Argylle‘s very first trailer promised a huge surprise, and the movie delivered on that twist. We got to meet the real Agent Argylle and learn their relationship to spy author Elly Conway’s fictional secret agent. But the movie had another big question to answer, one fans of director Matthew Vaughn wanted to know: does Argylle have any connections to Vaughn’s Kingsman franchise? The answer to that was one part o a much bigger mystery.
What’s Argylle‘s Big Secret? Who Is the Real Agent Argylle?
How could meek espionage author Elly Conway predict real-world events in her novels about a stylish super spy named Argylle? Why did a real evil spy agency start hunting her down? And why did she suddenly start seeing visions of her character when her life was endangered? Because she was the real Agent Argylle.
Bryce Dallas Howard’s character was actually Rachel R. Kylle, a world-class spy who developed amnesia after an accident five years earlier. Her superiors at the secret organization Division decided to use her condition for their own purposes. They brainwashed Rachel into believing she was their daughter “Elly.” They then pushed her to write spy stories as a way to secretly unlock Agent Kylle’s repressed memories. It worked until Elly’s fourth and fifth novels threatened to reveal the agency’s secrets. That’s when they decided to kill her. However, her former partner and the love of her life, Sam Rockwell’s Aiden, kept Elly alive.
Together with an unexpected assist from Keira (Ariana Debose), another spy who had been believed dead the whole time, they brought down Division for good, blowing up the organization’s secret oil tanker base. However, that wasn’t the end of Elly-Rachel’s story.
What Happened At the End of Argylle?
With the real Division eliminated, author Elly Conway decided to also end her Argylle book series the same way. At a book signing for her fifth and final novel, we learned her fictional characters rode off into the sun on a speedboat just as Rachel, Aiden, and Keira actually had.
It was a fitting end for everyone, both real and fictional. Only it wasn’t the end because the film had one last shocking surprise for Elly-Rachel. Turns out her book character Argylle wasn’t a character at all. He was a real person—with a Southern accent and Jheri curl rather than a British accent and flat-top, but also played by Henry Cavill—sitting in the audience. And the real Argylle figured Elly would want to meet him.
We didn’t get to see that encounter, but we did learn a more about him after the movie ended. That’s also when we learned Argylle is part of a bigger cinematic universe.
Does Argylle Have an End-Credits Scene? Does Argylle Connect to the Kingsman Franchise?
A mid-credits scene immediately established that Vaughn’s Argylle takes place in the same cinematic universe as his Kingsman franchise. The 20-year-old flashback opened on an English tavern in the countryside called The King’s Man.
The scene centers on a young English man (played by Louis Partridge) who begins speaking in an obvious code with the bartender. After establishing their shared connection to the secret service organization, the tavern owner says the young man—who identifies himself as Aubrey Argylle—must be in real trouble if someone has sent him to the bar. The tavern owner then hands young Aubrey a box containing both a gun and silencer.
The scene firmly sets Argylle in the Kingsman world, but it raises many questions. Why was young Aubrey in trouble at all? Was he a member of the Kingsman? Is he still with the organization? Did he also work with, for, or even against Rachel Kylle’s Division? How do the two know each other? Why did she subconsciously make Aubrey the hero of her novels but not remember him when she regained her memories? And was did the English Argylle show up to her book signing with a terrible Southern American accent and out-of-date hairstyle? Was that merely a one-day cover? Or is that disguise a sign he’s currently in trouble and in hiding? Or was that his way of saying he’s associated with the Kentucky-based Statesman introduced in Kingsman: The Golden Circle?
But the biggest question of all is how will we get any of those answers? Will Vaughn continue Aubrey and Elly’s story in an Argylle sequel or a Kingsman movie? What about both?
Will Argylle Have a Sequel?
Even before its mid-credits scene, the end of Argylle teased a second film and maybe a whole series of them. It showed a poster for Elly’s novel but labeled it “Book 1,” indicating we’ll get another entry. The fact she published five novels suggests we could get a lot more, too.
But if that does happen, will the next chapter take place under the Argylle banner or as a new installment in the Kingsman franchise? Even if we get a second Argylle film from Universal, it’s possible the film’s characters could also appear in a 20th Century Kingsman film or vice versa, especially since Cavill’s real Aubrey Argylle was once part of the secret service group in some way. (We’ll let the studios figure out how that will work.)
What do we think will happen? Your guess is as good as ours. That is unless you’re an author who’s really a secret spy suffering form amnesia. Then you probably know a lot more than you realize.
