| “ | The world is changing. Truth is vanishing. War is coming. | ” |
–White Widow, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning | ||
Alanna Mitsopolis, referred to professionally as the White Widow, is a major character in the 2018 action/thriller film Mission: Impossible – Fallout. She is a well-known activist and philanthropist who secretly funds her work through illegal arms dealing and money laundering. She is the daughter of the late mysterious arms dealer Max Mitsopolis and the younger sister of former British Colonel Zola Mitsopolis. She covertly aids the CIA and Ethan Hunt and his IMF team in the capture and return of Solomon Lane to MI6.
Biography[]
Early Life[]
Alanna and her overprotective older brother Zola inherited the arms business from their late mother, Max. Max was a world-renowned arms dealer who kept her anonymity as a woman hidden behind the male-sounding name. Max crossed paths with IMF agent Ethan Hunt while working with a man known only as Job to acquire the IMF's Non-Official Cover operative list. Job was revealed to be Ethan's mentor, long-time IMF agent-turned-traitor Jim Phelps. Max briefly aided Ethan in setting up Phelps to be captured, but at the last minute attempted to turn Ethan over to Phelps in exchange for the NOC list. Phelps was defeated and the transfer of the list stopped. To keep from going to jail, she negotiated a deal with the IMF to provide them intel.
It's not clear if this was the turning point or if it occurred later, but at some point Max grew tired of the evils of the world she participated in and began to devote the money earned illegally to charitable causes. At her passing, Alanna took up the business as well as her mother's causes.
Mission: Impossible – Fallout[]
Criminals from the Eastern European underworld employ Alanna's organization to broker a deal with an unknown terrorist using the name John Lark for three weapons-grade plutonium cores. During an annual fundraiser for Alanna's charity at the Grand Palais in Paris, Ethan Hunt and CIA Special Agent August Walker intercept the man believed to be John Lark in order to replace him for the meeting with the White Widow. The man is killed by former MI6 agent Ilsa Faust to save Ethan's life.
Unable to create a mask of the man, Ethan assumes the Lark identity and meets with Alanna, hoping that they've never met in person. This proves to be true, but Ethan and Alanna learn that members of the Apostles, the remnants of the rogue Syndicate, are sent to kill them both and steal the plutonium. Ethan helps Alanna escape and continues impersonating Lark to acquire the plutonium. She provides a single core in good faith, but says her clients require the extraction of a political prisoner as the price for the two remaining cores. The prisoner is revealed to be Solomon Lane, the former MI6 agent who formed the Syndicate and whom Ethan and his IMF team captured two years earlier.
The extraction takes place during a prisoner transfer in which Ethan as Lark is expected to kill all members of the convoy per his reputation. Ethan devises another plan unbeknownst to Alanna or Walker. He knocks Lane's armored transport into the river to be extracted by the IMF. He then leads all players on a wild chase through Paris, including Ilsa, who has been hired by MI6 to kill Lane as a means to prove her loyalty and earn her way back in.
Ethan meets with Alanna at the Quai de Seine in Paris after getting free with Lane. She asks him to bring Lane to London and to capture Ilsa and deliver her as well, they have made a deal by delivering a kiss.
Walker is revealed to be the true Lark and setting Ethan up as Lark to the IMF and the CIA. Escaping from a IMF safehouse in London, Ethan chases Lark to the Tate Modern Museum before losing him and Lane with aid by the Apostles. Lark and Lane escape to Kashmir to enact Lark's ultimate plan: detonate two nuclear devices and contaminate a water supply that serves nearly a third of the world's population.
Ethan, Ilsa, and the IMF manage to thwart the attack, kill Lark, and capture Lane once more. The CIA employs Alanna as a broker to return Lane to MI6 to face justice and exonerate Ilsa. The agency plans to maintain the relationship with Alanna's organization.
Mission Impossible - Dead Reckoning[]
Alanna is shown to have hired Grace to steal one of the two keys required to access the original source code of The Entity, planning to use it as leverage to obtain a favorable deal from any of the world powers seeking control over the AI. However, when Ethan and Ilsa intercept a meeting between the Widow and Gabriel at a party in Rome, Ethan realizes that Alanna is in fact afraid of the Entity's power and therefore is unwilling to keep the key for herself.
Before leaving, Gabriel informs Alanna that he expects to see her on a train traveling through the Alps in three hours, whereupon she will hand over Grace's key to him. Despite Ethan warning her that she cannot trust the Entity's promises, Alanna's fears get the better of her and she agrees to honor the deal. Ethan and Ilsa escape while Grace steals her key back from Zola and flees from the party.
In a last-ditch effort to recover Gabriel's key, Ethan has a Latex Mask of Alanna's face made and instructs Grace to wear it along with a voice changer. She boards the train in secret and waits for the real Alanna to enter her cabin, before tranquilizing her and taking her place at the exchange. It is revealed that the mystery buyer who had originally sought out Alanna to steal the key is in fact Eugene Kittridge, Director of IMF. He reminds "Alanna" that she is expected to honor the IMF's longstanding deal with her family - protect the IMF's interests worldwide or fact arrest and conviction.
Grace, still disguised as Alanna, tricks Kittridge into giving her the key and departs just as the real Alanna arrives, still woozy from the tranquilizer. She is last seen sitting in a chair next to Kittridge and sipping from a glass of water, recuperating before she is taken away to escape from the train which was blown up by Gabriel.
Characteristics[]
Personality[]
Alanna is much like her mother Max: intelligent, witty, playful, and flirty.
Abilities[]
Alanna uses a balisong (butterfly knife) hidden under her dress. She was a formidable fighter and an expert arms dealer internationally, and was able to lead her own henchmen at her own expertise.
Gallery[]
Behind the Scenes[]
The White Widow is portrayed by British actress Vanessa Kirby in Mission: Impossible – Fallout, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning and Mission: Impossible 8.
Appearances[]
Mission: Impossible – Fallout (First appearance)- Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning
- Mission: Impossible 8
Trivia[]
- She and Zola are the only Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning villains to return from a previous movie.
- Alanna never learned Ethan's real name as she stills calls him "John Lark" during their encounter at the party in Dead Reckoning.
- It's also likely she does indeed know but simply just continues to refer to him as such as a form of teasing Ethan considering how vast her intel and connections are.
- It is also possible Alanna and Ethan have slept together, as it was revealed in Dead Reckoning that she agreed to have Ethan released and cleared, though it is “unclear” how she agreed to do that.