Netflix’s Carry-On: What’s in the Bag?

Netflix’s ‘Carry-On’ follows the story of a TSA agent who finds himself in a very precarious situation. Ethan Kopek wishes for a promotion, especially after his girlfriend gets pregnant and they have a kid to consider in the future. But the day he takes the initiative in his job, he lands himself in a position where he has to decide whether he values hundreds of lives over his girlfriend and unborn child. A mysterious villain, identified simply as the Traveler, tells him to let a suspicious bag pass through the security check. If he doesn’t do it, his girlfriend, Nora, will be shot dead, and that’d just be the beginning. Considering that he has to choose between hell and high water, Ethan starts to wonder why the bag is so important and what’s in it that would allow him to be boarded on a plane. SPOILERS AHEAD

The Bag Has a Dangerous Weapon That Could Kill Hundreds of People

At the beginning of the film, we see the Traveler visit a criminal who tells him that the bag is ready and that it was pretty difficult to get it through all the border checks and whatnot. He receives the money for his services, but seconds later, he is killed by a mysterious thing that acts pretty fast. The Traveler then destroys the whole facility and leaves with the bag. It is this same bag that he tries to get through the security by holding Nora at gunpoint. The bag contains the very thing that also killed the criminal: Novichok. Novichok is a nerve agent known for its notorious Russian origins. It is a deadly chemical that has no antidote and kills its victims within minutes of exposure. The death itself is pretty brutal, and we get the first glimpse of the weapon in action when the Traveler kills the Russian who procured the thing for him.

The bag contains the same nerve agent, but it is packed inside a mechanism that allows it to be released remotely, the control of which is in the Traveler’s phone. The plan is to get the bag on the plane, but it must be in the overhead compartments because if it is checked in, then it will go through the general security check, which the Traveler cannot control because all of it happens via machines. He can, however, control the actions of a human, which is why the bag is small enough to be taken as a carry-on, and that’s where threatening a TSA agent like Ethan comes into the picture. Once the bag is on the plane, the Traveler intends to activate it minutes after its take off. Once the gas is released, every single passenger on the plane will die, including the actual target.

The reason behind using Novichok is to make it look like an attack from the Russians, which would force the American Congress to consider a bill that would be very lucrative for a lot of people who don’t care how many innocent people have to be killed for it. When Ethan realizes what the Traveler is trying to do, he finds a window to switch the bags. He transfers the Novichok with its entire mechanism to another, slightly bigger bag, which wouldn’t fit into the overhead compartments on the plane and would have to be sent to check-in. He is also clever enough to pick a bag that has already been checked in, which would prevent the Traveler from becoming anxious about security and making the bomb go off prematurely. Through this, Ethan finds a way to manually stop the bomb from going off and saves the day.

Read More: Carry-On Ending, Explained: Why did Traveler Want to Kill Grace Turner?