Warning: MAJOR SPOILERS for Top Gun: Maverick (2022) ahead.

Although Jon Hamm’s Cyclone says he is angry at Maverick for his risky test run stunt in Top Gun: Maverick, one fan theory claims that the Vice Admiral was secretly hoping he could get the feckless antihero to give the mission a shot. Midway through the action of Top Gun: Maverick, it looks like all hope is lost for Tom Cruise’s franchise hero. Maverick’s best friend Iceman is dead, he has been kicked out of his job teaching elite TOPGUN recruits how to pull off a secret mission, and Cyclone has taken over his post.

However, when Jon Hamm’s Top Gun: Maverick villain begins his first lesson, he and his students are shocked to see an unexpected aircraft on the test route. Maverick flies the test run in direct defiance of Cyclone’s orders, and ends up completing it even faster than the mission required. This leaves Cyclone in a tight bind, forced to choose between discharging Maverick for insubordination or letting him lead the mission. That is, unless this is exactly what Cruise’s superior hoped would happen.

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Early on in Top Gun: Maverick, Cyclone claims he is close with Iceman and tells Maverick that  he is familiar with his reputation. As such, it seems unlikely that Cyclone would have accidentally allowed Maverick to pull off the test run of the mission that stunned students and superiors, putting Hamm's character in the tricky situation of deciding whether to court-martial Maverick or make him the team's leader. What one fan theory posits, however, is that Iceman’s relationship with Maverick gave Cyclone all the clues he needed to engineer a situation that would goad Maverick into attempting the course, thus proving he could pull off the mission.

Cyclone Knew Iceman (So He Knows Maverick)

Tom Cruise in Top Gun Maverick with Iceman portrait

Cyclone’s insistence that he had a deep, abiding respect for Iceman (alongside the very fact that Cyclone feels he can call refer to the Admiral by his callsign) proves that he is aware of both Maverick’s skills and shortcomings. While Cyclone might have genuinely wanted Maverick to train the recruits and not lead the mission himself, he would also likely have known that this plan had a limited chance of success. As Maverick himself noted, he is not a teacher, and the presence of Goose’s son Rooster among the mission's candidates was bound to make him even less stable support for his students. With this in mind, tasking Maverick with the job of teaching the recruits also functioned as a perfect cover for getting the semi-disgraced, perpetually rebellious, and (most pivotally) under-qualified Captain into a role that would otherwise be beyond his grasp.

Cyclone couldn’t have ordered a Captain to lead the mission himself, mere days after Maverick’s disastrous Mach 10 crash. That prototype-destroying stunt would have been a career-ending incident if it weren’t for Iceman’s intervention, and even Iceman’s ability to cover for his friend is limited. As a result, Cyclone’s choice to make Maverick the team’s teacher instead of their leader could have been a last-ditch effort to ensure his involvement, as well as an opportunity for the famously feckless Top Gun antihero to prove he could work as part of a team.

The Logistics Of Maverick’s Test Run Are Almost Impossible

Tom Cruise smiling while riding a motorcycle in Top Gun: Maverick

It is possible (considering he manages to commandeer an enemy aircraft in Top Gun: Maverick’s finale) that Maverick could have pulled off the test run stunt without Cyclone making this easier to achieve. However, when the opening scene of Top Gun: Maverick saw his Mach 10 test end disastrously under similarly covert circumstances, Cyclone would likely have been warned that Maverick could pull a stunt like this. This makes it striking that the hero not only manages to secretly undertake the test run, but times it perfectly so that his superiors and students are watching while it happens. Only a day or so after Top Gun: Maverick’s funeral, Maverick manages to sneak onto an aircraft and sneak that aircraft onto the test route. While it would have been (comparatively) easy for Cruise’s character to know when the recruits would be in class, it would have been very difficult for him to steal a Navy aircraft and gain access to the classified training area, unless Cyclone decided to make this easier for Maverick.

Related: Top Gun: Maverick's Early Reviews Are Good News For Its Box Office

Cyclone’s Under-Reaction Seals The Deal

 

Jon Hamm Top Gun Maverick

While the students are awed, Cyclone stares stoically throughout the tense test run. He’s aware that he got exactly what he wanted — goading Maverick into running the course, proving it could be done, and offering evidence that he specifically was fit for the job — but now, he needs to go through with his career-risking plan of appointing Maverick to team leader. Since Maverick is still only a Captain in Top Gun: Maverick, the decision to court-martial him or not falls on Cyclone’s head. Thus, this theory argues that Cyclone made it easy for Maverick to sneak onto the test route and run the course, then deliberately goaded him into doing this by dismissing Cruise's character from his teaching duties the day after his closest friend’s funeral. This resulted in Maverick showing he could run the course, proving to the conservative Cyclone that the risky choice of making the Captain the team’s leader would pay off.

Why This Theory May Not Be True

Custom image of Top Gun 2's Tom Cruise as Maverick and Jon Hamm as Cyclone

As noted above, Cyclone is a fundamentally cautious, conservative character. Like Top Gun’s Iceman, he is concerned by the recklessness of Maverick’s flying and doesn’t want to encourage his behavior. Moreover, Cyclone objects to all of Top Gun’s sillier elements, demanding an explanation for Maverick’s decision to let the recruits play football on the beach instead of practicing the mission course. This attitude proves that Cyclone may not have the rebellious streak necessary to make Maverick’s risky test run easier (which would be a sketchy decision even if he never directly approved of Cruise’s character flying the course). However, the alternative explanation is that the Navy’s test routes could easily be infiltrated by Maverick, which seems less likely than Hamm’s character deciding to take a rare risk at a pivotal point in his career. Particularly given how well the choice to make Maverick team captain pays off in the movie’s finale, there is a lot of reason to believe that this particular Top Gun: Maverick theory could be true.

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