Stealing the Mona Lisa is ambitious enough, but Masterplan has another con hiding inside its central heist. Roger Cavendish recruits Chiara and Jay by claiming they are his children, turns them into the perfect team for an impossible robbery, and then reveals that almost everything they believe about him is a lie.
Our Masterplan recap and ending explained breaks down how the Mona Lisa heist works, why Roger really needs Chiara and Jay, and where the original painting ends up after one final trick.
How Does Roger Bring Chiara and Jay Together?
Chiara and Jay are already thieves when Roger Cavendish brings them into his plan, although they work in very different ways. Chiara is a hacker from Naples, while Parisian Jay specializes in explosives and prides himself on getting through jobs quickly.
Their first assignment together turns out to be an elaborate test. They break into a mansion expecting to rob its safe, only to discover Roger arranged the whole job to see how well their skills work together.
His real offer is much bigger. Roger wants them to help him steal something priceless, with €100,000 each upfront and a share of what comes afterward. The target is the Mona Lisa.
That alone gives them plenty of reason to question his sanity, but Roger has an even bigger surprise waiting for them. He claims he is their biological father.
He has DNA results to back up his story and explain why neither of them grew up knowing him. Chiara was abandoned at birth and has no relationship with her biological parents. Roger tells her that her mother died and that he only learned about his daughter later. Jay speaks with his mother, who confirms that she met Roger in Mumbai years earlier.
With both the test and Jay’s mother seemingly supporting Roger’s story, the idea that the three of them are family becomes increasingly difficult to dismiss.
Roger also claims to have a legendary criminal past. He tells them he is the Snow Leopard, a thief linked to jobs they have heard of, including the Romanov necklace. If they are going to attempt the most famous art theft imaginable, having someone with that kind of experience leading it certainly helps.
What Is Roger’s Plan to Steal the Mona Lisa?
Roger has spent years preparing for the robbery. His way into the Louvre depends on an old underground passage connecting the museum to the Académie Française. The tunnel has been sealed, but it still exists.
A staff strike gives the group the window they need, while the museum’s security presents a much more complicated problem.
Chiara needs access to the Louvre’s network, and that requires a security token that cannot simply be copied. Roger targets the security chief and steals the token while dining at a restaurant where he knows the man will be.
The group also gets a device into the museum that allows Chiara to interfere with its systems. Jay’s job is more physical. He has to break through the sealed underground route and create a path into the Louvre.
Some distrust already exists within the new family. Chiara discovers that Roger has not been completely truthful about what will happen after the theft. No straightforward bidding war is waiting for the Mona Lisa. Roger already has a buyer, and the arrangement is far more dangerous than he initially admitted.
Chiara and Jay consider turning against him, but Roger manages to pull them back in.
Part of that is another carefully constructed performance. They overhear what appears to be Roger meeting with his lawyer and arranging to leave his home and possessions to them. For two people who have spent much of the job wondering whether their new father can be trusted, it looks like proof that he really does see them as his children.
The three settle into something that starts to resemble an actual family. They share a meal, continue preparing for the robbery, and rehearse the plan down to its timing.
What Chiara and Jay don’t know yet is that Roger understands exactly what they suspect and what they need to hear.
How Do They Steal the Mona Lisa?
Once the operation begins, Chiara gets into the Louvre’s security network while Jay makes his way through the underground passage.
The team manipulates the museum’s environmental monitoring system, creating readings that make staff believe the conditions around the Mona Lisa are unsafe. The team removes the painting from its usual location and takes it to the preservation area, putting it where the thieves need it.
Jay still faces obstacles underground, including a blocked section of the tunnel, but he blasts his way through. Chiara takes control of the cameras and prepares the next part of the operation.
Timing becomes crucial once the power goes down. The Louvre’s backup system gives them only a brief window before electricity is restored, allowing Jay to move through the museum disguised as a member of staff and reach the painting.
Security eventually realizes something is wrong. Chiara’s device is discovered, and the missing access token is reported, triggering a lockdown. The team has already gone too far to turn back.
Jay gets the Mona Lisa out, then sends the painting away from the scene using the helium-balloon extraction they prepared. They recover it and escape, making it look like a successful robbery.
For Chiara and Jay, the impossible part is over. Roger has one more part of the plan that he never shared with them.
Why Does Roger Betray Chiara and Jay?
After the robbery, Roger sends Chiara and Jay to a safe house and tells them what to do if he doesn’t join them within two days. He presents the separation as another attempt to protect them.
When they reach the safe house, however, the Mona Lisa is missing.
Jay examines the car and discovers a hidden mechanism in its trunk. The vehicle was designed so Roger could secretly remove the painting without Chiara or Jay realizing it. Suddenly, everything else deserves another look.
Chiara begins questioning the DNA evidence. Jay struggles to accept that the story could be false because his own mother confirmed it, until he contacts her again and learns Roger paid her. Her conveniently timed trip to Tahiti makes the situation even clearer.
The lawyer meeting was another trick. Roger knew Chiara was monitoring him and staged a conversation that would convince them he planned to leave everything to his supposed children.
An even more immediate problem looms. If Roger has used them to steal the Mona Lisa, he can also leave them behind to take the blame.
Chiara and Jay prepare for the police to arrive at the safe house. Jay uses explosives to create a distraction, giving them time to escape before they turn their attention back to the man who conned them.
Roger has a pacemaker that can be tracked, giving Chiara a way to find him. Instead of disappearing, the two decide to follow him and find out what he really planned to do with the painting.
Why Does Roger Give the Mona Lisa to Van Klum?
Roger is meeting Van Klum, the dangerous man behind the deal.
Chiara and Jay watch from outside with a drone as the painting is examined. Van Klum does not simply trust Roger’s word. Roger has a history involving fake art, so an expert is there to authenticate the Mona Lisa before the deal can proceed.
Roger also finally explains how he found the people he needed for the robbery. The family story was designed to control two skilled thieves who could complete the parts of the job he couldn’t handle alone. Chiara and Jay weren’t his long-lost children. He chose to manipulate them into helping him steal the painting.
The deal won’t make Roger rich, either. He owes Van Klum a debt he cannot repay, and delivering the Mona Lisa is supposed to settle it. Once the expert accepts the painting as genuine, Van Klum clears what Roger owes him.
Then comes the obvious problem with handing the world’s most recognizable stolen painting to a ruthless criminal. Van Klum cannot afford to leave anyone alive who knows he has it, and Roger has anticipated that, too.
He has alerted both the French and Italian authorities to the handoff. Police and armed forces descend on the property, catching Van Klum with what everyone believes is the stolen Mona Lisa.
The arrival of both countries creates chaos over who gets possession of the painting. Smoke fills the area, giving Roger the confusion he needs to make his escape. He could leave alone. Instead, he sees Chiara and Jay struggling to get away and stops for them.
Masterplan Ending Explained: Is Roger Really Chiara and Jay’s Father?
No. Roger Cavendish isn’t their father, and Roger Cavendish isn’t even his real identity.
After escaping the raid together, the three reach a border tunnel where Roger intends to separate from Chiara and Jay. They find an old exit, and because the authorities don’t know the two younger thieves were involved in the Mona Lisa robbery, Roger believes they can still get away clean.
He plans to remain behind and take the consequences himself. That is when his relationship with them finally becomes genuine in a way it never was at the beginning. Chiara and Jay already know he isn’t their father, but Roger has come to care about them despite creating the relationship as part of a con.
When they ask who he actually is, he drops the British persona, removes his fake mustache, and tells them the truth. His real name is Marcus Dubrovnik, and he comes from Summit City, New Jersey. He isn’t the legendary Snow Leopard either.
Marcus is a con man who needed a way out of his debt to Van Klum. The father, the inheritance, and his criminal legend were tools he used to make Chiara and Jay trust him.
The irony is that the fake family doesn’t disappear when the lie does. Roger’s decision to stop for them during his escape, then keep them out of the authorities’ hands, shows that his attachment to them is genuine. He gives himself up to the Italians while Chiara and Jay leave through the tunnel.
Why Do Chiara and Jay Help Roger Escape?
One year later, Roger is still in Italian custody, but he doesn’t stay there. He escapes through the sewers and discovers Chiara and Jay waiting to pick him up.
Their return confirms where the three of them landed after everything that happened. Chiara and Jay know exactly who Roger is now. They know he invented their family connection, used them to steal the Mona Lisa, and planned to leave them behind once they had served their purpose.
They still come back for him; they were already a dysfunctional family. Their relationship survives after the original reason for it has been exposed as a lie. Roger eventually chooses their safety over his own clean escape, and Chiara and Jay later help him with no reason beyond the bond they formed.
One last part of Roger’s masterplan remains unknown even to them.
Where Is the Real Mona Lisa at the End of Masterplan?
The Mona Lisa recovered during the Van Klum raid isn’t the original. Roger reveals that the painting he delivered was an exceptionally convincing forgery that took months to create. Van Klum’s expert accepts it, and the authorities consequently believe they have recovered the stolen masterpiece.
That is exactly what Roger needs everyone to believe. The real Mona Lisa is still missing.
Roger hid it in one of the least suspicious places possible: an Italian restaurant called Monna Lisa. The original painting hangs on the wall in plain sight, surrounded by people who have no reason to imagine they are looking at the actual artwork stolen from the Louvre.
It is Roger’s final con. Stealing the Mona Lisa required Chiara and Jay’s skills, but keeping it required convincing everyone the theft was already solved.
