Argylle’s Twists and Post-Credits Scene, Explained

This post contains spoilers for Argylle.

Update, February 2, 12:30 p.m. ET: The actual writers of Argylle, the book, have been revealed: Terry Hayes, an Australian author and screenwriter best known for 2013’s I Am Pilgrim, and Tammy Cohen, a British writer of psychological thrillers. The pair went public in an interview with The Telegraph. Both Hayes and Cohen were previously floated by Vanity Fair as prime suspects for authorship of Argylle.

“God, I hope all the people that pre-ordered on the basis that Taylor wrote it aren’t disappointed,” Cohen told the publication in reference to the popular theory that Taylor Swift was behind the book.

“I hope they are!” Hayes quipped. “If that’s why they buy a book, they deserve every punishment they get.”

The hardest part of keeping their involvement with the project a secret for the last three years was “not being able to tell my support group of writer friends who I ring up every time I get into a mess,” Cohen said. “And also trying to account for a large amount of time when I apparently haven’t produced a book.” Hayes, who took a decade to complete his second novel, 2023’s The Year of the Locust, joked, “That was no problem for me.”

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In the lead-up to Argylle, a new spy thriller from director Matthew Vaughn, Swifties and civilians alike attempted to decipher who wrote the novel that supposedly inspired the film. But in the words of Jodie Foster in True Detective, the world has been asking the wrong question. The issue isn’t who wrote Argylle, it’s why that author’s identity has been kept under wraps when the film’s biggest twist and post-credits scene motives have already been revealed.

First, a refresher: The film stars Bryce Dallas Howard as Elly Conway, author of a series of novels about a spy named Argylle. There is also an actual Argylle novel allegedly written by a real Elly Conway, who has a verified social media presence. Onlookers have speculated that the book was written by everyone from an under-the-radar real novelist to Taylor Swift. The Argylle team waited a while to extinguish that last bit of gossip, though Vanity Fair’s sources confirmed back in October that Swift is not the author. As John Cena, who plays henchman Wyatt in the film, recently told Today: “I can’t think of a better way for people to get to know Argylle—a movie where the tagline is, ‘The greater the spy, the bigger the lie’—than with some misdirection, some spy-type deception,” adding, “I got to debunk the rumor, but I’m grateful for Taylor and her fans to be so engaged, and it really fits in with our theme.”

The film version of Argylle contains details that can also be found in the real Conway’s digital footprint. The character mentions working as a small-town waitress before she was in an ice skating accident; Conway’s actual author bio on the Penguin Random House website mentions that “she wrote her first novel about Agent Argylle while working as a waitress in a late-night diner.” An author’s note in the book states that Conway conceived of the plot in a “febrile dream” that occurred after a “terrible accident.”

In the film, a fan of Conway’s points out the author’s talent for predicting real-life geopolitical events in the pages of her novels. “The secret is research, research, research,” Howard’s character replies. “Although that is what I would say as a real spy, so…” This is apparently what catches the attention of The Division, a cartoonishly evil group that begins to hunt Conway. In turn, the CIA sends Sam Rockwell’s spy, Aidan Wilde, to protect Elly.

Conway doesn’t know who to trust—an anxiety that is vindicated when she discovers that the people who purport to be her parents (played by Bryan Cranston and Catherine O’Hara) are actually Division baddies posing as mom and dad.

And then the film takes another twist. We learn that Elly Conway is not a real person, but a new identity that the evil duo gave Howard’s character after she began suffering from amnesia. Elly Conway is actually Agent R. (as in Rachel) Kylle, Samuel L. Jackson’s former CIA director, Alfred Solomon, tells her. Kylle was a top agency operative who fell into a coma and was then brainwashed by the opposition. The Division tricked her into becoming a reclusive author in hopes that her novels, based on Kylle’s actual repressed memories, would lead them to an all-important missing data file. As Alfie summarizes it: “The books are not predictions. They are memories of who you are.”

Of course, the real-life novel nods to this reveal. Conway dedicates the book to “Mom and Dad, who have been beside me every step of the way.”

Rachel’s amnesia begins to fade as her combat skills return. By the end of the film, just call her Zach Bryan, because she remembers everything and can thus save the day in outlandish fashion.

(from left) Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard) and Alfred Solomon (Samuel L. Jackson) in Argylle, directed by Matthew Vaughn.Peter Mountain/Universal Pictures,Apple Original Films,and MARV