Canary Black Ending, Explained: Who is Kali? What Happens to Avery?

The action thriller ‘Canary Black’ ends with Agent Avery Graves facing her husband’s kidnapper as a CIA manhunt tries to locate her before the Canary Black program is launched. However, things take a turn when the protagonist is faced with a shocking truth about her husband that leaves her questioning the legitimacy of their marriage. To complicate matters further, the actual Canary Black program is revealed to be far deadlier than its original purpose, making her efforts to keep it from falling into the wrong hands that much more critical. It culminates in a showdown where Avery utilizes all her combat expertise to take down the terrorist cell organization and rectify her mistakes with help from a loved one. SPOILERS AHEAD.

Canary Black Plot Synopsis

Avery Graves, an accomplished CIA Agent with a faultless record, keeps her espionage roots hidden from her loving husband, David Brooks, who works in the logistics and finance department of Doctors Without Frontiers. The pair live in Zagreb, Croatia, but Avery often finds herself traveling across the globe in accordance with her job requirements. The story starts with Avery infiltrating a corporate building in Tokyo, Japan, where she gets her hands on a top-secret file containing information that mentions an assassin named Kali. She hands it over to her station chief, Jarvis Hedlund, at their secret CIA office in Zagreb. However, after returning home, Avery’s life is upended when she finds out her husband has been kidnapped.

The protagonist is swiftly contacted by an unknown number who tasks her with retrieving a secret program file known as the Canary Black from a detainee of the CIA named Laszlo Stoica in exchange for the safety and return of her husband. Although hesitant, Avery begins her quest to find the file by taking a trip to the CIA Black Site, where the file is supposed to be located. There, the agent meets up with Carter Maxfield, another field operative responsible for handling Stoica’s case. Avery crafts a clever ruse through which she interrogates the man and tries finding the file by plucking his tooth, which is where Canary Black is supposedly stored. She does not find it and becomes the target of an internal CIA manhunt.

After escaping, Avery slowly learns the truth behind the Canary Black file and why it is a highly sought-after commodity. It reportedly contains a list of blackmail material on all members of the United States government, which foreign nations and rogue organizations may use to gain the upper hand in security matters in the future. Hoping to gain some support, Avery contacts Jarvis, as he is the only one who believes that she is not a traitor. Unfortunately, Jarvis dupes her and gets her arrested, believing it is the best course of action. A fight breaks out between the terrorist faction and the CIA that inadvertently leads to Avery’s release. She subsequently hunts down the Canary Black file but is captured by the kidnappers, who get their hands on the file.

Canary Black Ending: What is Canary Black? Who Created It?

At the heart of ‘Canary Black’ lies the titular program, Canary Black, which becomes a high-priority target for all the factions involved in the story. Although it is initially advertised as a kompromat with highly sensitive material that might be used as pressure points on high-ranking United States officials, it is a much more potent digital threat. It contains a deadly virus that can target the internet infrastructure in specific countries and completely shut down the grid in those regions, essentially sending those places back into the dark ages. Unfortunately, it also has a lot of political implications as the creators of the program are none other than the CIA and the United States.

Following the abduction of her husband, Avery is forced to retrieve the secret program file for the kidnappers. Fearing that David might not make it otherwise, she jumps through several hurdles and even breaks her ties with her own agency, compromising her allegiances to ensure that the file is found and David’s life spared. As an experienced field operative, she still tries to learn more about it, fearing that it might be hazardous to hand it to the abductors foolishly. So, throughout the search process, Avery tries her best to stay ahead of the terrorist organization and make sure she is not committing treason just for the sake of it. Still, it eventually ends up in their hands.

As it turns out, David’s kidnap was masterminded by none other than Konrad Breznov, the head of the National Security Service. Although he holds a prestigious position by daylight, he runs the terrorist cell by night. After the file and Avery are brought in, Breznov utilizes Canary Black as leverage to extract billions of dollars from nations around the world. He even uses the virus on Singapore, effectively taking it out of the loop to demonstrate that he wields the virus’ power and that the other nations have to bow down to him. Thus, the might of the Canary Black program becomes clear in the final portions of the film as the CIA races to locate Avery and stop things from hurtling into further chaos.

Is Breznov Dead? What Happens to Canary Black?

After being subdued and wheeled into the secret lair where Breznov runs his terrorist group, Avery wakes up to a nightmare scenario as she remains chained while her husband is brought in a bloodied state. Breznov orders his people to finish the business by killing both her and David and walks out of the place. However, this allows the married couple the slimmest of opportunities to break out and stage an escape by killing their captors. The pair start hunting down Breznov within the compound, turning the whole facility upside down as a gunfight breaks out. Eventually, Avery chases Breznov and one of his subordinates upstairs into the hotel, where she finally gets a shot off on him. In the ensuing scuffle, the CIA agent somehow manages to stab Breznov with a knife, thereby killing him.

Although Brezhnev was a significant threat, Avery’s task remains incomplete as his subordinate launched the virus on the major superpower nations before he died. As soon as Avery takes care of Breznov, she runs for the laptop and stops the Canary Black virus in its tracks. Matters come close to the wire as she cancels the upload just as the progress bar reaches completion. Despite being responsible for allowing the destructive program to land in a dangerous group’s hands, Avery atones for her mistakes by ensuring that the Canary Black did not seed any further devastation on other countries. By taking out Breznov and the virus, she basically stopped the central threats and rescued her husband from certain death.

Who is Kali? Does He Die?

One of the biggest twists in ‘Canary Black’ involves the identity of Avery’s husband, David Brooks. It is revealed in the final moments that her husband was not the person he purported to be and certainly did not work for the Doctors Without Frontiers as she thought all this time. In fact, there were secrets in their relationship on both ends as Avery kept her own CIA identity hidden from him, and he never revealed the truth about who he was. During the escape attempt at Breznov’s headquarters, Avery realizes that David is a much better fighter than he lets on. When the CIA agent confronts him about it, he finally reveals that he is, in fact, the assassin Kali, who Avery had been collecting intel about for a while.

During the conversation, Avery learns that the reason David was kidnapped and she was tasked with retrieving Canary Black was because her husband was the one who told Breznov about the secret program file. As David was at risk of being killed, it was his only leverage to escape from Breznov. However, it later became the reason why Breznov hunted down Avery and her husband. The revelation stuns Avery, who starts questioning whether anything she had with David was actually real in the first place or all part of a scam. David reassures her that the important parts are real, which include their marriage and love for one another. He insists that there was no fabrication in their relationship, but Avery is too hurt to listen to him.

The protagonist orders David to help her but states that she will be the one to take down Breznov once and for all. After she kills him and stops Canary Black in its tracks, David reunites with her, and they have a frank discussion about their marriage while they wait for the CIA to find them. As Avery is unable to process his betrayal, she tells him that their relationship is over and hands him her engagement ring. David pleads with her not to give up as he genuinely believes their love can blossom despite the secrets they have kept. Ultimately, nothing fruitful comes out of it as the CIA surrounds the pair, and David has to make a quick escape via a window and jump into a canal. Later, Avery finds his engagement ring on a bridge, signifying that he is alive and possibly still in love with her.

Who is Elizabeth Mills? Will Avery Join MC6?

In the end, Avery is brought back into the CIA facility as Deputy Director Nathan Evans grills her about her role in the release of Canary Black and how things nearly resulted in an all-out war because of her recklessness. There is a slight grudge between Avery and Evans because earlier in the narrative, the CIA agent tortured Evans until she got her hands on the location of the Canary Black file. As a result, Evans means to punish her in any way he can for putting the agency at risk and jeopardizing its security. However, his nefarious plans are stopped midway through the conversation as Avery headbutts him when he tries to break two of her fingers. Subsequently, the pair have to relax their hostilities as a mysterious woman named Elizabeth Mills enters the fold.

She tells Evans to head out of the room while the deputy director gets a call from the President of the United States himself. Mills offers Avery a lucrative opportunity by stating that she wants the protagonist to work for a new agency known as MC6. She explains that it is a newly instated organization meant to only respond to the most critical missions. The possible reason for Mills to hire Avery could be the protagonist’s proven track record of dealing with sensitive missions requiring a high degree of out-of-the-box thinking. Also, given that Avery has already burned several bridges with the CIA during the Canary Black mission, it might be her only chance to do something worthwhile. Whether she does or not is likely to be explored in a sequel.