Explanation of TENET, Directed by Christopher Nolan

Tenet opens with an Opera scene that pretty much throws you into the movie at the deep-end. But what exactly is going on here? Well on the surface it seems like The Protagonist is part of a CIA operation to infiltrate the Opera during a siege so that he can secure the algorithm. This fails and instead he's drafted into the TENET organization after being double crossed, having his teeth pulled out and also choking down on what he believes is a cyanide pill. But what exactly was going on here, well The Protagonist was actually given this intel by the future version of himself and this was so that he could not only ensure that he handed the Algorithm over to Sator but also make it so that he not only met Neil, but also showed he was willing to lay his life on the line.

Before the finale we learn from Ives that the splinter team mission is meant to be one that nobody returns from. Ives even says that they can't afford having anyone left alive who knows what the algorithm is and the fact that the protagonist takes the pill shows that he's willing to lay down everything if needs be. Now why the future version made sure that Sator got a piece of the algorithm is hinted at by Priya who refuses to change telling his past version about where the algorithm is. Do try and keep up. She says that they actually need Sator to bring all of the pieces together so that they can then snatch them and then split them up. The entire point of the finale is to trick Sator into believing that his mission in burying the Algorithm is successful so that his future version won't change anything and will continue collecting the pieces in order to bring them together and carry out the plan that will allow the algorithm to be stolen.

This is why the Tenet team allow the explosion to go off so that the past version of the character believes that his future forces succeed in completing their mission. In the car chase we saw how the antagonist learning the truth about certain events helped him to play them to his advantage and thus his past version has to believe that he will win. In actuality, the Tenet team now have everything they need to divide up the algorithm and take it to their graves. But what is the algorithm exactly? Well, it's probably the plot point that we learn the least about but from what we discover we can piece certain things together.

From Priya we learn that the algorithm was developed in the future by a scientist that discovered a way to fully invert the world. This would allow things like global warming and climate change to be reversed so that future generations would not suffer because of the sins of the past. The algorithm is pretty much a bomb that when detonated will cause a massive spike in reverse radiation across the planet that forces the past to fold in on itself wiping out all life beyond the consciousness of the future.

Contrary to the grandfather clock theory, the people of the future believe that it is possible to change things in the past whereas we learn throughout the film that it's not. However, because the people of the future always tried to change things, they always will make the algorithm and attempt to send it back so we can see the events of the movie play out. The Scientist realized that in destroying the past they would destroy themselves and thus she separated the algorithm and buried it which is where it was found by Sator. Upon believing he's won Sator says that someday in the future a man in a tower will flip a switch and Armageddon will be both created and avoided.

Now the Armageddon he is referring to is creating it in the past in order to avoid it in the future. He believes that once the algorithm is planted and then detonated that all life in the past will be wiped out. However, what the Tenet team do is basically along the same lines as the Scientist and they separate the algorithm, invert it and place it somewhere so that it can never be found. By doing this at no point in the future can these pieces of the algorithm be put together so they can't be used. But who is the scientist exactly? Well, the movie tells us very little but as we only ever meet one scientist and they happen to be female that this is the same person that becomes the oppenheimer of her time.

We learn that Laura has been studying the reverse radiation for quite some time and that though the people in the past haven't figured out how to do it, one day they will. I think that Laura is actually the person who discovers the formula for inverting things and the only time we meet her she says that she was assigned to the project and has been studying it. This close proximity to the time inverted objects makes her the perfect person to figure it all out and they we'll never know for definite; movies tend to give us the answers even if they don't always point them out.

 Because this is the only possible person, we meet who fits the role. Now this idea of everything being pre-determined has put a lot of people off the movie and made them say "what's the point." Well as Neil says before he goes off to his death, they have faith in the laws of the universe and by carrying out things the way they're supposed to it shows that there is actually a grand plan to it all. Tenet is a fatalist film and many of us look back on bad things that happened to us and see that they actually led to a positive outcome year down the line which this film seems to also be hinting at.

Now though lots of people die along the way, that doesn't mean that Tenet doesn't have somewhat of a happy ending and though we don't know if The Protagonist goes off with Kat and Max at the end, the movie is hinting to us that he does. Neil asks The Protagonist if he's going back to London to check in on Kat and he replies by saying no it's far too dangerous. Neil then says "not even from afar" which the Protagonist also denies. However, we know from the finale that he did go back to London to check in on her from afar so this was indeed a lie.

However, we do know that before this moment Sators men owned it and operated there so this would cause issues with the past had they hung around. They're only able to move then and there because Sator is out on the highway so they have to travel back to the turnstile that they know will be accessible at the airport during their heist. I've also had a lot of people ask why Kat didn't need to wear a mask on the boat at the end. I'm never sure of exactly what boat they mean as she's on several in the finale but if it's the TENET one it's because she's in a sealed room which has a regular supply of Oxygen so the mask isn't needed and if it's when she's on Sators it's because she's reverted back to normal at this point so isn't feeling the effects of inversion.

Many of you wondered where Kat went after the boat scene at the end and the simple answer is that she hid away whilst her past version continued on the same path that she did. All Kat would have to do was lie low until the inversion scene in which that version of her goes to the past and then she could pop out as there is no duplicates and continue living life like normal, aware that she succeeded and that her husband doesn't exist beyond this point. Outside of the airport the characters are actually very good at avoiding themselves and we even see that The Protagonist passes the windmill that he was in at the start of the movie, well aware that his past self is hidden out of view so they won't come face to face.

Now the next question is why can't anyone understand what anyone is saying in any of the movie. The first time we see this fight scene it seems like the attacker is trying to kill him, however in hindsight we know that this is actually the future version of the character who is just trying to make it to the turnstile. The reason that he fires the gun at his past self isn't to kill him it's actually to unload the entire thing so that it can't be used against him. From his POV we can clearly see that he knows it won't hit his head and thus he is deliberately missing on purpose.