swiss account to frame Kathryn as a double agent. Well, we don’t know if George is ever going to cash out that money or keep it saved for their retirement, but Kathryn will never be able to stop thinking about it, not until she has it in her possession. I’m not saying that this is going to have an effect on their marriage, but it is indeed going to cause some worry to Kathryn, who, because of the horrors in her mind, has difficulty finding sound sleep without resorting to drugs. This is to say that a black bag isn’t a solution to one’s troubles but an escape. They can hide their secrets in it for the time being, but it will come out sooner or later.