Extraterrestrial monsters, time travel, and one very long day. "Edge of Tomorrow" has
a deceptively complex story and an even more complicated ending. Here's what it all means.
Understanding the ending of "Edge of Tomorrow" requires you to pay pretty close attention from
the beginning, because what the Mimics are doing gets explained pretty early on, and it
goes by fast. According to Dr. Carter, a Mimic biologist, the Mimics are really like one giant,
interconnected organism. The larger "Alpha" Mimics act as the central nervous system and command
the Mimic drones. These high-ranking Alphas then return information to be processed by the central
"Omega" Mimic. Each time an Alpha dies, the Omega rolls the clock back twenty-four hours,
keeping all of their collective knowledge intact and enabling the
Mimics to adjust their strategies in order to gain a definitive victory.
While the Alphas seem to be the decision-makers of the Mimics, dictating the actions of the
drones and determining their strategy, Carter hypothesizes that since the Omega essentially
functions as the brain of the Mimics, the only way to stop the invasion is to destroy it. The problem
is that thanks to their powers, the Mimics know about the military's biggest weakness,
and they have a lot more experience than Cage and Vrataski in using their time loop
abilities to their advantage, so they're pretty adept at keeping the Omega safe and hidden.
There's a whole juicy prequel just waiting to be made in the story of Rita Vrataski at the Battle
of Verdun, which we hear about in bits and pieces but never see. From what we learn at the beginning
of the film, the human battle against the Mimics dragged on for five years before the United
Defense Force finally claimed their first victory. The offensive was led by Sergeant Vrataski,
who was later nicknamed "The Angel of Verdun." The popular version of the story is that Rita led the
UDF troops to victory due to her abilities as an exceptional soldier, but the truth is,
she had another advantage that no one knew about: She was living in a time loop.
The first time Vrataski fought the Battle of Verdun, she was killed. But similar to what would
later happen to Cage, when Rita died, she also managed to take an Alpha with her, and their blood
mingled together as they both died. But instead of staying dead, Rita woke up a day before Verdun.
She lived out that battle over and over, gaining a bit more ground each time before she died.
After several resets, Rita started experiencing visions of the Omega, and she attempted to
interpret them in order to destroy the brain and defeat the Mimics once and for all. But in the
course of finally leading the UDF to victory over the Mimics, she was badly injured and received a
blood transfusion. Without the Mimic blood, she lost both the looping ability and the visions.
The first time Cage was dropped into the middle of the battle in France, he had no idea what he
was doing. He didn't even know how to turn off the safety on his gun. Yet he managed to survive
through sheer luck. However, Cage eventually wound up alone and on his back, surrounded by Mimics,
including a giant, blue-tinged Alpha. In desperation, Cage grabbed for a UDF incendiary
device lying beside him on the ground and fired it off right as the Alpha lunged for him.
While the resulting explosion was powerful enough to blow up the Alpha, it killed him as well. As
Cage died, the blood of the Alpha dripped into his open wounds, passing along its link to the
Omega and giving Cage the same time traveling ability the Alphas have. As with the Alphas, his
consciousness was knocked back twenty-four hours in time. Since the invasion had taken place in the
morning, he woke up on the preceding morning when he first arrived at the Heathrow military base.
"When you killed that Alpha you inadvertently entered the enemy's nervous system."
Once Cage and Vrataski start working together, Rita preps Cage for what to
expect: He'll keep looping over and over, and eventually start experiencing visions of the
Omega. When that happens, the two of them can use Cage's visions to locate the Omega and destroy it.
When Cage's visions do start, he's able to use architectural clues to narrow the
Omega's location to a dam in Germany. Cage and Vrataski spend countless loops attempting to get
from the beach in France to the dam in Germany, but once Cage finally reaches his destination,
he's horrified to realize that the Omega isn't there after all. It turns out that
his visions weren't a glimpse into the Omega's consciousness but rather
a carefully laid trap. The Omega showed him exactly what it wanted him to see.
Cage is greeted by an Alpha and a drone, with the Omega nowhere to be found. While previous
Mimics have killed Cage the instant they get a chance, these Mimics seem
to have something else in mind. Instead of ripping him apart, the Alpha wounds Cage,
giving him a deep gash that bleeds profusely. Cage realizes that this is the Mimics' true plan,
to lure him away from his allies and then steal back the power kept in his blood.
Although the visions of the dam in Germany proved to be a red herring, the Omega was still hunkered
down in Europe, just in a different country. After Cage and Vrataski stopped relying on his visions
to lead them where they needed to go, they managed to locate the Omega through a different method,
using the direct link between the Omega and the Alphas to pinpoint its location.
Ultimately, the real Omega is located deep beneath the Louvre in Paris, France. When Cage, Vrataski,
and the rogue J-Squad arrive at the famous museum, they discover that the area is flooded by the
Seine River, with the Omega located underwater. The entire region is in disarray following the
Mimic attacks on Paris and the resulting floods. So while normally there's no water underneath
the Louvre, in this decimated world, Cage has to swim the final distance down to the Omega.
After realizing that the visions are not a roadmap to the Mimics' greatest weakness,
Cage and Vrataski are forced to re-evaluate their strategy to destroy the Omega. They
decide instead to resort to a piece of technology Carter started developing when
Rita was the one caught in the loop. Carter was never able to complete this transponder,
since Vrataski lost the ability to loop before they could test it on her,
and Carter subsequently lost his job and had his research confiscated by the UDF.
After getting fired, it appeared that Carter tried making a new transponder,
but he told Vrataski it didn't work. So instead, they had to acquire Carter's original device,
which was kept in a safe in General Brigham's office. While the mechanics of
the transponder are left a bit fuzzy, it works by making contact with the blood of an Alpha,
through which it establishes a link to the Omega and determines the creature's location.
Since Cage's blood has the same properties as that of an Alpha, Vrataski was able to
use the transponder on Cage, which is how they determine that the Omega is in Paris.
According to Vrataski, the only rule Cage must abide by while he loops is
that if he's injured, he has to make sure he dies.
"This is the only rule: You get injured on the field, you better make sure you die."
She tells him that the way she lost the looping ability was through a blood transfusion,
causing her to conclude that blood is the key to the ability.
It's never clear exactly how much blood Cage could afford to lose while still holding onto
his ability to reset. Based on his other injuries throughout the film, he could definitely spare at
least a pint or two without risking his link with the Omega, and it's unlikely that a transfusion
would've replaced every drop. So it seems most likely that while some of the Alpha's blood would
remain in his body, a transfusion would dilute it to the point where the Mimic link was severed.
After receiving a blood transfusion following his theft of Dr. Carter's transponder from General
Brigham's office, Cage and Vrataski realize they're all out of resets. That evening is their
very last chance to find the Omega and prevent the UDF invasion in France. The invasion is in
reality a trap set by the Mimics that will result in the ultimate and absolute defeat
of humanity. Knowing they won't get another opportunity, they enlist the help of J-Squad.
They fly to Paris, where the area around the Louvre is completely overrun with Mimics,
and all of J-Squad winds up sacrificing themselves in their quest to get Cage
and Vrataski inside. Once they've finally made it in, Vrataski offers
to provide a distraction that will allow Cage to cover the remaining distance to the Omega.
They both know that neither one of them has any hope of making it out alive. As an Alpha
kills Vrataski, Cage gets to the edge of the water covering the Omega and begins to swim down to it,
holding a belt of grenades. The Alpha follows him and stabs him through the chest,
but before Cage dies, he pulls the pins of the grenades and drops them down to the Omega.
As the Omega dies, it attempts to restart the day again. But it would seem that the
Omega can't reset itself, and instead of giving the Mimics a do-over,
it transmits its own death back twenty-four hours. This has the
effect of killing all of the Mimics a day before the Omega itself was killed.
Throughout the movie, Cage and Vrataski know that if he receives a blood transfusion, he'll lose the
reset ability, which is why they ensure that he dies each time they don't complete their goal.
So when he and Rita get into a car accident following their theft of the transponder from
Brigham's office and Cage is given a transfusion, they both realize they're on their last life.
But after the destruction of the Omega, Cage wakes up again. Apparently, Cage held onto
life just long enough to get bathed in the Omega's blood when the grenades went off,
giving him the reset ability again. Having that blood in his system when he died meant
that when the Omega attempted to reset the day, Cage was reset too. However, unlike the Mimics,
Cage's life wasn't dependent on the Omega. So while the Omega's attempted reset resulted
in the deaths of all the Mimics, Cage wasn't affected, and got one last life.
By the end of "Edge of Tomorrow," we've seen Cage reset countless times, always at Heathrow military
base on the morning before the invasion. But at the end of the film, Cage wakes up in a helicopter
on his way to his meeting with Brigham, before he was ever sent to Heathrow. The different reset
points can be confusing after watching Cage always return to the same time previously. But it makes
sense as long as you understand that Cage lost the reset ability before the end and then regained it.
The first time Cage died, he reset twenty-four hours into the past,
at Heathrow the morning before the invasion. Think of that moment in time at Heathrow as a
video game save point. Every subsequent time Cage died, no matter how much time
passed between his waking up and that particular death, he always reverted to that original point.
Extending the video game analogy, when he lost the reset ability,
the saved game was deleted. So the second time he gained the Mimic ability, he had to spin up
a new game. This established its own unique save point: twenty-four hours before he killed the
Omega. Since the Omega died in the early hours of the morning before the France invasion, Cage reset
to the previous morning, right before he met with Brigham, earlier than his arrival at Heathrow.
It would be easy to finish "Edge of Tomorrow" wondering if Cage still has the ability to
reset again if he died, since that's what he does after defeating the Omega. Of course,
without the Mimics to fight, Cage hopefully wouldn't find himself facing death every day,
but it could still be a handy ability to have in case he were to, for example,
accidentally get himself run over by another truck.
However, there's no need to speculate about Cage's power since chances are, by the end of the film,
he doesn't have it anymore. The way that Dr. Carter explains the Mimics' ability to
Cage is that when an Alpha dies, the Omega resets it back to the day before. The Alpha
isn't resetting itself, and it seems to have no special abilities without the guidance of the
Omega. Since Cage essentially stepped into the role of an Alpha when he died,
the time looping isn't his power. Without an Omega around to fling Cage's consciousness back in time
whenever he dies, Cage is fated to live and die, with no repeat, just like the rest of us.