Warning: major spoilers for Jason Bourne are ahead!
Jason Bourne had made four cinematic appearances since 2001, and there's only one other character who co-starred alongside him in all those movies: Nicky Parsons, played by Julia Stiles. Originally part of Operation Treadstone, Nicky gradually became one of Jason's allies, and it was thanks to her that he learned more about his past in the franchise's latest installment, Jason Bourne. However, she was killed early on in the new movie, but Stiles was okay with her character's demise.
Although she didn't know Nicky's fate before joining Jason Bourne, Stiles told EW that because Nicky's death was dramatic and had meaning, she was fine with being axed. She explained:
I didn't know before I signed on, but I when I read the script, I actually told Paul, 'That's exciting.' I think he was tentative or worried that I was not going to be happy with dying in the film. I was just so excited about Nikki's turn in this one that to me, as long as her ending was dramatic and deliberate, I thought that was worth it and exciting. It was always going to by a bullet. There were a lot of discussions about how to make it clear that she was doing it on purpose; that her death wasn't accidental. It was her sacrificing herself.
A decade after the events of The Bourne Ultimatum, Jason Bourne reunited with Nicky Parsons as a member of a hacktivist group led by Christian Dassault (played by Vinzenz Kiefer). While hacking into the CIA's mainframe (no doubt sticking it to her former employers was cathartic), Nicky discovered documents that provided more information about how Jason Bourne was recruited into Treadstone and his father's involvement in the program. She soon tracked him down in Greece, but unfortunately for them, the CIA was also in the area. Although Jason and Nicky were able to escape the initial wave of agents after them, Nicky was killed by the Asset (played by Vincent Cassel), another Treadstone operative with a grudge against Jason. Before dying, she gave Jason a key to the locker holding the CIA information she uncovered earlier, thus setting him on his new adventure.
Considering how many bodies drop when Jason Bourne is running, it's a wonder she survived this long. Nevertheless, Nicky has been part of the franchise since the beginning, so her loss will definitely be felt should the franchise continue. So far Jason Bourne has earned over $116 million worldwide, but reviews have been decidedly mixed. It's still unclear if Universal Pictures will move ahead with Bourne 6, but if they do, it will be sans-Nicky Parsons. Jason will have to get hacking help from another computer expert.
Jason Bourne is currently playing in theaters, and you can click here to read our review of it.
