Citadel (Season 1 Finale), Episode 6 Recap & Ending Explained: In the Season 1 Finale of “Citadel,” Episode 5, an epic conclusion and a new beginning await. One of their own is held hostage by Manticore, forcing Mason, Nadia, and Carter to risk everything in a daring mission to save them and prevent Manticore from obtaining the cores of nuclear weapons.
As our protagonists grapple with the imminent nuclear threat, the shocking revelation of the mole within Citadel is revealed, exposing the dreadful truth that shatters everything they thought they once knew.
*Spoiler Alert*
Citadel (Season 1 Finale), Episode 6 Recap:
“Secrets in Night Need Early Rains”
The finale episode of Citadel Season 1 opens with a back story to Mason joining the organization. It shows that a young Mason lost his father in Serbia, after which his mother left him too. He then used to live with his grandmother in Oregon, and without a parental backbone to his life, he felt lost. In a voiceover, Mason describes how Citadel gave him an identity after losing it relatively young. These sequences are closely cut with the child watching spy movies getting inspired by how things operate in their world.
The action moves to present-day Morocco city, where Dahlia’s men have captured the trio of Carter, Mason, and Nadia, with Nadia and Mason’s daughter as bait. Dahlia then explains her plan of flying over the Pacific, where the submarine is currently navigating, hacking into its system and bringing it to the surface. She further explains that Kyle (Mason) and Davik will make an airborne jump and retrieve the five nuclear cores from the missiles bringing them to Christoph in Valencia for an exchange.
Nadia wants to lead the mission, knowing that Mason is not currently equipped with the mental and strategic planning needed. She also doesn’t want to put her daughter in danger, so she wishes to jump. However, Carter explains how it has to be Mason who will have to lead because when Nadia had abruptly left Citadel and went AWOL, Mason was assigned the Red cell mission, and against orders, he locked the submarine using his bio-lock, making it impossible for anyone else to use it.
What is the Red Cell Mission?
Eight years ago, Grace explained how Operation Bright Wall was Red Cell authorized and that their target was a Russian Dead Hand Submarine (the current submarine that Dahlia is after). The plan is to prevent the Russian forces from using nuclear force by installing a back door lock that a Citadel agent can access.
Mason is distracted during the mission brief, possibly by Nadia’s sudden disappearance and the break-up we saw in the previous episode. He asks Grace about Nadia’s whereabouts, and when she is not ready to disclose her location, he threatens only to do the mission in exchange for Nadia’s location.
On the day of reckoning, Mason is deployed to the submarine, and he is able to do his bit as instructed in the brief quickly. However, briefly, he disables his comms and places an override on the submarine’s lock system, supposedly enabling the bio-lock.
What happens in the present-day mission?
Mason and Davik are deployed from the plane, and while Davik is able to make a safe landing, Mason struggles with his chute, and Nadia has to launch the tether line to get on the submarine. Davik pulls him up on the submarine’s base, where Mason uses his thumb and voice command to unlock the sub. However, Davik, who now has access to the sub, cuts the tether line attached to Mason off and enters the submarine’s hatch. After getting inside and looking at the five missiles, Davik calls Dahlia and double-crosses her by saying that he now has five Manticore locations targeted with the missiles and demands a seat at the high table in exchange. Dahlia refuses by saying that she would instead put the submarine in the trenches rather than help a traitor. Davik is then neutralized by Nadia, who intertwines a possible altercation between Davik and Mason.
How does Nadia disable the Missiles?
Carter, who is on the comms, guides Nadia to the room where the five missiles are kept. He tells her how she needs to manually override the missiles by removing their core in under four minutes. For this, her body temperature needs to be 106 degrees, matching that of the room. As Nadia struggles and removes all the cores one at a time, Davik wakes up and fights with Mason. While Mason is initially unable to fight back, on Carter’s push, he is able to unlock his potential and hit back. He is also able to inject Nadia with adrenaline after she disables the missiles but struggles to breathe.
What happens at the exchange in Valencia?
Carter, Mason, and Nadia then fly to Valencia for the core exchange. When they reach the place, Carter places himself in a sniper position for any possible mishap as Dahlia negotiates with Christoph that they should check the cores before they hand over Asha (Mason and Nadia’s child). When they cross-check the cores, keeping Asha in hindsight, they realize that the cores are encrypted and cannot be used. Meanwhile, Carter gets a clear shot at the person holding Asha over a bridge near the exchange. Nadia instructs Carter to take a shot as Mason runs and grabs Asha from falling. Christoph and her associates flee the scene as Nadia reunites with her daughter.
In a brief sequence, we see that Mason was aware of Asha’s existence before the fall of Citadel. In the present, we see Dahlia fleeing the scene before Manticore can punish her for failing to do her task.
Carter, Mason, Nadia, and Asha return to a destroyed Citadel HQ, where Mason’s current wife, Abby, and his child, Hendrix, reunite with him.
What does Carter offer Mason at the Citadel HQ?
While they are getting with one another, Carter tells them that he has a backup of Mason’s backstopped memories in a vial that Bernard asked him to keep, just in case. Mason and Abby discuss using the vial to bring his memory back and decide to do it.
Citadel (Season 1 Finale), Episode 6 Ending Explained:
Who is the agent that double-crossed Citadel?
On taking the memory vial, Mason is shrouded with a sudden rush of haunting flashbacks, which leads us to a point where Bernard offers him to go see Nadia and his daughter in Valencia. He refuses and then heads to Dahlia for help. Dahlia tells him about the incident in Serbia where his father, Thomas, was killed. The news was that a car bomb was responsible for his death, but Dahlia (who was Thomas’s partner) later investigated and found out that it was Citadel who was responsible for the explosion because they mistakenly aimed missiles at a UN station.
Learning this makes Mason angry, who then confesses knowing that Dahlia is his mother and that he buried this inside him because he couldn’t identify losing both his parents. This is when it is revealed that Mason asked Dahlia for her help to trace Nadia in exchange for helping her with the information of all possible Citadel agents. The finale of Citadel (Season 1) shows us that Mason was the one who double-crossed Citadel, which led to his downfall eight years ago.
Citadel: The Next Chapter
The credit sequence of Citadel, Season 1 – Finale, gives us a brief glimpse of the expansion of the Citadel Spyverse. The teaser opens with the “Mad World” by 2WEI, Tommee Profit, and Fleurie and shows us the Spanish chapter of the Russo Brothers’ planned world. The teaser is more focused on a woman rather than being a two-handler, like the American version and feels more grounded and stylish. The series, which will debut in 2024 on Prime Video, might be an exciting addition.
<< Previous Episode
Citadel (Season 1 Finale), Episode 6 Links – IMDb
Citadel (Season 1 Finale), Episode 6 Cast – Richard Madden, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Stanley Tucci
Where to watch Citadel
