The Nikita series finale, titled “Canceled,” aired tonight, featuring a fond farewell to our favorite ragtag team of super spies.
So how did the series wrap up?
Brute force versus deception
The episode opens with a flashback to Nikita’s first days in Division. She had just attacked a guard, and though it would be normal Division protocol to cancel such a recruit, Amanda sees potential in Nikita and tells her that she has the option to be “powerful and beautiful or a wild animal.”
However, Amanda says, “Brute force will never be as effective as deception.” Amanda leaves Nikita with the question that shapes Nikita’s actions through the finale: Who will you be?
In the present day, Nikita and Alex stop Mr. Jones’ transport and demand the names of the other members of The Group. He quickly gives them up, but Nikita and Alex blow up the van anyway.
‘She’s just getting started’
On the military base, Senator Chappell confronts Michael, Birkhoff, and Sam about Nikita’s actions. (Sonya is notably absent through the finale; perhaps Lyndie Greenwood was filming Sleepy Hollow?)
Chappell is angry that Nikita is acting without regard for the bigger picture, but Michael says she’s just getting started. As Nikita and Alex take out another three members of The Group, Michael wants to go after them while Birkhoff thinks she has the right idea.
Michael, though, recognizes darkness deep inside Nikita; while he loves her, he believes that she could destroy the world by taking out The Group and their doubles, as they are strategically placed within the global political and military spheres.
Group meeting
Amanda, sporting a nasty facial scar courtesy of Ryan, calls one of the surviving Group members to warn him about Nikita. However, Amanda is not getting an engraved invitation to the secret Big Bad meeting and instead has to spy on it via surveillance cameras.
Nikita uses a victim’s phone to find the location of the meeting. She plans on a frontal assault and brushes off Alex’s warning about crossing a line she can’t come back from. Nikita simply replies that she knows who she is, and that’s no hero.
A military operation
As Michael, Birkhoff, and Sam plan to find Nikita, they are interrupted by a small group of Marines; as per Chappell’s instructions, stopping Nikita has become a military operation.
In New York, Nikita and Alex cause a diversion and enter the estate in which the meeting is taking place. Amanda watches as they hold the surviving Group members at gunpoint and demand the names of the doubles.
Amanda calls the team and gives up the location of the meeting. She also reaches out to Michael, asking what will be left of Nikita’s soul if she kills more than she already has.
Collateral damage
The Group members try to pass the blame for their operations onto Amanda, but Nikita is having none of that. But when Michael calls to try to talk Nikita down, she says she’s doing this for Ryan.
Michael says she’s playing into Amanda’s hands, but the conversation is interrupted by Marines surrounding the house. Trying to diffuse the situation, Michael calls for Nikita to stop before things go too far. But Nikita refuses, saying she doesn’t care about the resulting collateral damage.
The Group members call Nikita’s bluff, so she kills one of them with a neurotoxin and the remaining members give up the master list of doubles. Nikita plans to send the list to news outlets, but Birkhoff jams her signal since those secrets would cause global chaos.
As Michael tries to convince Alex to talk Nikita down, Sam stalls Nikita, telling her that Owen would say she’s hurting and that what she’s doing isn’t about her head, but her heart and soul.
By this point, Nikita’s ready to start shooting and tells Michael not to let her die in vain. But Michael pleads with her, saying that if she dies so does he. This finally reaches Nikita and she agrees to do things his way. As the Marines stand down, Nikita transfers the master list to Birkhoff.
But Birkhoff still thinks Nikita has the right idea and sends the list to a secret server that only Nikita can find. Alex tries to stop Nikita from sending the list, and as they fight, one of the Group members gets a gun and starts shooting.
Nikita ends up shooting the remaining three members, but Alex knocks her out just as the Marines charge in and surrenders.
‘This is my choice’
Nikita, Alex, and Birkhoff are arrested while Michael and Sam arm themselves for a rescue mission. Locked away, Nikita is confronted by Amanda — who also found Birkhoff’s server.
Amanda taunts Nikita, saying she should’ve listened to her all those years ago as well as to Michael and Alex about choosing deception over brutality. Amanda waxes poetic about Nikita’s leadership and the team she cobbled together before revealing that she plans to leave Nikita to rot. She’ll also keep her scar as a reminder of every wound Nikita inflicted on her.
But Nikita takes her cue to break free of her shackles and shove a shocked Amanda into them. The door opens to reveal Birkhoff and Alex, who were in on the plan. As it turns out, The Group is still alive and locked away; Nikita never killed anyone to give into her darkness.
Elsewhere, Michael and Sam free the men and women who The Group doubled. As it turns out, Ryan’s deathbed revelation was that Chappell’s Marine commander was a double, so Nikita used that to bait Amanda with what she was looking for: the destroyer from all those years ago.
Nikita refuses to give into that darkness to deal with Amanda, instead leaving her to rot. “Welcome back to the basement, Helen,” Nikita tells her before the cell door slams shut. Chills.
The gift of freedom
The episode wraps up with Chappell telling Nikita that the CIA, FBI, and Interpol are currently rounding up the doubles. Team Nikita’s pardons have all been signed while Ryan’s sacrifice is honored with a star on the CIA’s memorial wall.
“Now Ryan has given us a gift,” Nikita says. “Freedom’s a scary thing, though. We’ve got no one to answer to but ourselves.”
Moving forward, Alex returns to her duties as a United Nations envoy with Sam as her bodyguard.
Birkhoff, at Sonya’s urging, is making the code to Shadownet public.
And Michael and Nikita have eloped. On a beach in Ecuador, Nikita sees a vision of Ryan, who nods and smiles at her — we’re in tears at this point — before deciding to take on another mission in lieu of a honeymoon. After all, Nikita isn’t the type to just sit on the beach.
The moral of the story? “The real gift isn’t freedom; it’s what we get to do with it.”