Is Lloyd Hansen secretly Six's brother in The Gray Man? Netflix takes its original movie content to new budgetary heights with The Gray Man, as the Russo brothers (Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Avengers: Endgame) adapt the 2009 novel by Mark Greaney. Ryan Gosling assumes lead protagonist duties, playing a prisoner drafted by the CIA as a black ops specialist and henceforth known only as "Sierra Six." His opponent in The Gray Man is Chris Evans' Lloyd Hansen - a notoriously unstable mercenary hired by divergent forces at the top of the CIA to protect a dirty secret leaking out.
As The Gray Man hurtles through its adrenaline-fueled 129-minute runtime, the Russos occasionally stop for breath and sprinkle snippets of Six's backstory atop the whirlwind of chaotic action. As a youngster, Six and his brother were horribly abused by their father, who believed harsh treatment would turn them into "real men." Six realized this abusive pattern would eventually kill his brother, so ensured that would never happen by gunning their father down. The young Six was jailed for murder around the age of 15, before Donald Fitzroy recruited him for the Sierra program as a grown man. After 18 years of Gosling's character carrying out CIA dirty work, The Gray Man's story begins.
To the surprise of absolutely no one, The Gray Man prioritizes gunfights and explosions over fleshed-out origin stories. Six's brother is barely referenced, while Chris Evans' Lloyd Hansen receives only the most cursory background exposition. In vagueness, however, lies opportunity, and The Gray Man leaves an intriguing possibility wide open. Could Lloyd be Six's brother?
The Gray Man Hints Six Hasn't Seen His Brother
The Gray Man is deliberately stingy with details on Six's brother. We know Six was convicted for killing his father and duly sent to prison, but what fate befell his sibling remains a mystery. Thankfully, The Gray Man provides one small but useful hint. Donald Fitzroy's Sierra program only recruits agents free from family and personal connections that can be exploited by enemies, so because Fitzroy approaches Six in jail, we can deduce the two brothers lost contact. If Six and his brother were regularly writing letters or on visiting terms, Fitzroy never would've scouted Ryan Gosling's "Ken doll" for his elite black ops unit.
Six very probably hasn't seen his brother for something like 25 years. Fitzroy mentions how the teenager's sentence began in 1995. Sierra Six gets recruited in 2003, then The Gray Man takes place 18 years later. If the 40-year-old Sierra agent hasn't seen or spoken to his brother since 1995, it's entirely possible they wouldn't recognize each other - especially if one of them grows facial hair like that. And even though Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans are the same age in real life, The Gray Man suggests Lloyd Hansen is slightly younger than Six, since he attended college with Denny Carmichael (Regé-Jean Page) and Suzanne (Jessica Henwick). If Six's brother is a few years his junior - also implied by the fact Six felt protective over his sibling - the chances they'd recognize each other after two decades apart fall lower still.
Lloyd Being Six's Brother Explains His Personality
The Gray Man repeatedly points out how Lloyd Hansen is a "sociopath," and Chris Evans' character more than justifies those accusations by delighting in his violent battle against Six, mercilessly sacrificing innocent lives to fulfill his mission. It's a huge red flag when even a professional assassin called "Lone Wolf" decides Lloyd is more trouble than he's worth. But The Gray Man never explains how Lloyd Hansen became so twisted. The funeral conversation with Fitzroy suggests Lloyd has been dangerous since at least his college years, but The Gray Man offers nothing to address what triggered his violent, depraved nature.
Six and Lloyd being brothers would explain a lot. Imagine Six's younger sibling growing up under the shadow of an abusive parent who wanted his sons to become "macho," only to then learn said parent had been murdered by his own brother. Six believed he was being protective, but maybe the brother felt abandoned, suddenly left alone with an airport conveyor belt of emotional baggage to work through. Would that brother be more likely to become a balanced, normal member of society... or a Lloyd Hansen?
Chris Evans' villain is dripping in toxic masculinity - the very same kind Six's father believed in. He abandons his soldiers without a thought - just as Six "abandoned" his brother. And it's curious how Fitzroy believes Six was born to be a CIA operative, and Lloyd Hansen also applied to Langley after leaving Harvard. The Gray Man presents Six and Lloyd as two halves of the same coin. Both embarked on the same career, and both are very good at their jobs, but one has a conscience the other does not. Given their many parallels, it'd make a suspicious amount of sense if Six and Lloyd Hansen shared the same origin story.
How The Gray Man 2 Can Reveal Lloyd Is Six's Brother
The way The Gray Man dances around the topic of Six's brother feels deliberate, as if there's a story yet to be told about his life over the past 25 years. The Gray Man 2 and an untitled spinoff movie have both been announced by Netflix, leaving plenty of opportunity to explore this mystery sibling's fate, but what would be the point of shockingly unveiling Lloyd Hansen as Six's secret brother if Lloyd himself isn't actually alive to witness the revelation?
Well, maybe reports of Lloyd Hansen's demise have been greatly exaggerated. As The Gray Man's final battle draws to a close, Chris Evans' character takes a bullet to the chest, promptly collapses, and is never heard from again. In an action movie franchise as bombastic and ridiculous as The Gray Man, however, anything less than a headshot is always survivable. Lloyd Hansen is also well-connected enough to know folks at the CIA who could quietly recover his body and nurse him back to health in secret, leaving Suzanne and Six none the wiser. Viewers and critics have both touted Chris Evans as an undoubted highlight of The Gray Man, and Netflix would be remiss to exclude him from its upcoming sequel because of a minor inconvenience like death.
If Lloyd Hansen returns for The Gray Man 2, the possibility of him being confirmed as Six's brother remains temptingly open. The twist would ring pretty hollow if Six discovered the truth and Lloyd stayed dead, but if The Gray Man's nefarious villain somehow survived, it's only natural he'd investigate his Sierra section nemesis, learn the truth about their shared origin, and announce their blood connection Darth Vader-style during an upcoming rematch.