Diksha Sundriyal
Apple TV+’s ‘Ghosted’ follows the story of Sadie and Cole. After spending a great day together, Cole believes that Sadie might be the one. However, despite the barrage of texts he sends her, she doesn’t reply. His sister says that he has been ghosted, but Cole believes otherwise. When he discovers that Sadie is in London, he packs his bags and flies there to surprise her.
Instead of meeting Sadie, Cole is kidnapped and taken to an unknown location, where some men torture him. They call him the Taxman and ask him for the passcode to Aztec. Cole has no idea what they’re talking about until Sadie arrives and saves the day. Here’s what Cole discovers about Aztec and its passcode.
Aztec: A Biochemical Threat
When Cole is kidnapped, he is tortured by the men who think he has the passcode. They are hired by Leveque, an ex-French intelligence, who went rogue and now sells arms and other illegal things to the highest bidder. He got hold of Aztec, which is secured inside a case that needs a password to open up. But what is Aztec, and why is Leveque going to such lengths to get it?
Sadie’s colleague and ex-boyfriend, Marco, reveals that Aztec is a biochemical weapon. It is deadly enough to wipe out the Eastern Seaboard. It was developed by a scientist named Horvath. The only thing revealed about him is that he was “obsessed with the Aztec’s use of human sacrifice,” which explains why he called his creation Aztec.
The weapon was stolen from the US government, and Sadie was sent to London to get it back. Because the weapon couldn’t be used without the passcode, Leveque’s men set a trap to capture the Taxman, which is when they accidentally got Cole.
What is the Passcode?
Even though Leveque had Aztec, the weapon was secured inside a case that couldn’t be opened without a password. He sent his operative, Elena, to get it. She figured it out, but before she could send it to Leveque, Sadie found and killed her. Elena destroyed the password in the skirmish, so even Sadie wouldn’t know what it was. Sadie learns that the passcode is a DNA encryption, meaning it is the entire genetic sequence of a living organism.
Considering that the man who made it was a scientist, it could be anything, from a plant to an animal, which means there are millions of possibilities but only one correct answer. To make it more secure, the lock is divided into four parts. Only after all the correct sequences have been entered will the lock open.
At the beginning of the film, Sadie talks about how Elena’s apartment is just like hers. It was cold and empty, except that Elena had a houseplant while Sadie didn’t even have that. This leads her to the farmer’s market, where she meets Cole. Later, when Cole is at the CIA’s office, he sees the picture of the houseplant in Elena’s apartment. He instantly recognizes it. It is amaranth, a crop that is used for various purposes. The interesting thing is that it was used in rituals by the Aztecs.
Sadie realizes that the houseplant doesn’t belong to Elena. It hadn’t made sense to her before because she and Elena were so similar. They were always away from home due to work and couldn’t care for a houseplant. But the plant in Elena’s house was in good health, which means it couldn’t have been hers. She must have stolen it from Horvath, knowing the plant was the answer they were all looking for. This means that the genetic sequence of amaranth is the passcode to the case that holds Aztec.
Because Sadie killed Elena, who had figured out the passcode, Leveque believed that the CIA operative would have gotten the answer from his employer. This makes Sadie, known as the Taxman to her enemies, the only person to know the answer. However, they don’t know that Elena destroyed the password before she was killed, which turns the scales in Sadie’s favor. She uses this to keep herself and Cole alive, and later when she knows the passcode, she uses it to lure out Leveque, get Aztec, and save the world.
Read More: Ghosted Ending, Explained
