Who is Dante Cress in FUBAR?

The second season of Netflix’s ‘FUBAR’ presents a new challenge to Luke Brunner and his team. While still in hiding from their enemies, who have all the information about them, all thanks to Boro, Luke and the team are introduced to a huge threat in the form of Dante Cress. The person’s true identity is mired in mystery. No one has seen their face, and Dot confesses that it’s not even clear if Cress is a man or a woman. And yet, this person has all the money and the means to wreak havoc. While the team tries to stop the villain’s catastrophic plan, they also have to figure out the identity of their enemy. SPOILERS AHEAD.

Dante Cress Had Been Hiding in Plain Sight

In the final episode, when Luke and the team are in the middle of trying to stop a nuclear missile from going off and preventing a war between America and Russia, Dante Cress’ identity comes to light. At first, it is believed that Tina’s Russian handler is their mystery villain, but he turns out to be just a pawn in the larger game. The real Dante Cress had been embedded with Luke’s team all along, and his true nature is revealed when Theodore Chips reveals that he is the puppeteer of this evil plan, and Dante Cress is his pseudonym.

Chips’ revelation is shocking, particularly for Emma, who had started to like him because he exhibited signs of reform. Everyone knew of his past as a former British secret service agent, who went rogue after his father’s death. Since then, he focused on making money by working for the bad guys. When he enters the picture at the beginning of the season, he appears to be working for Greta Nelso, who is working for Dante Cress. However, because she has communicated with him through coded messages, she has never seen him in person, which is why she doesn’t realise that by hiring Theodore Chips to help her finish the job, she has actually hired her own employer.

Chips could have easily stayed in the shadows and watched everything from the sidelines while Greta did his dirty work. However, his real intention was something else. He had hired her to mess up America’s power grid, which would throw the country two hundred years back and create chaos in the whole world. In reality, he planned to get to Luke through Greta and then make him use the code that only he had access to to launch a nuclear missile that would mark the beginning of a devastating war between America and Russia. He couldn’t trust anyone enough to confide this plan, so he had to jump right in the middle of the action and get his hands dirty to see his plan through.

Chips’ Secret Identity as Cress Spoiled His Redemption Journey

Even though Theodore Chips is introduced as a villain, over time, he wins over Luke and his team, especially Emma. At first, she sees him as nothing more than the enemy trying to charm her way into her heart. He would flirt with her, and then open up to her about his father’s death and how he struggled to come out of his successful father’s shadow. However, as Luke points out, this is just a trick to get Emma’s sympathy and develop a connection with her. She doesn’t pay much mind to this because she doesn’t think she can be so easily charmed or fooled. But then, Chips puts his life on the line to save her mother. At the same time, even when he has the opportunity to kill members of the team and escape, he doesn’t do it.

Eventually, Chips declares that he does not want to work for Greta anymore, claiming that it’s because she left him for dead. If she doesn’t care about him, he doesn’t need to be loyal to her either. With his actions, he even convinces Luke that he is ready to turn over a new leaf and that he really is a good person at heart. All of this turns out to be a facade, which he used to win over their trust and to stay close to the team so that he could be there when the time came for Luke to access the nuclear missile. This revelation completely wipes away all the good that he did, and when the time comes, Emma doesn’t blink twice before leaving him for dead.