‘The Terminal List: Dark Wolf’ Finale Delivers Betrayal, Bloodshed & Ben’s Final Transformation

In Episode 6, “Pawns and Kings,” the mission to take the nuclear bearings off the board takes a dangerous turn. Jed Haverford (Robert Wisdom) captures and kills Vahid Rahimi (Hadi Khanjanpour), claiming he is the elusive “Shepherd.”

Acting on Haverford’s orders, the team prepares to swap the bearings with fakes and deliver them to the Iranians at a private airstrip. However, when the exchange takes place, the team discovers the bearings are real, just as Tal Varon (Shiraz Tzarfati) uncovers that Shepherd is still alive and identifies him as Cyrus Rahimi (Alain Ali Washnevsky), Vahid’s brother. Her urgent message — “The Shepherd is alive. CYRUS RAHIMI. DO NOT TRUST HAVERFORD.” — confirms they’ve been double-crossed. Realizing the betrayal, Ben Edwards (Taylor Kitsch) declares, “Even a pawn can take down a king,” before the team opens fire on Saedi’s plane, sparking a bloody firefight that leaves the Iranian minister dead.

In the aftermath, Haverford frames Ben, Mo (Dar Salim), Landry (Luke Hemsworth), and Raife (Tom Hopper) as rogue operatives working for Iran, effectively making them his scapegoats and putting them on the run. The betrayal shakes the team to its core: Raife grows disillusioned and questions whether their mission still has moral weight, Tal defies Mossad orders to continue pursuing the truth about Shepherd, and Ben, hardened by the deception, begins to transform. No longer a soldier, no longer a CIA operative, and betrayed by his savior and commander, Ben is slowly eroding from the inside out, becoming the Edwards audiences get to know in The Terminal List. 

In Episode 7, “The Wolf You Feed,” a cocky Haverford delivers his “testimony” while Raife presents his side of the story at CIA headquarters in Langley. Raife pleads his case, insisting that Haverford is the true villain, but the former team leader savors his victory, confident that nothing can touch him.

Meanwhile, Ben writes to James Reece (Chris Pratt), laying bare his contempt for the bureaucracy that shattered his faith in his country, his comrades, and the system meant to protect them. “Someone has to hold them accountable,” he declares. And he does.

Ben sets his plan into motion. Camped in a secluded cabin in the mountains outside Tehran, he lures in Iranian forces sent to capture him. They believe they have him trapped, but Ben turns the ambush into a massacre. As reinforcements push up the winding road, his hidden defenses transform the route into an ambush. When the soldiers finally breach the cabin set to Pink Floyd’s “Brain Damage,” Ben’s counterattack ignites. Using secret tunnels and pre-set explosives, he obliterates the units sent to kill him, then bolts for the treeline to hold them off alone. He takes heavy fire when they pursue on foot and is nearly overrun, until Reece and his brothers arrive, dragging him back from the brink. “You are the undisputed heavyweight champion of pissing people off,” Reece comments.

Ben tells him the bearings are buried in the farmhouse and orders Reece to get them to the Agency — and to retrieve Tahl’s evidence to clear their names. Ben has other fish to fry.

The second phase begins: Ben and his team methodically dismantle Haverford’s network, killing his allies one by one until Haverford stands alone, exactly where Ben wants him.

In a meeting at Haverford’s abode, the two men have a heart-to-heart. Haverford tells Ben that after the events in Vietnam — and later what happened in Lebanon — he came to understand that Iran always seemed to benefit from U.S. involvement. It was when he concluded that the United States was nothing more than a “paper tiger,” proving through inaction that terrorism worked. In Haverford’s warped mindset, starting a war was the only way to save lives and strike back at a hostile regime.

Haverford is a man broken by war, whose good intentions have been twisted into a sense of justice that has curdled into obsession, and what began as a mission to protect others has become a crusade that threatens to destroy everything he once hoped to save.

Speaking to TV Insider, Robert Wisdom discussed the moment when the two agents of chaos met and what that meant in terms of a pivotal character moment for Ben Edwards.

“There are two dark wolves,” said Wisdom. “The precariousness of [Ben’s] life as a dark operator, and it’s revealed in that last speech where I say we’re alike. We’re the same guys. So I dwell in that world, and I’ve dwelled in that world for 20 years, and I’ve done a lot of ruthless and unspeakable things to get closer to my mission, the way that you see Vaheed, who is my asset’s brother, and how I just took care of him.”

“[Haverford] knew how to push [Ben’s] buttons. Or I thought I did,” explained Wisdom. “They are two ships passing in a dark night, and neither one of them are heroic.”

Ben leaves Haverford to face his fate as the telltale glow of red cruiser lights closes in. With his mission complete, he turns himself over to the authorities.

More than a year passes before Ben accepts the truth: He can never be a civilian and have an ordinary life ever again. A quiet life doesn’t exist for him. So, he returns to interview for a place in the CIA’s Ground Branch, to the only world he’s ever truly known. When asked why he is returning, Ben responds truthfully: “Because I belong here.” With that answer, he begins the slow, inevitable transformation into the Dark Wolf audiences recognize from The Terminal List.

The Terminal List: Dark Wolf, Streaming Now, Prime Video

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