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Season guide

Mission: Impossible: Season 5

23 episodes Premiered Sep 19, 1970
Previously on Mission: Impossible

Season 5 Lore Primer

Key plot threads, lore context, and character stakes you need to remember before diving into this season.

  • ⚡ Directly follows the overarching narrative developments of Mission: Impossible Season 4.
  • ⚡ Faction dynamics and core character alliances shift under escalating external stakes.
  • ⚡ Crucial mysteries introduced previously reach key turning points and narrative reckonings.
  • ⚡ Sets up serialized story arcs that build directly toward the climactic season finale.
Season 5 Episodes

Episode Guide

🛡️ SPOILER SHIELD

Season 5 Progress Shield

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Binge Efficiency Engine

Season 5: Filler vs. Essential Canon

Filter episodes by narrative weight. Focus on essential mytharc and skip standalone side quests.

26%
74%
Mytharc (6): Crucial lore & season climaxes
Core (17): Character development & subplots
Side Quest (0): Standalone / filler
S5·E1 Mytharc

The Killer

Sep 19, 1970

Hired killer Eddie Lorca does everything randomly, making him impossible to anticipate. The IMF must find out who his boss, Scorpio, is and all they know is Lorca is arriving in to

S5·E2 Core

Flip Side

Sep 26, 1970

The IMF must break up a drug-smuggling ring - Bracken gets his drugs from Mexico compliments of Diego Maximillian, who gets his drugs legally from C.W. Cameron. The IMF must connec

S5·E3 Core

The Innocent

Oct 3, 1970

In the Middle East Willy and Barney infiltrate a chemical plant to gain access to Dehominant-B, a quick-acting lethal gas. Barney is exposed to Dehominant-A while trying to get to

S5·E4 Core

Homecoming

Oct 10, 1970

When Jim returns to his hometown of Norville to donate family property to the community, he finds it plagued by a serial killer. Jim secretly brings in Barney to help investigate.

S5·E5 Mytharc

Flight

Oct 17, 1970

Presidente Rojas plans to give a speech to the U.S. Congress while his Chief of Internal Security Ferrar plans a takeover and sends an assassin known only as Plato (and known only

S5·E6 Core

My Friend, My Enemy

Oct 25, 1970

A Communist agent, Karl Maur, spots Paris on vacation, knocks him out and turns him over to Dr. Tabor, who is a brain specialist and mind control expert. Unable to break Paris, Tab

S5·E7 Core

Butterfly (aka Poor Butterfly)

Oct 31, 1970

Toshio Masaki, a powerful anti-American industrialist, kills his sister and frames her husband, an American businessman named Harry Kellem, so as to discredit America and discredit

S5·E8 Core

Decoy

Nov 7, 1970

Anna Kerkoska plans to defect with a list of American agents given to her by her father, the late Premier. Her brother Alexi also plans to defect, but it's actually a plan to grab

S5·E9 Mytharc

The Amateur

Nov 14, 1970

The team must steal a rocket laser and smuggle out Father Bernard and his list of Western operatives. Bernard puts the IMF in contact with Wittstock, who gets them the laser. Witts

S5·E10 Core

Hunted

Nov 21, 1970

A mission to rescue a South African dissident goes awry when Doug and his white assistant get the man out of the hospital, but the assistant is shot in the leg. Separated from the

S5·E11 Core

The Rebel

Nov 28, 1970

The IMF must rescue three scientists in a dictatorial country and destroy their notes. They rescue two but the third one, Khora refuses to leave and is executed. Jim and Dana meet

S5·E12 Mytharc

Squeeze Play (aka Sicily)

Dec 12, 1970

Albert Zembra, head of the Mediterranean branch of the Syndicate, is dying of cancer and plans on passing his list of opium farms to his chosen successor. He plans on turning power

S5·E13 Core

The Hostage

Dec 19, 1970

After completing a mission Paris is undercover as an American businessman and still in disguise when he is kidnapped by Latin American revolutionaries led by terrorist Robert Siomn

S5·E14 Core

Takeover

Jan 2, 1971

Phelps must stop Charles Peck from using violence, created by professional provocateur Billy Walsh, to elevate his puppet, Mayor Steven Tallman to the governorship. Dana is a provo

S5·E15 Core

Cat's Paw

Jan 9, 1971

Larry Collier, newspaper editor and Barney's brother, is killed while trying to establish a link between corrupt police chief Abbott and Corley, the head of a ghetto mob who masks

S5·E16 Core

The Missile (aka Torpedo)

Jan 16, 1971

James Read, an enemy agent, is posing as an analyst to get to a top-secret U.S. missile guidance system being tested and steal the plans - the IMF must have him take back fake plan

S5·E17 Core

The Field

Jan 23, 1971

An enemy power has launched a satellite containing a thermonuclear bomb and the IMF must destroy it. The control center on an island in the Adriatic Sea is surrounded by an impenet

S5·E18 Core

Blast

Jan 30, 1971

Gregory Tolan leads an underground cell specializing in bank robberies with the money going to finance an American revolution. His mysterious sponsor is Jonathan Brace, who runs ot

S5·E19 Core

The Cataflaque

Feb 6, 1971

In San Pascal Premier Miguel Fuego and his nephew Ramone have signed a secret arms treaty with a Communist power to permit nuclear weapons aimed at the U.S. into their country. The

S5·E20 Core

Kitara (aka The Bigot)

Feb 20, 1971

John Darcy, codename 'Kitara', leads a liberation movement in the African country of Bocamo and has been inadvertently captured by the ruthless Colonel Kohler. Kohler plans to tort

S5·E21 Core

A Ghost Story

Feb 27, 1971

Howard Bainbridge, a chemical warfare expert who defected to East, was contaminated by his own experiments and then returned back to the U.S. and his family manor, where his father

S5·E22 Mytharc

The Party

Mar 6, 1971

Alexander Vanin, arrested and convicted for espionage, hid a list of agents operating in the U.S. His control, Mishenko of the EEPR, has been ordered to get the list but Vanin refu

S5·E23 Mytharc

The Merchant

Mar 17, 1971

Armand Anderssarian is an illegal arms dealer who is about to complete a multi-million dollar deal selling arms to guerrilla groups around the world - the IMF must stop him. Jim pr