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| 2 | %%% NOTE: Please avoid redundancy with the character sheet. If a trope goes better there, check if it's already there. Don't duplicate it here. Thanks! |
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| 8 | [[quoteright:349:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/g_o.png]] |
| 9 | [[caption-width-right:349:''[[TagLine You're invited to put the pieces together.]]'' [[note]]From left to right: [[SleazyPolitician Claire Debella]], [[IceQueen Cassandra "Andi" Brand]], [[DumbBlonde Birdie Jay]], [[TechBro Miles Bron]], [[RecurringElement Benoit]] [[GreatDetective Blanc]], [[TestosteronePoisoning Duke Cody]], [[BeleagueredAssistant Peg]], [[GoldDigger Whiskey]], and [[NerdsAreSexy Lionel Toussaint]].[[/note]]]] |
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| 11 | ->''"My dear friends, my beautiful disruptors, my closest inner circle. We could all use a moment of normalcy. And so you are cordially invited for a long weekend on my private island, where we will celebrate the bonds that connect us. And I hope your puzzle-solving skills are whetted, because you will also be competing to solve the mystery of my murder. Travel details to come, please forward any dietary restrictions. Love and all my kisses, Miles."'' |
| 12 | -->-- '''Miles Bron''''s invitation to the Disruptors |
| 13 | |
| 14 | ''Glass Onion'' (also known as ''Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery'') is a 2022 murder mystery film directed and written by Creator/RianJohnson. As the subtitle indicates, it is a standalone sequel to Johnson's 2019 film ''Film/KnivesOut''. |
| 15 | |
| 16 | Benoit Blanc (Creator/DanielCraig, reprising his role from ''Knives Out'') has been invited to the private Greek island of tech oligarch Miles Bron (Creator/EdwardNorton) alongside Bron's eclectic and influential friend group, the Disruptors: Connecticut governor and aspiring senator Claire Debella (Creator/KathrynHahn); macho car/alt-right streamer Duke Cody (Creator/DaveBautista) and his much younger girlfriend Whiskey (Creator/MadelynCline); controversial supermodel-turned-fashion designer Birdie Jay (Creator/KateHudson) and her assistant Peg (Creator/JessicaHenwick); one of Bron's most prominent employed scientists, Lionel Toussaint (Creator/LeslieOdomJr); and Bron's estranged former business partner Andi Brand (Music/JanelleMonae). The problems? Bron ''didn't'' invite Blanc, everyone's motives are not as they seem, and something more complex is afoot. |
| 17 | |
| 18 | The film was given a one-week theatrical engagement by Creator/{{Netflix}} from November 22-29, 2022, and was released on the service on December 23. It was also screened at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival. |
| 19 | |
| 20 | Johnson has confirmed that he is developing a third Benoit Blanc mystery film. |
| 21 | |
| 22 | Previews: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTI6T5M8Fj0 Netflix 2022 Movie Preview]] (as ''[[WorkingTitle Knives Out 2]]''), [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xR_lBtEvSc Teaser]], [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUrK35whbL4&ab_channel=Netflix Tudum Clip]], [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gj5ibYSz8C0 Official Trailer]] |
| 23 | ---- |
| 24 | !!''Glass Onion'' contains examples of: |
| 25 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 26 | |
| 27 | [[folder:# to C]] |
| 28 | * TwentyMinutesIntoThePast: The film was released in November 2022, but it is set in May 2020. |
| 29 | * AcademicAthlete: Serena Williams is engrossed with ''Literature/GravitysRainbow'', which, in the first movie, Blanc even admitted to never reading. |
| 30 | * ActorAllusion: |
| 31 | ** Andi lambasts Birdie for daring to compare herself to UsefulNotes/HarrietTubman. Andi's actress Creator/JanelleMonae and co-star Creator/LeslieOdomJr previously appeared in Tubman biopic ''Film/{{Harriet}}''. |
| 32 | ** Birdie founded a famous athleisure brand, Sweetiepants. So did her actress Creator/KateHudson, who co-founded Fabletics. |
| 33 | ** Creator/JackieHoffman has a small role as Duke's mother, who acts very similar to Uma Heller, Hoffman's character from [[Series/OnlyMurdersInTheBuilding another comedic murder mystery]]. |
| 34 | ** This is not Creator/EdwardNorton's first film where [[spoiler:he keeps [[Film/TheItalianJob2003 stealing everyone else's ideas because he has none of his own]]]]. |
| 35 | ** A subtle one: this is not the first time [[spoiler:Creator/DanielCraig has been [[Franchise/JamesBond in the crosshairs of an unseen gunman.]] Helen is even shot in the same place Bond was in ''Film/{{Skyfall}}''.]] |
| 36 | ** In the Spanish dub, Blanc's line about not being Batman is changed to him claiming that he's not James Bond. |
| 37 | * AffectionateParody: As with ''Knives Out'', the film is a wryly indulgent and subversive take on the mystery genre. Notably, it features the twist of [[spoiler:a character being revealed to have an [[DeadPersonImpersonation identical]] [[TwinSwitch twin]]]], a classic mystery turn often considered cliche, but done here with sincerity for [[spoiler:the reveal and complete characterization of the film's true protagonist]], and the resolution of the mystery is a big subversion of the genre and the previous film-- [[spoiler:The culprit is the most obvious, immediate, and uncomplicated answer, but nobody would have expected it because the killer would have to be extremely reckless and stupid for that to be true...which they absolutely are.]] The film also parodies the RedHerring--[[spoiler:Derol is a conspicuous character, but he's described as "not part of the experience" and tells the other characters to ignore him...and ultimately, he ''isn't'' part of things and ''can'' be ignored because he truly has no relevance to the mystery]]. |
| 38 | * AlcoholInducedIdiocy: {{Subverted|Trope}}; while [[spoiler:Helen-as-Andi]] does get tipsy and lashes out at the rest of the Disruptors, [[spoiler:it leads to a ''major'' break in the case when the rest of the Disruptors confront her. Blanc even encourages her to drink ''more'' after the fact.]] |
| 39 | * AmbiguousEnding: [[spoiler:The size of the repercussions for Miles -- with his reputation tarnished by means of Klear proven to be extremely unstable and destroying both the Glass Onion and ''Art/TheMonaLisa'' -- and if a bigger investigation is opened as a result of that are not specified. However drastic things will be for the lives of the Disruptors after that are is also left up in the air -- though it's clear they either won't help Miles or will totally lie to make him look worse if they have to say anything at all.]] |
| 40 | * AppliedPhlebotinum: |
| 41 | ** Klear is a new alternative fuel source being pushed by Miles. A solid-state hydrogen fuel created from seawater, it's already powering the Glass Onion, and Miles plans to expand it to everything from residential to transport uses. |
| 42 | ** When they arrive in Greece, the characters have their throats sprayed with some sort of spray can and are simply told "You're good" regarding catching COVID. This unexplained bit of superscience neatly sidesteps the characters having to wear masks for the rest of the film. [[spoiler:Considering what we later learn about Miles, one has to wonder if it actually did anything at all.]] |
| 43 | * ArmorPiercingQuestion: A confrontation taking place after the pool scene features a piercing question that not only shuts up the questioned on moral grounds but lets the asker escape a conversation they're not fully on top of. [[spoiler:In the second half of the film, Helen (as Andi) calls out Claire and Duke about the events after Andi threatened them with the email, angrily demanding to know why they didn't respond to it. Claire and Duke catch Helen completely off-guard with information she didn't know by telling her they ''did'', attempting to email and call Andi and even trying to visit her house to speak to her, only to get no response (because Andi had been killed). Helen saves face and regains her footing in the ruse by feigning that Andi didn't answer any of it because she didn't trust the Disruptors, and going with this, Helen successfully stuns Claire and Duke by asking if they were coming to check on Andi's welfare, or if they were just coming to prevent her from making good on her threat to Miles' empire. They can't answer.]] |
| 44 | * ArtisticLicenseArt: ''Art/TheMonaLisa'', which Bron has in his possession to brag how rich he is, is depicted as larger than in real life and having been painted on canvas, [[spoiler:best shown when it burns]]. The real ''Mona Lisa'' was actually painted on wood. |
| 45 | * ArtisticLicenseChemistry: Klear is described as a "solid hydrogen fuel" that Miles plans to implement, powerful and dangerous enough to [[spoiler:blow up the entire Glass Onion complex]]. It's a purely fictional substance, as real hydrogen must be kept at around -435 ºF (-260 ºC) at standard pressure to keep solid. It can be stored in a solid state if bonded with other compounds like salt, but it certainly would not have the explosive properties depicted in the film. |
| 46 | * ArtisticLicenseEngineering: The danger of Miles' plot to implement Klear and "turn people's home into the Hindenburg" obviously has NoOSHACompliance with regards to safety and regulations. Moreover, the exact role of hydrogen in the destruction of UsefulNotes/TheHindenburg itself is still [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LZ_129_Hindenburg#Final_flight:_May_3–6,_1937 the subject of debate]]. |
| 47 | * ArtisticLicenseGeography: When [[spoiler:Duke is murdered]] and the characters try to summon help from the mainland, the police won't be able to land until the next morning because the fancy dock that Miles had installed is only accessible at low tide. However, the Aegean Sea (as part of the Mediterranean) has minuscule tides that wouldn't be a problem in real life; at the ''very'' worst someone landing at the dock would get their feet wet. |
| 48 | * ArtisticLicenseGunSafety: When Duke gets out of the pool, he immediately pulls out his handgun-which is holstered to his swimsuit-and fires a shot in the air. In RealLife, he'd have been lucky to not have the gun explode in his hand and blow a few fingers off. Guns are not designed to be immersed in water. If they have been, there is a clearing procedure that one ''must'' perform before attempting to fire it. The reason is the water cannot be compressed, so any droplets of water in the barrel would basically act as a solid object when the fired round impacted them, possibly rupturing the barrel.[[note]]In ''Film/NoCountryForOldMen'', Moss performs the clearing procedure correctly after he emerges from a river with his gun.[[/note]] |
| 49 | * ArtisticLicenseLaw: |
| 50 | ** Laws for gun ownership, possession, and open carry are a lot more restrictive in Greece than they are in the US, so in reality, Duke shouldn’t have been able to bring his gun from the US for the trip, let alone walk about in Greece with it in full display. It's possible that [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney Miles' connections helped him with this]], but never confirmed in the film. |
| 51 | ** The court case between Andi and Miles is implied to have hinged on proving which of them came up with the original idea for the company. [[spoiler:Andi originally wrote the idea on a napkin, which she threatened to use as evidence against Miles.]] Business ideas are generally not legally protected. Control of the company would be determined by contracts and ownership of company shares. It does not matter who came up with the business plan and since Miles is well known for riding coattails rather than thinking up of any original ideas, it’s safe to say the court would have gone in Andi’s favor had this happened in reality. |
| 52 | * ArtisticLicensePolitics: Claire, the governor of Connecticut, is shown to be running for the United States Senate in 2020. There were no elections for the Senate in Connecticut during 2020. They were actually held during the 2018 and 2022 midterms. There would only be an election in 2020 if a senator who was last elected in 2016 or 2018 died or resigned prior to the 2020 election cycle and a special election was held to fill the remainder of the previous senator's term, which would have expired in 2023 or 2025 depending on when the last regular election was. |
| 53 | * ArtisticLicenseSports: One of the things Blanc dislikes about ''TabletopGame/{{Clue}}'' is that it portrays one clear suspect who has motive. In actual ''Cluedo'', motive is irrelevant - most versions of the game's backstory gives everyone motive, just like in the film. The actual point of ''Cluedo'' is to discover who had the means and was present at the time of the murder. |
| 54 | * AsHimself: |
| 55 | ** Creator/AngelaLansbury, Music/StephenSondheim, Creator/KareemAbdulJabbar, and Creator/NatashaLyonne cameo in a Zoom call at the start of the film, playing ''VideoGame/AmongUs'' with Blanc. |
| 56 | ** Cellist Yo-Yo Ma is a guest at Birdie's party early on. His musical know-how helps solve one of the box's puzzles. |
| 57 | ** Tennis player Serena Williams appears as an online Peloton-style fitness instructor ... but since there's a murder mystery going on and everyone's preoccupied, she just sits and reads instead. It takes [[spoiler:Benoit and Helen]] a minute to even realize it's a live feed. |
| 58 | --->'''Serena:''' Whatever, man, it's your money. |
| 59 | * AwesomeButImpractical: |
| 60 | ** Miles had a glass dock flanked by Banksy statues installed as the only landing point for his personal island. It looks incredible, but it's also a fixed dock only accessible at low tide. |
| 61 | ** His case for the ''Mona Lisa'' is a high-tech security system that will slide the glass over it at the slightest hint of a flame, a loud noise, or a phone dinging, but is still ultimately less secure than simply [[BoringButPractical securing the glass over it full-time]] because he wants to see it without the glass, to the point he installed an override to lower the glass at will. [[spoiler:It bites him in the ass when Helen activates the override, exposing the painting to the flames of his burning house.]] |
| 62 | ** Miles has invented Klear, a clean crystalline fuel that can be derived from common seawater. [[spoiler:It also produces extremely flammable hydrogen gas and, as Claire puts it, turns houses into the Hindenburg.]] |
| 63 | ** Using only fax machines for communication, as well as having all his machines running on the same number, may make Miles seem artsy and unique, but it also makes a walk in the park for prying eyes to glance at his incriminating documents. [[spoiler:Which is how Blanc and Helen find out he knew about Andi's E-Mail]]. |
| 64 | * BaitAndSwitch: |
| 65 | ** Miles invites everyone to partake in a murder mystery party game, which looks like it's going to end with an actual murder. [[spoiler:Blanc manages to solve the game before it even begins, and it turns out that the real murder took place a week earlier.]] |
| 66 | ** In the first film, Blanc was anonymously hired to investigate a crime that [[NeverSuicide didn't actually look like a crime]] from the outset, so when he's mysteriously invited to Miles' party without Miles' knowledge, it looks like there's once again someone on the inside who wants him there because they know a crime is about to go down. [[spoiler:It turns out someone did want Blanc there, but unlike the anonymous invitation in the first film, Blanc was in on the plan from the start.]] |
| 67 | ** Before the flashback sequence, Blanc [[spoiler:calls Andi "Helen"]], and right after [[spoiler:"Andi" is shot]] proclaims that it's time "to find out who killed [[spoiler:Cassandra Brand]]." [[spoiler:It seems that he's referring to the person who just shot "Andi" right in front of him on the steps of the Glass Onion. But he's actually talking about the person who killed the ''real'' Andi days previously. Oddly enough, they're the same person.]] |
| 68 | ** Being a wealthy man on a remote island who invited a group of people who [[WhoMurderedTheAsshole each has a valid reason to want him dead]], it looks like Miles is going to be the murder victim. [[spoiler:Not only does he survive, but he is responsible for the ''actual'' murder that is at the center of the mystery.]] |
| 69 | ** Blanc arrives on the island seemingly truly out of his element and with a more theatrical, showy attitude than he showed in ''Film/KnivesOut''. It's chalked up to him going stir-crazy in isolation. [[spoiler:He actually is acutely aware of why he's there, and told Helen that he would play up his "Southern hokum" as a way to distract the others from noticing she was posing as Andi.]] |
| 70 | * BallroomBlitz: The first murder we see onscreen happens during Miles' party, which is why everyone is still glammed up as the culprit wreaks havoc. Miles wastes no time whining about the interruptions to the festivities. [[spoiler:Even though he's the killer.]] |
| 71 | * BatmanGambit: In order to [[spoiler:have the freedom to search the other guests' rooms, Helen-as-Andi has to provoke a confrontation with at least one of the guests that she knows she will lose, giving her a reason to leave the evening drinks party]]. |
| 72 | * BeautyIsNeverTarnished: [[spoiler:When Helen (and the audience) learns that her twin sister Andi has apparently committed suicide via carbon monoxide poisoning, she [[IdentifyingTheBody goes to see Andi's body at the morgue]], and said body looks basically as if Andi is just sleeping]]. |
| 73 | * BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: Miles always wanted to do something big that would get him remembered in the same breath as the Mona Lisa. [[spoiler:His dangerous fuel blowing up his complex and ''the Mona Lisa itself'' ensure that'll he'll be remembered as the man who '''destroyed''' the Mona Lisa.]] |
| 74 | * BigFancyHouse: The Glass Onion, Miles' luxurious estate on a Greek private island with lavishly designed guest rooms, lush gardens surrounding an infinity pool, a living/dining room filled with expensive pieces of art, and a private gym coached by Serena Williams, all powered by a state-of-the-art energy source. Also lampshaded; he insists that it's much more than a "rich asshole house". |
| 75 | * BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:More on the triumphant though. Miles destroys the napkin with his lighter and thus disposes of the only piece of evidence that could not only prove he stole creative control of Alpha from Andi, but could also prove that he killed her and Duke to further cover his tracks; but Helen--inspired by Blanc to do so--then uses Klear to destroy both the Glass Onion and the ''Mona Lisa,'' knowing full well that Miles will take the blame for both the painting's destruction and for Klear being a proven failure that he bet everything he has upon. The Disruptors also determine that they'll take Helen's side if they have to, knowing full well that he no longer has any power or influence to hold over them, even with their own situations likely not improving during the circumstances too.]] |
| 76 | * BlackComedy: The extent of Birdie saying or doing incredibly offensive things would be pretty unpleasant, if it weren't for the fact that [[HanlonsRazor she's a total idiot and all of her gaffes were born from her staggering ignorance rather than actual bigotry]]. |
| 77 | * BlackDudeDiesFirst: Played with. [[spoiler:Although Duke (played by half-Filipino actor Creator/DaveBautista) is the first person to die on-screen, it turns out that Andi was the first to die ''chronologically'', having been killed by Miles prior to the events of the film]]. |
| 78 | * {{Blackface}}: Alluded to when Birdie Jay insists that the Halloween costume that landed her in hot water was supposed to be a tribute to Music/{{Beyonce}}, though we [[NoodleIncident never see]] what exactly her costume looked like. |
| 79 | * BlackmailBackfire: |
| 80 | ** [[spoiler:Andi]] tried blackmailing [[spoiler:Miles' friends]] after discovering evidence that would ruin them. [[spoiler:Lionel faxes the email to Miles, which leads to Miles killing her personally and stealing the evidence.]] |
| 81 | ** Upon piecing together that [[spoiler:Miles killed Andi, Duke]] subtly blackmails [[spoiler:Miles]] during the party to [[spoiler:put him on Alpha News or else he'll reveal the truth to the public. This results in Miles tricking Duke into drinking a glass filled with pineapple juice, which Duke is deathly allergic to, killing him.]] |
| 82 | * BlazingInfernoHellfireSauce: Creator/JeremyRenner's short-batch hot sauce. [[spoiler:Blanc dabs some into his eyes so he can [[CrocodileTears pretend to cry]]. Helen also uses it as fake blood after she gets "shot" and almost ruins the charade when some drips into her nostril.]] |
| 83 | * ABloodyMess: All the bright red blood on [[spoiler:Helen after she is shot is actually hot sauce, which Blanc had splashed on her to make her [[FakingTheDead look dead]] and shock everyone else into going along with the investigation]]. |
| 84 | * BluffingTheMurderer: [[spoiler:Helen and Blanc's plan is for Helen to [[DeadPersonImpersonation impersonate her dead sister]] in order to get the still unknown murderer to panic and reveal themselves at the gathering.]] |
| 85 | * BrickJoke: |
| 86 | ** Coming into the mansion and seeing Miles' ridiculously elaborate Banksy dock, Lionel asks what it is and the captain replies "Pisceshite", which Lionel assumes is the island's name in Greek. Later, when Lionel tries to call for help, he's told no one can arrive because that same dock won't work outside low tide. It's only when the operator repeats that word over and over that Lionel realizes the first captain was just calling the dock a "piece of shit." |
| 87 | ** Blanc tries to have a thoughtful smoke in a secluded corner of the mansion's grounds, only for an alarm to go off and an automated voice to inform him that this is a non-smoking area. The alarm is heard again at the end of the film [[spoiler:as the mansion burns down]]. |
| 88 | ** Blanc asks if there will be a prize for solving the murder mystery, like an iPad. After Blanc solves the actual crime, Miles snarks that he can have an iPad Pro. |
| 89 | ** After learning that Klear gives off hydrogen gas, Claire panics at the thought that the energy system she just endorsed could turn every house powered by it into the Hindenburg. Shortly before [[spoiler:Miles' Klear-powered mansion blows up]], she [[ThisIsGonnaSuck dejectedly mutters "Hindenburg"]]. |
| 90 | ** Brand refers to the Disruptors who sided with Miles when he stole the company as "the Shitheads". At the end of the movie, [[spoiler:when they finally have enough and turn on him, Miles calls them "shitheads" himself]]. |
| 91 | ** One going back to the first film. Serena Williams is seen reading ''Literature/GravitysRainbow'', which Blanc mentioned in the first film to say no one has ever read it. |
| 92 | * ButNotTooGay: Unlike the straight couples (Whiskey and Duke are affectionate with each other and there's a brief scene where Duke watches [[spoiler:Whiskey seduce Bron on his bed]]; Claire gets a scene with her kids and husband), Blanc's live-in partner Philip isn't explicitly labeled as such and never shares the screen with him. |
| 93 | * TheCameo: |
| 94 | ** Blanc has been whiling away the time during lockdown with Zoom chats with Creator/NatashaLyonne, Creator/KareemAbdulJabbar, Creator/AngelaLansbury, and Creator/StephenSondheim. (It's the final film appearance for both Lansbury and Sondheim.) |
| 95 | ** Creator/EthanHawke appears briefly as Miles' assistant. |
| 96 | ** Creator/JosephGordonLevitt returns to yet another Rian Johnson production, this time as the "Hourly Dong" sound for Miles' island clock. |
| 97 | ** Creator/HughGrant briefly appears as Blanc's husband Phillip. |
| 98 | ** Famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma is one of the guests at Birdie's party. He helpfully identifies a fugue, which solves one of the puzzles in Miles' box. |
| 99 | ** Tennis player Serena Williams appears as a coach on retainer for a gym at the Glass Onion which never gets used. |
| 100 | * CastingGag: Blanc's Zoom buddies have their own histories with the murder mystery genre: |
| 101 | ** Creator/StephenSondheim appearing AsHimself is a tribute to the murder mystery parties he hosted, which inspired the entire ''Knives Out'' series. (See also the Sondheim-written ''Film/TheLastOfSheila'', which is an influence on this film in particular.) It follows up on a scene from the previous film, where Blanc was humming "Losing My Mind" from the Sondheim-written ''Theatre/{{Follies}}''. |
| 102 | ** Creator/AngelaLansbury starred as AmateurSleuth Jessica Fletcher on ''Series/MurderSheWrote'' and [[Literature/TheMirrorCrackdFromSideToSide once played]] another Christie detective, Literature/MissMarple. She also played a suspect and victim in [[Film/DeathOnTheNile1978 an adaptation of a noted Christie vacation mystery]]. Like Sondheim, her work had also briefly appeared in the previous film (Marta's mother is seen watching a Spanish-dubbed ''Murder, She Wrote''). She has appeared in many of Sondheim's musicals, including the original casts of ''Anyone Can Whistle'' and ''Theatre/SweeneyToddTheDemonBarberOfFleetStreet''. Sondheim even helped Johnson secure her appearance after learning he was interested. |
| 103 | ** Creator/NatashaLyonne partnered with director Rian Johnson on ''Series/PokerFace'', a mystery comedy series in production when the film was released. |
| 104 | ** Creator/KareemAbdulJabbar wrote multiple books about Mycroft Holmes, the older brother of iconic literary detective ''Franchise/SherlockHolmes''. |
| 105 | * CentralTheme: Disruption and the system. The film discusses how current structures and the law are broken in the favor of the most wealthy and privileged, and will co-opt disruptive ideas of progress and revolution to deaden their power, and states that the only way to address these problems and make real change is to break the system ''open'' entirely, past the point that most people are comfortable with. |
| 106 | ** As far as false disruption, Miles calls himself and his friends "Disruptors" who are fighting the system to change the world, but none of this is real change. Miles is just another tycoon trying to get wealth and fame from innovation, Claire is a politician dishonestly using progressivism to earn votes and willfully greenlighting dangerous plans to get financial support for her campaign, Lionel is spineless against Miles and doesn't fight for his principles early enough, and Birdie and Duke are only "disruptors" against the status quo in the sense that they spout regressive and bigoted opinions in a world they feel is too "woke" and are thus standing for an ''older'' status quo. |
| 107 | *** To a lesser degree, there's also the false disruption of ignoring safety regulations and precedents in engineering and technology in the belief that they "hold things back", such as all the issues with Klear. Had Miles died during the explosion, there would probably be comparisons to [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_submersible_implosion Stockton Rush]] as well. |
| 108 | ** As far as wealth fostering injustice, Andi was legally screwed over by Miles and his legal team-- by trying to maintain ethical control over her company and halt a reckless plan, she was taken away from her seat of power and with no way to stop it. The idea is also explored with Birdie and Duke, who are the kind of "cancelled" celebrities who are stupid and morally abhorrent enough to never be able to weather controversy and recover their careers without other famous friends and money to revive them again and again--but they have those. |
| 109 | ** True disruption as Miles describes it (progressively breaking through barriers nobody is comfortable with) becomes illustrated with [[spoiler: Helen]]. They cannot achieve justice for the crime in a truly ethical legal manner since the evidence that would save them has been destroyed and there are witnesses who will perjure against them. They ultimately have to achieve vindication in a dubious but genuinely disruptive manner through [[spoiler:cutting through the bullshit empire of the private island and going further than anyone else is willing to by blowing up the Glass Onion with the dangerous Klear fuel, while sacrificing a priceless piece of cultural heritage, all to frame the killer as the dangerous idiot he genuinely is. After taking these steps, Helen secures the perjury of the witnesses in ''her'' favor, allowing her to achieve justice in an unorthodox but effective manner outside the rules.]] |
| 110 | * ChekhovsBoomerang: |
| 111 | ** The Mona Lisa and its security system. It's initially introduced as an illustration of Miles Bron's character: he paid a lot of money to borrow it, and he plays fast and loose with the measures intended to protect it because he doesn't like the slight inconvenience of looking at it through a glass case. The security shutter's sensitivity to noise becomes a running gag, and then a plot point. In the final confrontation, [[spoiler:his circumvention of the protection measures comes back to bite him, leaving the painting vulnerable to destruction during the explosive failure of the Klear system]]. |
| 112 | ** The portable butane torch Miles carries to demonstrate the portrait's security [[spoiler:and which he uses to destroy the genuine Alpha napkin. Helen takes it moments later to start a bonfire that she ultimately uses to ignite the Klear hydrogen fuel powering Miles' house]]. |
| 113 | * ChekhovsGun: |
| 114 | ** The Alpha fax machines which all use the same number. [[spoiler:Lionel faxed Andi's e-mail to Miles, who received the copy in New York. The fax machine on the island also received it, which proves Miles was also aware of the threat]]. |
| 115 | ** The invitations have a small note on the bottom asking for everyone's dietary restrictions. [[spoiler:Which is how Miles knows about Duke's allergy to pineapples.]] |
| 116 | ** Literally with Duke's pistol, which he fires in the air several times for fun. [[spoiler:After murdering Duke, Miles takes his gun and uses it to murder "Andi" (or at least tries to).]] |
| 117 | ** The napkin on which Miles Bron wrote the original ideas for his company. [[spoiler:It was actually written by Andi, and Helen comes to the island to try and find it to prove her sister was the real genius]]. |
| 118 | ** Miles' one-of-a-kind Porsche which follows him everywhere he goes. [[spoiler:He drove it to murder Andi and nearly ran over Duke on his way back]]. |
| 119 | ** The bottle of Creator/JeremyRenner's hot sauce [[spoiler:is used by Blanc and Helen to help fake Helen's death]]. |
| 120 | ** The tiny chunk of [[AppliedPhlebotinum hydrogen-based Klear fuel]] Miles shows off at the beginning of the party and then tosses to Blanc. [[spoiler:Blanc gives it Helen, who uses it as an explosive catalyst to destroy the Glass Onion, proving how dangerous it is in a way that the media can't overlook.]] |
| 121 | ** Early on, it's mentioned that Helen is wearing flats, [[spoiler:which allows her to beat Miles to the ''Mona Lisa'' security case's override switch.]] |
| 122 | * ChekhovsSkill: Or rather, ''lack'' of skill. [[spoiler:Miles is shown time and time again to be not nearly as smart as he appears. He frequently [[DelusionsOfEloquence misuses or makes up clever-sounding words]], his intricate mystery boxes weren't actually made by him, and even his planned murder mystery game is immediately solved by Blanc. And it turns out this extends to him as the killer: Blanc finally pins him as the guilty party once he realizes that, yes, Miles ''is'' stupid enough to murder a high-profile businesswoman he'd just had a bitter public legal dispute with.]] |
| 123 | * ClosedCircle: The murder mystery takes place on an island that can only be accessed by a two-hour boat ride, and the impractical dock means boats can only arrive at low tide. This means that after chaos ensues when [[spoiler:Duke dies]], the cast is stuck there because nobody can reach or leave the island until the morning. |
| 124 | * ClothingDamage: [[spoiler: Helen's white suit jacket got penetrated by the bullet, and in the finale, when she starts to destroy Miles' house, she fiercely sheds said jacket and throws it in to the bonfire.]] |
| 125 | * ClothingReflectsPersonality: How the characters wear their masks when they are meeting on the docks helps establish their character: |
| 126 | ** Lionel wears his professional [=N95=] mask the entire time and tries to avoid social contact, showing that he takes the pandemic seriously and is reasonably considerate of others. |
| 127 | ** Claire's mask covers her mouth but regularly falls off her nose, showing that she's only interested in ''appearing'' socially and morally conscious. She's only wearing her mask properly when the public can see her, and is seen adjusting it to cover her nose properly after Blanc addresses her as "Governor", showing her self-consciousness about her performative political image. |
| 128 | ** Birdie wears a mesh mask that looks (and probably functions) more like a veil than a face mask, and immediately tries to initiate a hug regardless of the others' protests, showing that she is much more concerned with how she looks than how protected she is -- meanwhile, her responsible assistant, Peg, is wearing a functional face mask and keeps it on the entire time the group is on the dock. |
| 129 | ** Duke doesn't wear a mask at all, and neither does his girlfriend, Whiskey, implying that neither of them believe the virus is a real threat or simply won't be inconvenienced. |
| 130 | ** Blanc wears what appears to be a homemade mask that coordinates with his outfit, reflective of his dandy fashion sense, while also wearing his mask properly and keeping his distance from the others. |
| 131 | ** While we never see Miles wearing a mask, he has one of his employees spray something in the throats of all the guests that supposedly protects them from the virus. [[spoiler:With the revelation later on of Miles' stupidity, it shows that he's more interested in flashy stuff that looks cool rather than anything that has been actually tested and proven to work]]. |
| 132 | ** [[spoiler:Helen]]'s first chronological scene shows her properly wearing a disposable surgical mask, emphasizing her propriety and respect for others. The fact that she wears a ''disposable'' mask also highlights [[spoiler:her modest background compared to the Disruptors]]. In addition, [[spoiler:when she appears as Andi on the dock, she doesn't have a mask because she's already wearing one -- taking on Andi's identity.]] |
| 133 | * CoincidentalDisguiseComplementingTrait: The ultimate twist of the film is that [[spoiler: "Andi" is actually her twin sister, Helen Brand, tagging along with Benoit Blanc to help discover the truth behind Andi's murder. Though Helen has managed to replicate her sister's mannerisms quite accurately, TheReveal shows that there were a few glitches in her performance that ended up working in her favour: first, Helen suffered from a rather un-Andi-like bout of seasickness on the boat trip to Bron's island, forcing her to separate herself from the other Disruptors - accidentally making her seem aloof and cold, exactly as the real Andi would have been. Second, Helen was so nervous about playing the part that she got drunk on sambuca, but she turned out to be such a belligerent drunk that she unleashed a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech on Bron and the Disruptors that perfectly captured the level of righteous anger and betrayal the real Andi would be feeling under the circumstances.]] |
| 134 | * ComplexityAddiction: A running theme throughout the movie, as Miles and the Disruptors delight in grand theatrical displays and puzzles to solve as a means of 'proving' their intelligence, and Blanc is shown in the beginning to be going a little stir-crazy when the COVID pandemic forces him to stay indoors without a case to stimulate his mind. [[spoiler:Conversely, main protagonist Helen has little patience for these 'games' and prefers [[CuttingTheKnot the inelegant, but effective]] method of solving her problems]]. Ironically, both Blanc [[spoiler:and Helen run into problems with the case because of this, as both of them assume the motive and reasoning behind Andi's murder is much more complicated than an outside perspective makes it look, when in actuality her killer is just ''really'' dumb and opportunistic]]. |
| 135 | * ContinuityNod: Some moments allude to the previous film: |
| 136 | ** Blanc warns Miles that being sent an anonymous invitation to a seemingly uneventful gathering means things are likely to be a lot more serious than they appear, likely something he learned from the culprit inviting him to the Thrombey home in the previous film. |
| 137 | ** One of the glass sculptures in Miles' mansion [[spoiler:which gets smashed by Peg later]] closely resembles the now-iconic knife wheel in Harlan Thrombey's office. |
| 138 | ** When he sees a knife rack with one knife missing, Blanc responds in exasperation. He may well be having flashbacks to the [[Film/KnivesOut last time we saw him]]. |
| 139 | ** In Serena Williams' cameo, she is reading ''Literature/GravitysRainbow'' - disproving Blanc's assertion that [[Film/KnivesOut no one reads it]]. |
| 140 | ** Several times throughout the movie, characters will toss or hand things to Peg, who is just confused as to what to do with it, echoing the way Richard nonchalantly passed his plate over to Marta as if she were "the help". |
| 141 | ** [[spoiler:The first death is [[NeverSuicide seemingly a suicide]], like in the first movie. Like in the original, it's suspected the suicide was in fact hiding a murder. Unlike the first movie, this is actually the case]]. |
| 142 | * ContrastingSequelSetting: ''Film/KnivesOut'' was set in a cozy old New England mansion in fall, but this film is set in a modern mansion on a [[SequelGoesForeign Greek]] private island during spring. |
| 143 | * ConvectionSchmonvection: [[spoiler:When Helen ignites the Klear powering the Glass Onion and the titular dome ''explodes,'' none of the characters in the building are seriously burned either by the initial explosion or the subsequent flames.]] |
| 144 | * ConvenientlyAnOrphan: [[spoiler:Helen and Andi have no living family beside one another, meaning that Helen is the only person who's been notified of Andi's death. That buys Helen and Blanc a little time for Helen to impersonate Andi and try to solve her murder, with Blanc pulling strings to delay the public release of her death so none of the guests will find out.]] |
| 145 | * CoolCar: Probably the only genuinely charming thing about Miles is his [[https://www.dupontregistry.com/autos/listing/2015/porsche/918--spyder/100258 2015 Porsche 918 Spyder]] which he has dubbed "Baby Blue". He supposedly takes it with him anywhere he goes in the world, and at the Glass Onion, it is on a large turntable on the ''roof''. [[spoiler:This turns out to be a very poor location once the Glass Onion is destroyed]]. |
| 146 | * CoolShades: Benoit Blanc and all the other characters sport sunglasses on their spring retreat to a Mediterranean island. |
| 147 | * CrazyEnoughToWork: Defied in the denouement. Both because it is evidence of Bron being an idiot [[spoiler:who killed Andi without thinking that he may be a primary suspect]] and because the one who brings up the "crazy enough to work" metaphor is one of Bron's Disruptors, who is still trying to kiss his ass in spite of it all. |
| 148 | -->'''Benoit:''' It's so dumb...\ |
| 149 | '''[[spoiler:Birdie]]:''' It's so dumb it's brilliant!\ |
| 150 | '''Benoit:''' [[BigNo NO!]] It's just ''DUMB''! |
| 151 | * CrocodileTears: Blanc puts some hot sauce in his eyes to stimulate tears [[spoiler:while he and Helen fake the latter's death]]. |
| 152 | * CryIntoChest: [[spoiler:Whiskey, kneeling on the floor over Duke's dead body, ends up burying her face into his chest and sobbing while everyone else freaks out. Blanc eventually leads her away so he can examine the corpse properly.]] |
| 153 | * CuttingTheKnot: |
| 154 | ** The invitation to the island is an intricate puzzle box that Claire, Lionel, Birdie, and Duke delight in solving together. After this montage, we see Andi receive her box, and instead of solving all the individual puzzles, she takes a hammer to it. This turns out to have been meaningful: [[spoiler:Andi is dead by this time, and her sister Helen was the one who opened the box. She has no patience for the Disruptors, and opted to smash it instead of indulging in their games.]] |
| 155 | ** This is actually a running theme in the film, as both the good guys and the bad guys cut through complex problems with surprisingly simple solutions. [[AnAesop A thing doesn't have to be intelligent to be effective.]] |
| 156 | [[/folder]] |
| 157 | |
| 158 | [[folder:D to H]] |
| 159 | * DeadlyGas: [[spoiler:Andi was killed by [[SlippingAMickey drugging her]] and placing her in her garage with the engine of her car running, leading to death by carbon monoxide]]. |
| 160 | * DeadPersonImpersonation: [[spoiler:Andi]] is being impersonated by [[spoiler:her identical twin sister, Helen.]] |
| 161 | * DeconstructedTrope: A common murder mystery set up is a rich person inviting a group of people, all of whom have a history with the host, to their estate. The guests all have a reason to wish the host harm and then, when the host dies, the rest of the mystery is finding out ''who-done-it?''. This movie instead asks the question "who is dumb enough to actually set up a situation like that?". This is possibly foreshadowing how [[spoiler:Miles is an idiot billionaire whose only idea of reasonable thought is something he stole from Benoit Blanc, the one man in the room who has any level of intelligence]]. |
| 162 | * DecoyProtagonist: Just as with the first movie, Blanc appears to be the traditional detective who will be the main focus. However, once we reach the second act, [[spoiler:a flashback to when Miles's box reaches Blanc's apartment, the true protagonist of the movie emerges: Andi's twin sister Helen, who wants to find justice for her murdered sister. At this point, we learn that not only was "Andi" actually Helen the whole time, but we also learn that she and Blanc had been working together before they even arrived at the docks to head to the island.]] |
| 163 | * DelayedReaction: This particularly applies to Birdie, who [[spoiler:starts talking about how Andi told Birdie about her twin sister Helen before realizing that she is currently talking to ''Helen'', even though the group was just informed of Andi's death]]. |
| 164 | * DenserAndWackier: ''Film/KnivesOut'' definitely has many moments of levity, but ''Glass Onion'' takes it up quite a few notches, using a lot more outright slapstick and comedic dialogue than its predecessor. |
| 165 | * DidntThinkThisThrough: |
| 166 | ** The killer's main trait, as Blanc {{Lampshade|hanging}}s in a ''scathing'' TheReasonYouSuckSpeech during TheSummation, as none of their murderous attempts show any great forethought of the repercussions of killing the target, or how to get away with it. On the flip side, this trait is ''also'' why they were able to commit murder in the first place, as none of the victims [[DidntSeeThatComing expected them to resort to it]] as a first response because of how ''dumb'' it would be. |
| 167 | *** [[spoiler:Miles killed Andi personally right after they had a drawn-out legal battle, which Blanc notes would have made him the ''first'' suspect once her death came to light which is [[WhoWouldBeStupidEnough why he initially dismissed him as a suspect]]. He also showed up to kill her in his custom-made iconic CoolCar, rather than in anything even remotely surreptitious, which allowed Duke to easily recognize his presence at the scene from them passing each other on the road]]. |
| 168 | *** [[spoiler:He kills Duke by slipping him a tainted drink inside his own glass, and passing it off as a murder attempt on him that accidentally got Duke due to Duke accidentally taking Miles' glass, even convincing everybody to misremember events from his convincing telling of his own story. However, he actually killed Duke through an allergic reaction to pineapple juice, something that would have come out in an autopsy, meaning that ''only'' Duke would have been negatively affected by the drink. With Miles admitting the glass was his own, and knowing about Duke's allergy beforehand, he as good as admitted that he intentionally killed him. When he stole Duke's phone, he could have easily set it anywhere else during his timed blackout, especially since he was alone. If he did that, Blanc couldn't have casually just taken it out of his back pocket in front of everyone]]. |
| 169 | *** He appears to avert this with [[spoiler:Helen's]] murder attempt, showing planning and preparation to [[spoiler:steal Duke's gun away from him even before he has to kill him, and then adapting his 'panic' during Duke's death into making himself a less convincing suspect when the lights go out on a timed switch, before using the ensuing cover of darkness to shoot Helen in the confusion]]. However, as Blanc is going through this, he [[ExplainExplainOhCrap realizes]] that [[spoiler:Miles actually lifted the entire idea wholesale from ''himself'' during his offhand comment to Miles when outlining the danger he appeared to be under. If left to his own devices, Helen's attempted murder would have been similarly poorly-thought out]]. |
| 170 | *** Lionel notes that [[spoiler:despite all the effort Miles went through to get Andi's letter containing the proof she was the original mind behind Alpha, and despite the risk it posed to him, he not only kept it, [[HiddenInPlainSight he displayed it openly]] in his Glass Onion room as well. He's incredulous that it seemingly never occurred to Miles to just burn the napkin in the first place]]. |
| 171 | ** [[spoiler:Duke attempting to blackmail Miles for a position in Alpha News over him murdering Andi. He]] appears to not realize that untold characters in other murder mysteries [[spoiler:have tried to blackmail murderers before him, and the vast majority of them wind up in the ground, and that Miles has already proven to be willing to kill to protect his money. In that moment, he also seems to have forgotten that he's been seeing (who he believes to be) Andi alive and well the entire vacation, which logically should've made her death appear to be a hoax.]] |
| 172 | ** Even [[spoiler:Helen]] falls prey to this: [[spoiler:she asks Blanc to go to the island to find out who killed her sister, but he points out that if a famous detective shows up by himself and starts asking questions about the conspicuously absent Andi, everyone will immediately be on their guard and he won't be able to learn anything from them. To remedy this, he needs Helen to pretend to be Andi and come as well]]. |
| 173 | * DiligentHeroSlothfulVillain: Benoit Blanc is a brilliant detective who falls to pieces without a case to solve and is first encountered deeply bored with playing games of ''VideoGame/AmongUs'' while in lockdown. The BigBad of the story is [[spoiler: Miles Bron, a [[SmugSnake smug]], [[RichInDollarsPoorInSense vacuous]], [[CreativeSterility unimaginative]] TechBro who takes great delight in being regarded as a SelfMadeMan and a genius even though he owes his success entirely to shameless credit-theft: the company that made him his fortune was effectively stolen from his partner, his innovations were either developed by someone else or half-assed bullshit he conjured up on a whim, his murder mystery and the puzzle boxes used for it were all commissioned, and his greatest work - the miracle fuel Klear - has been rushed through testing despite being volatile to the point of insanity. The murders he commits are so lazily thought-out they're virtually spur-of-the-moment, and Bron even resorts to stealing ideas from ''Benoit himself'' in a fantastically slothful attempt to save his own ass.]] As such, unlike the main villain of [[Film/KnivesOut the previous film]] - who was at least BrilliantButLazy and could play a good game of XanatosSpeedChess - this particular bad guy stands out as someone the hard-working Benoit Blanc ''utterly '''despises.''' '' |
| 174 | * DopeSlap: A panicking Miles receives one from Blanc [[spoiler:when he realizes it's nearly ten-o'clock -- the point at which the lights go out.]] |
| 175 | * DoubleMeaning: Miles repeatedly tells the Disruptors that [[spoiler:their weekend getaway will be devoted to solving his murder. While this is meant to refer to the fake performed murder of Miles, which is swiftly solved by Blanc, the getaway eventually does reveal itself to revolve around "Miles' murder" -- the murder ''he'' committed of Andi, and later Duke.]] |
| 176 | * DoubleMeaningTitle: The film's title of ''Glass Onion'' refers to [[ThePlace the name of the estate]] most of the film is set in; the "theme" of the murder (Blanc calls a "glass onion" [[HiddenInPlainSight something that seems complex, but after you peel the layers back the center is crystal-clear]]); and fits the TitledAfterTheSong theme shared by the previous film (it's also a song by Music/TheBeatles). |
| 177 | * DoWrongRight: Blanc appears to be almost as outraged at [[spoiler:how incredibly ''stupid'' and lacking in elegance Miles' methods of murder turn out to be as by the fact that Miles ''is'' committing murder at all]]. |
| 178 | * DramaticallyMissingThePoint: It turns out Birdie mistook the meaning of "sweatshop" for "place where sweat pants are put together". The fact her designer sweatpants are made in horrible conditions overseas is now coming to light, and Miles is using that misunderstanding against her to have her [[FallGuy take the fall for it]] and soak up the bad PR. |
| 179 | * DramaticIrony: We spend the entirety of the second act knowing that [[spoiler:Andi, actually Helen, will be murdered on Miles's island, with multiple scenes having her and Blanc discussing the dangers of her going to an island with her sister's murderer a couple of times to play up the drama. However, this is ultimately subverted, as when the flashback comes full circle, we see that [[PocketProtector her sister's journal]] managed to stop the bullet, and she and Blanc quickly [[FakingTheDead fake her death]] by pouring the hot sauce he took earlier all over her chest to [[ABloodyMess look like blood]].]] |
| 180 | * DumbassHasAPoint: |
| 181 | ** Early in the movie, Miles gives a big speech about how most people will cheer on the disruption of the status quo early on, but when people begin to cause major disruptions and push things to the brink, most will back off, as they aren't comfortable with truly breaking everything. Thus, it takes a very particular person to truly break the status quo, which makes him and his friends special. [[spoiler:Despite the fact that he is by and large an idiot who coasts off the success of others, we see that this at least is true at the end. When Helen starts breaking Miles' glass sculptures, seemingly out of petty anger over losing the only evidence capable of putting Miles away for her sister's murder, the others there cheer her on and even start destroying some sculptures themselves as none of them particularly like Miles. But as Helen's rampage continues, they start getting more and more uncomfortable with the chaos, particularly when she starts a bonfire with all the alcohol, and none of them are on board when they realize she plans to use some Klear to blow the building up. Despite calling themselves Disruptors, when push comes to shove, they're not actually willing to change the status quo.]] |
| 182 | ** This happens again at the end of the movie. [[spoiler:Miles burns the original napkin that proves Andi came up with the idea for Alpha, and gloats that there's no way they can bring him down now since they no longer have any hard evidence, and even in court, it'll be his word against Helen's, and all the Disruptors will have his back.]] |
| 183 | * EstablishingCharacterMoment: The introductory scene highlights the Disruptors' personalities. |
| 184 | ** Claire answers the door and only haphazardly puts her hand over her face despite the fact that the pandemic is still going on. Cut to the inside of her house and it's filled with unmasked staff working on her re-election campaign, showing how little she cares about real issues and how she's mainly focused on political power. |
| 185 | ** Lionel is introduced all alone in a large lab, teleconferencing with various members of Alpha's staff and trying to cover for Miles despite being told how his ideas don't work. It establishes that he takes science seriously, and is aware of Miles' shortcomings. [[spoiler:It also foreshadows that Miles is an idiot, given most of his ideas don't make sense and he relies on others to make it happen, and how despite everything the Disruptors won't say 'no' to him.]] |
| 186 | ** Birdie is shown having a wild party despite the fact that everyone is supposed to still be in quarantine and social distancing, showing that she's a vapid celebrity more interested in personal pleasure than following even the most basic safety guidelines. She's also the one who has to be talked through the clues in the puzzle box the most. |
| 187 | ** Duke is introduced explaining his reasoning for his Men's Rights misogyny but is quickly cowed into silence by his mother, showing how much of his tough guy persona is an act and that he can be easily controlled by those who hold any sort of power over him. |
| 188 | ** Whiskey briefly appears on the stream as well, [[BlondeRepublicanSexKitten scantily clad and mocking feminists]], before going back behind the camera and checking her phone, clearly bored, which foreshadows her HiddenDepths. |
| 189 | ** After the Disruptors all go through the process of solving the intricate puzzle box, it cuts to Brand, who is just staring at the box. She doesn't even bother to try and solve it. She merely takes a hammer to it and gets the invitation that way. This shows how she doesn't care to play Miles' game and is willing to simply tear something down to win. This also caps off a number of things about Miles - the fact that the boxes are extraordinarily simple, despite their outward complexity. |
| 190 | ** When we are introduced to Benoit Blanc, he is casually playing a game of ''Among Us'' with his celebrity friends. While the other Disruptors clearly strive for celebrity, the relationship between Blanc and his friends is more casual and compassionate, reminding us that Blanc is indeed a good person, and while he has a measure of celebrity, it's not important to him. |
| 191 | ** Miles is introduced playing "Blackbird" on the vintage guitar Music/PaulMcCartney used to compose the song, all just to impress Birdie. Then he thoughtlessly tosses the instrument aside, likely causing significant damage. This establishes him as being very skilled at impressing others but with a careless streak enabled by his wealth. He also fumbles a chord on "Blackbird", showing he's not as perfect as he may seem. Also worth noting: Music/PaulMcCartney is famously left-handed (see any photo of him playing) but the guitar Miles is playing is right-handed, which is the first hint that Miles is nowhere near as knowledgeable as he thinks he is. |
| 192 | ** Miles' "Hourly Dong," which he claims he had composed by Music/PhilipGlass, is a fun touch, but it's just an octave, practically the simplest musical idea that can exist (voice-only cameo from Creator/JosephGordonLevitt notwithstanding). The ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GV3HUDMQ-F8 Netflix logo noise]]'' is empirically more complicated, since it has some drums and a little bit of rhythm. Miles is either RichInDollarsPoorInSense, paying for a musical idea that barely counts as an idea; NouveauRiche obsessed with prestige, paying for the right to use Glass' name; or both. |
| 193 | * EurekaMoment: Blanc finally pieces everything together when [[spoiler:he's told the envelope isn't in any of the guest rooms]]. Given there's only one possibility left, he finally realizes [[spoiler:Miles is an idiot and thus the culprit]]. |
| 194 | * ExplainExplainOhCrap: [[spoiler:Blanc does give Miles credit for shooting Helen while the lights were out, stating it was his only crime with any panache, before slowly coming to the realization that in his explanation, he's [[MeaningfulEcho repeating the exact same words]] he said to Miles earlier in the day -- Miles had stolen the idea from ''him''.]] |
| 195 | * ExtremelyShortTimespan: The primary action at the Glass Onion takes place over the course of a single afternoon and evening. |
| 196 | * FairPlayWhodunit: |
| 197 | ** Deliberately so on Johnson's part, as he notes in the commentary track. As soon as the existence of [[spoiler:Andi's twin sister]] is revealed, the movie follows the rules and it is technically possible to figure out the perpetrator early. |
| 198 | ** Even before the reveal, [[spoiler:you can see several events happen the first time that are later brought directly to the audience's attention in flashbacks, such as the recorder landing in Birdie's bag, Duke's phone vanishing between shots from the table after his murder with Miles in the same shots, and said phone in Miles' back pocket.]] |
| 199 | ** [[spoiler:Duke's murder can be spotted right when it happens by noticing Miles handing him the glass and then later claiming Duke picked it up by accident.]] |
| 200 | ** [[spoiler:Andi's murder can be solved by combining Duke's statement that Miles almost pancaked him with his car at "the road outside An-"-"-derson Cooper's birthday?" and his later words that he almost got pancaked driving to Andi's house.]] |
| 201 | ** [[spoiler:Helen's attempted murder can again be seen prepared on screen - when moving away from Duke after the blackmail attempt, a gun silhouette can be made out under Miles's shirt before he stashes it (barely visible on screen) in the bar.]] |
| 202 | ** While the movie does hide the fact that [[spoiler: Andi was already dead before the start of the movie and Blanc was on the island to investigate her murder]], it is heavily foreshadowed that he has an ulterior motive for being there. His first scene is him saying that he needs a real case, not a vacation or a simple mystery game, hinting that whatever brought him to the island must be a real case. |
| 203 | * FakingTheDead: We later learn that [[spoiler:Helen's death was faked by her and Blanc quickly pouring hot sauce all over her chest]]. |
| 204 | * {{Fanservice}}: Madelyn Cline and Kate Hudson both play characters who make use of sex appeal for their careers (an influencer and a model respectively) and spend a significant amount of screen time in bikinis. On the male side, Dave Bautista is shirtless or wearing unbuttoned shirts [[WalkingShirtlessScene in many scenes]], exposing his impressive professional wrestler's physique. |
| 205 | * FieryCoverUp: [[spoiler:Miles burns the cocktail napkin with Andi's plan on it, thus destroying the only physical evidence that he stole the idea for Alpha from Andi. While this foils Helen's initial plan of revenge, Blanc helps her realize there's another way she can ruin Miles' reputation.]] |
| 206 | * FiveSecondForeshadowing: |
| 207 | ** Claire recoils and blurts out "oh, my God!" when Miles tosses Blanc a sample of Klear. [[spoiler:At first, she appears to be panicking because he's treating a valuable fuel so carelessly, but soon after, Lionel reveals that Klear is untested and potentially dangerous, showing that Claire knows about its volatility and Miles' plans for it. Blanc soon surmises, correctly, that Claire has been bought off in exchange for approving the construction of Miles' Klear energy plant.]] |
| 208 | ** In all the running around after the lights go off, Blanc calls [[spoiler:Helen by her real name when they meet up. Helen gets shot right after, and we go into the movie's biggest twist.]] |
| 209 | * FlashbackMontageRealization: Blanc's [[TheSummation summation]] is intercut with flashbacks to earlier scenes revealing clues that helped him solve the case. |
| 210 | * {{Foreshadowing}}: [[Foreshadowing/GlassOnion Has its own sub-page]]. |
| 211 | * FreezeFrameBonus: |
| 212 | ** Claire's campaign posters state that she is an Independent. |
| 213 | ** Blanc's invitation to Miles' party has a bent corner. [[spoiler:It was bent when Helen smashed the puzzle box to retrieve it.]] |
| 214 | ** Blanc plays ''VideoGame/AmongUs'' early in the film with some celebrity friends. Pausing the film reveals that Angela Lansbury's username is "[[Series/MurderSheWrote MSheSolved]]" while Stephen Sondheim's username is "[[Theatre/SweeneyToddTheDemonBarberOfFleetStreet FleetSt.]]" |
| 215 | *** During the voting round in the same game, Blanc quickly attempts to vote for [=CrunchyKill=] (Creator/KareemAbdulJabbar) prior to being kicked off the ship. In addition, when the voting screen comes up, it can be seen that nobody has died yet -- Blanc is so bad at {{Social Deduction Game}}s that he managed to incriminate himself ''without doing anything incriminating''. |
| 216 | ** The tunnel icon from ''Film/{{Brick}}'' can be seen scribbled on Derol's surfboard when [[spoiler:Helen]] bursts into his room. |
| 217 | ** After Duke gets an alert on his phone and gets into it with Miles, a brief flash of his phone screen, which is far enough from the camera not to be noticed, [[spoiler:shows a photo of Cassandra Brand. As will later be revealed, in that moment, Duke had been alerted to the breaking news of Andi's death by being notified about an article with her obituary, and the first pass of the events obliquely depicts that for the very attentive viewer.]] |
| 218 | ** When Miles says "inbreathiate", both Peg and Blanc can be seen clocking the malapropism. Peg even looks at Blanc, as if checking whether or not he heard it too. |
| 219 | * TheFriendNobodyLikes: |
| 220 | ** Back when the group was in its infancy and they all hung out together at the Glass Onion, no one liked Miles and only tolerated him for Andi's sake and because he helped them advance their careers. [[spoiler:It's why they still stick beside him, as he could also easily ruin those careers if he wanted to.]] |
| 221 | ** All of the Disruptors dislike Duke and find his macho persona to be annoying, with Claire especially having little fondness for him. |
| 222 | * FunnyBackgroundEvent: |
| 223 | ** At Birdie's birthday party, someone asks if Peg is still putting out her fires. In the background, Peg can be seen running by with a fire extinguisher to put out an actual fire. |
| 224 | ** During the puzzle box solve scene, a miniature music box plays as one of the riddles, and Birdie eagerly declares that she'll "Shazam it," a reference to a song-identifying app of that name. While a helpful Yo-Yo Ma comes over to identify the piece, Birdie stands in the background repeatedly yelling for her home assistant to name the song ... only to eventually realize that she's been talking to a lamp. |
| 225 | ** After the first use of the spray can, the camera focuses on Blanc talking with others. Meanwhile, we can hear the sounds of the can going off in the background just before the other guests start coughing and gagging. |
| 226 | ** As Miles says that the Glass Onion isn't just a "rich asshole house", a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BigDog BigDog]] can be seen walking by in the background, carrying everyone's luggage. |
| 227 | ** Everyone at the party gets a personalized cocktail glass, except for Peg, who instead gets a red Solo cup. She's later seen in the background elaborately doodling her name on the cup while Andi [[BatmanGambit picks a fight]] with the rest of the group. |
| 228 | ** [[spoiler:After reading the news article on Andi's death, Birdie still mistakes Helen for Andi, making Claire glance at her and shake her head.]] |
| 229 | * GenderEqualEnsemble: There are 10 people on Miles's private island where the bulk of the movie takes place: five men (Miles himself, Blanc, Lionel, Duke, and Derol, not that he plays much of a role) and five women (Claire, Birdie, Peg, Whiskey, and Andi). |
| 230 | * GenreShift: The film [[spoiler:initially takes the shape of a conventional ClosedCircle murder mystery, with Miles seemingly the target. Then Duke and "Andi" are picked off one after the other, hinting at a plot of TenLittleMurderVictims. Then it turns out Duke's killing was the second murder, and Andi's murder happened days ago, with Blanc and Helen BluffingTheMurderer from the beginning by having Helen play her sister]]. |
| 231 | * GetAHoldOfYourselfMan: When Miles freaks out that the threat of murder has just become very real, he starts begging Blanc to protect him, so Blanc has to give him one of these. |
| 232 | * GirlySkirtTwirl: Birdie shows up to dinner in a colorful, eye-catching maxi dress. Miles likes it too: he tells Birdie to spin around while wearing it, which she is all too happy to do. [[spoiler:ExploitedTrope -- while everyone is distracted watching Birdie spinning in the dress, Miles hands Duke a drink he's deathly allergic to.]] |
| 233 | * GratuitousGreek: As befitting his god complex, Miles Bron is head of the company "Alpha", many of his belongings (e.g., pillows on the deck chairs of his yacht) have a prominent Omega motif, and he makes his home on a Greek island. |
| 234 | * GreedyJew: The stereotype is alluded to when the politically incorrect Birdie says she thought the term "Jewy" as a synonym for "cheap" was somehow ''not'' an antisemitic term. |
| 235 | * GreenwashedVillainy: [[spoiler:Claire Debella is the governor of Connecticut and is running for Senator on a progressive, eco-friendly platform. Her campaign is endorsed by Miles Bron, a CEO who is pushing a new fuel source called Klear. Even after learning that Klear is incredibly dangerous and unstable, with the potential to destroy houses and that Miles has killed two people in part to keep this secret, Clair is still reluctant to turn against him until Miles's house and the Mona Lisa are destroyed due to a Klear explosion and it becomes impossible to hide the danger it presents.]] |
| 236 | * HalfwayPlotSwitch: The film sets itself up as a murder mystery game hosted by an unlikable billionaire that's all set up to go too real and end with him as a genuine murder victim, including a collateral-damage death from a murder attempt that missed its target. It seems like visiting detective Blanc will prove the wrench in the plan and unpeel the elaborate plot against Miles after being invited anonymously--again. [[spoiler:Halfway through the film, after Andi is shot by an unknown assailant, Blanc gathers the crowd to discuss his conclusions. The film then goes back to the scene where Blanc got his box. It's revealed then that the murder investigation Blanc is here for regards something that occurred two weeks before the island trip--''Andi'' died under suspicious circumstances, and her twin sister Helen recruited Blanc, with him asking her to impersonate her sister while keeping the news of her death out of public record for a little while longer. From here, we get a recap of the first half of the film, which is transformed by the frame that Andi is the murder victim being investigated, Helen is the woman we've watched all along, and Blanc was on an entirely different page than the audience had thought. After revealing Helen survived, the film turns to the question of how to achieve justice for Andi after a mystery that proves far ''less'' elaborate than the sleuths were prepared for-- far from the targeted-billionaire murder-game plot the narrative seemed to be setting up.]] |
| 237 | * HandOfDeath: When [[spoiler:Helen]] is shot, only her assailant's gloved hand is seen holding the gun. |
| 238 | * HandWave: |
| 239 | ** The film is set in the early stages of the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic, but the need for social distancing and hygiene protocols is brushed aside with the injection of some technology into the characters' mouths, with the employee administering it refusing to give any elaboration besides "you're fine". [[spoiler:Later revelations about Miles imply that it doesn't do anything.]] |
| 240 | ** Miles mentions that his island usually has a lot of people keeping it running, but he sent them all away for the weekend so he could have private time with his friends, which conveniently also limits the number of people whose actions Blanc and the audience have to account for. |
| 241 | * HanlonsRazor: At first, a lot of the detective work seems to point to [[spoiler:one of the Disruptors]] being the culprit as part of a conspiracy to [[spoiler:protect Miles and Alpha. However, while the Disruptors are largely malicious, they were ignorant of the crime and their hostile attitude was mostly out of self-interest.]] |
| 242 | * HeKnowsTooMuch: [[spoiler:Miles murdered Cassandra to keep anyone from finding out that she really did come up with Alpha's business model. But this just raised Helen's suspicions, convincing her to go to Blanc so the two of them can investigate the matter further ...]] |
| 243 | * HesDeadJim: Blanc declares [[spoiler:Duke]] dead without checking for any vital signs. |
| 244 | * HiddenInPlainSight: |
| 245 | ** What Blanc believes the titular phrase refers to: "glass onion" being something that looks complex but actually has a crystal-clear center. [[spoiler:Indeed, despite all the seeming intricacies surrounding the case, the actual solution is dead simple and becomes incredibly obvious once Blanc realizes that the killer -- Miles Bron -- is much dumber than he appears to be.]] |
| 246 | --->'''Blanc:''' I keep returning, in my mind, to the Glass Onion; something that seems densely layered, mysterious and inscrutable, but in fact the center is in plain sight. And that is why this case has confounded me like no other, why every complex layer peeled back has revealed another layer, and ''another'' layer, and come to naught! And that was the problem, right there -- you see, I expected complexity. I expected ''intelligence''. I expected a puzzle, a ''game''. But that's not what any of this is. It hides ''not'' behind complexity, but behind ''mind-numbing'' obvious clarity. Truth is, ''it doesn't hide at all!'' I was staring right at it ... |
| 247 | ** On a more practical note, this is how [[spoiler:Blanc "infiltrates" the party by having Helen pose as Andi; as Blanc observes, he would attract attention if he turned up to a supposedly private party while one of the invited guests is missing, but by having Helen impersonate her sister Blanc's own presence becomes a minor detail, which is "explained" with the idea that someone reset their puzzle box and sent it to Blanc as a joke]]. |
| 248 | ** The [[spoiler:red envelope containing the real napkin]] was hidden by slipping it into the [[spoiler:frame containing the fake napkin]]. |
| 249 | ** The film actually outright shows [[spoiler:Miles putting Duke's gun in the ice bucket, handing him the tainted drink that will kill him, rather than placing it on the table like he later claims, and Duke's phone in his back pocket as he climbs over the table and couch, and again during the 10 o'clock dong. Since they're seemingly innocuous shots in the midst of an increasingly frenzied montage[[note]]because of the angle of the shot, only the top face of the gun can be seen, which is dark, and so is camouflaged against Miles's shirt[[/note]], most viewers probably won't notice it in the moment.]] |
| 250 | * HollywoodBoardGames: One must be extraordinarily insightful to be able to spot Morse code out of a mere TabletopGame/TicTacToe puzzle. Well, meet Peg, Birdie's HyperCompetentSidekick. |
| 251 | * HowWeGotHere: Halfway through the film, after [[spoiler:Andi]] is seemingly killed by an unknown assailant, we cut back to when Blanc received his invitation and learn the details of how Blanc got the invitation as well as the ''real'' reason he came to the island. |
| 252 | * HypocriticalHumor: Benoit Blanc rants about how he hates TabletopGame/{{Clue}}. Aside from the obvious irony of a detective hating a murder mystery game, the exact things he says make it terrible, "ticking boxes, running around, searching all the rooms", are exactly what he and [[spoiler:Helen]] spend their entire investigation doing. The suspects even wear color-themed outfits. |
| 253 | [[/folder]] |
| 254 | |
| 255 | [[folder:I to P]] |
| 256 | * IdentifyingTheBody: In a flashback we see [[spoiler:Helen identifying the body of her dead sister at the morgue]]. |
| 257 | * IdiotBall: [[spoiler:After being reasonably competent the whole film, Helen reveals the very fragile piece of critical evidence she needs right in front of a group of people who already betrayed her sister, and also the one who murdered her. Granted, her main motive for doing so was to make Miles Bron, her sister's killer, squirm after he'd been leeching off her sister's efforts for his success, but this leads to [[DumbassHasAPoint Miles' immediately destroying it and rightly pointing out that she now has no evidence.]]]] |
| 258 | * IDontKnowMortalKombat: In his first scene, the great detective Benoit Blanc is playing ''VideoGame/AmongUs'', a game which revolves around discovering which of the players is a murderer, and doing very badly at playing the murderer. He mentions in a later scene that he's also very bad at ''TabletopGame/{{Clue}}''. |
| 259 | ** Zigzagged trope: [[spoiler:The plot turns out to involve Blanc playing a ''RealLife'' game of ''Among Us'', with Helen as the Imposter and him running interference as her collaborator. '''He does a really good job.''']] |
| 260 | * ImagineSpot: When Benoit Blanc is speculating over how [[spoiler:the real Cassandra Brand was killed and her death framed as a suicide]], to avoid spoiling the culprit's identity in advance, all four "primary suspects" are shown in the culprit's place in different parts of the murder: [[spoiler:Duke comes to Andi's door offering to apologize, Lionel [[SlippingAMickey puts sleeping pills in Andi's drink]], Claire converses with Andi long enough for the sleeping pills to knock her out, and Birdie puts Andi in the garage and turns the car on so the fumes will kill her. Funnily enough, ''none'' of those four turn out to be the murderer.]] |
| 261 | * InherentInTheSystem: It's how all this came to happen in the first place. Any world with a functioning sense of justice would not have [[spoiler:allowed Miles to steal Andi's company from her]] let alone [[spoiler:let Miles seemingly get away with murder TWICE despite having no real plan, creativity or intelligence]]. Which is why in the end, [[spoiler:Helen, posing as Andi, has to go outside the system with her extra-judicial arson plan]]. |
| 262 | * InsecureProtagonistArrogantAntagonist: The lead character of the movie, apart from Blanc, is Andi. Arrogant [[spoiler:Miles Bron]] is revealed to be the villain. Although Andi does not seem to be insecure at all, [[spoiler:it's revealed that the real Andi is dead, and her much less self-assured twin Helen is posing as her. Before Blanc convinces her to take on the role of Andi, Helen spends a lot of time talking about how much better (much smarter, fitter, more sophisticated -- though [[InformedFlaw we don't really see Helen exhibit a lack of those]]) than her she perceives Andi to have been, so she can't possibly impersonate Andi. But Helen ''does'' pull it off.]] |
| 263 | * IronicEcho: When Miles talks to Andi at the Disruptors' arrival, he nervously and slowly puts his hand on her shoulder [[spoiler:because he is shocked to find out she's alive. At the end, "Andi," now revealed to be Helen, slowly puts her hand on his chin.]] |
| 264 | * ITakeOffenseToThatLastOne: Duke lost his prestige and prime position on Twitch after a scandal about selling [[AllNaturalSnakeOil rhino horn 'boner pills']] to teenagers. When this is explained to the group, he immediately points out that there was no actual rhino horn in the pills. |
| 265 | * JusticeByOtherLegalMeans: The culprit [[spoiler:[[FieryCoverUp destroys the damning evidence]] against him]], to Blanc's utter sorrow. But he does give [[spoiler:Helen the idea to destroy Bron's estate, including ''the Mona Lisa'', showing the failure of his much-hyped product Klear.]] If the culprit doesn't face charges for that destruction, their reputation will be in the pits anyway. |
| 266 | * LighterAndSofter: Although both movies are rather lighthearted, ''Glass Onion'' is a tad bit lighter than its [[Film/KnivesOut predecessor]]: [[spoiler:it leans a lot more into humor (see DenserAndWackier above), delves significantly less into real-world issues such as anti-immigrant sentiment, and Miles is a far less intimidating villain than Ransom. While the scenes leading up to Duke's death and Helen's fakeout death are very tense, there aren't any outright disturbing scenes like Fran's death in the first movie]]. This is even reflected in both movies' settings, with ''Knives Out'' taking place in a dimly lit mansion filled with UncannyValley dolls, while ''Glass Onion'' is in a brightly lit, futuristic mansion on an island paradise. |
| 267 | * LightsOffSomebodyDies: |
| 268 | ** Discussed. Famed detective Blanc worries about Miles inviting a bunch of people who all have reason to want him dead to a private island, comparing it to someone putting a loaded gun on the table and turning off the lights. |
| 269 | ** After the first death on the island, Miles worriedly tells everyone that he had initially planned for the lights to go off at ten PM ... and then the lights go off. The panicked guests scatter, and by the time the lights go on, another body is found shot to death. [[spoiler:Subverted: Blanc fakes Helen's death but uses the shock of this to make everyone go along with the investigation. Also invoked: Miles had taken Blanc's earlier comment literally and shot Helen with a gun when the lights went off.]] |
| 270 | * LiteralMetaphor: On the group call, Birdie Jay says her assistant Peg is busy putting out a fire for her, and Claire assumes she's doing damage control after another one of Birdie's offensive tweets. It turns out that Birdie has actually managed to start a literal fire at her party, and Peg is fighting it with a fire extinguisher. |
| 271 | * MadeOfExplodium: Klear is a room-temperature solid-state hydrogen fuel which Miles is pushing hard as an alternative fuel source. Lionel is concerned that this will cause highly flammable hydrogen leaks, but Miles is determined to move forward and has powered the Glass Onion using only Klear. [[spoiler:Helen starts a fire in the Onion and then tosses in the small chunk of Klear which explodes violently, setting off a chain reaction that destroys the complex]]. |
| 272 | * MeaningfulEcho: |
| 273 | ** A deliberate plot point during TheSummation. [[spoiler:After having spent five minutes utterly trashing Miles' intelligence, Blanc actually starts to give Miles credit for the clever setup of shooting Helen in the dark. However, he [[ExplainExplainOhCrap realises halfway through his speech]] that he's repeating his own words said to Miles much earlier in the film -- revealing that in the one (attempted) murder that had ''any'' style to it, Miles had stolen the idea from Blanc anyway.]] |
| 274 | --->'''Blanc:''' ''[earlier in the film]'' You have taken seven people, each of whom has a ''real-life reason to wish you harm,'' gathered them together on a remote island, and placed the idea of ''your'' murder in their heads! [[spoiler:It's like putting a ''loaded gun on the table and turning off the lights!'']]\ |
| 275 | '''Blanc:''' ''[during TheSummation]'' [[spoiler:You have a house on a remote island, filled with desperate people, all of whom have a ''real-life reason to wish this woman [Helen] harm.'' You-- ''(stops as [[ExplainExplainOhCrap he realizes he's repeating himself]])''...furthermore, you have a loaded gun conveniently within reach. And the lights had even been turned off.]] |
| 276 | ** Midway through the film, when [[spoiler:Helen is deciding whether or not to pretend to be Andi and go to the island in order to discover who killed her sister, she asks Blanc "Do you really think we can get the son of a bitch?"]] At the end of the film, [[spoiler:after Helen has utterly destroyed Miles, she goes to the dock where Blanc is waiting for her, who asks "Did you get the son of a bitch?"]] |
| 277 | * MeaningfulName: Cassandra [[spoiler:and Helen]] Brand share names with women from Greek mythology. |
| 278 | ** [[spoiler:Cassandra, like the TropeNamer for CassandraTruth, has her warnings ignored regarding the dangers of Klear and Miles stealing credit for her work.]] |
| 279 | ** [[spoiler:Helen, meanwhile, plays an active role in bringing down the Miles Bron empire. In Greek mythology, Helen leaving her husband Menelaus for the prince of Troy ends up causing the fall of Troy.]] |
| 280 | ** [[spoiler:On top of that, their surname "Brand" is a German word for fire, specifically ones that result in property damage. Helen starts a fire in Miles' home and uses it to destroy the ''Mona Lisa''.]] |
| 281 | * MeaninglessVillainVictory: The culprit [[spoiler:destroys the only physical evidence connecting him to the murder of the real Andi, but Helen uses his fuel to destroy both his island manor and the ''Mona Lisa'', which will ruin him by associating his precious fuel with the destruction of the world's most famous painting. Even if he spins it as arson that Helen did on her own, he's still culpable for not properly securing the painting and exposing it to the air, the fact that a tiny amount of his fuel became a massive accelerant for a small fire, and his clearly premeditated murder of Duke. Furthermore, his FairWeatherFriends have decided that he's not worth protecting anymore, and make it clear that they're willing to perjure themselves (again) to screw him over.]] |
| 282 | * MetafictionalTitle: "Glass Onion" as a concept predates the film (It comes from ''Music/TheWhiteAlbum'' and as Blanc says, refers to something that would have layer after layer peeled away, only to realize that it was transparent all along). Besides the titular house in the movie, it also describes the movie itself: [[spoiler:The mystery is very simple and the most likely culprit is the one who did it]]. |
| 283 | * MonaLisaSmile: The closing shot of the film is Andi [[spoiler:AKA Helen]] seated while [[BreakingTheFourthWall glancing aside at the viewer]] with the hint of an enigmatic smile on her face, resembling the painting [[spoiler:that she just destroyed.]] |
| 284 | * MoreDiverseSequel: The previous film ''Knives Out'' had a Latina protagonist and a Black cop as the only ethnic minorities, and the "suspects" were a family of New England [=WASP=]s. This film has a more ethnically diverse group of "suspects" [[note]]Andi and Lionel are played by Black actors, and Duke and Peg by half-Asian actors[[/note]], [[spoiler:the real protagonist, Andi's twin sister, Helen, is of course also Black]], and reveals that the series' detective Benoit Blanc is gay. |
| 285 | * MurderIsTheBestSolution: The killer's response to people threatening them is to default to lethal measures of resolving the problem instantly in the short term. It tends to work for them ''precisely'' because none of their victims consider them capable of instantly resorting to murder [[spoiler:because of how ''stupid'' a move it would be for them to resort to without trying alternative methods first. Blanc even notes that Miles would have been the ''first'' suspected in the event of foul play once Andi's death was made public, and the fact that Andi overestimated Miles' long-term planning capability is why she wasn't more cautious around him, leading to her death]]. |
| 286 | * MusicalNod: A comedic one. In a later scene depicting Blanc's consideration to accept the invitation to the party, he refutes the title of "world's greatest detective" on the grounds he's not Batman, the character with the famous claim to that epithet. But once his interest in visiting the island is piqued, a snippet of the ''Film/Batman1989'' theme can be heard in the score. |
| 287 | * MysteriousNote: Blanc's involvement in the plot involves him receiving the same puzzle-box the Disruptors all had gotten, despite Miles not having sent him a box. Having had experience with people anonymously involving him in a murder case in the last film, this immediately puts him on edge, and he tries getting Miles to take it seriously. [[spoiler:Subverted halfway through the film, when it's revealed that he never actually received a box. Helen brought Andi's box with her as part of her request for help, and the two of them are conspiring to find out which one of the Disruptors murdered Andi. Miles, who we've established is not as smart as everyone thinks he is, falls for his lie immediately.]] |
| 288 | * MythologyGag: Miles is seen playing "Blackbird", which like "Glass Onion" is a Music/TheBeatles song off ''Music/TheWhiteAlbum''. |
| 289 | * NearVillainVictory: The culprit nearly succeeds at getting away with their crimes, and is so confident they sit back and gloat once their victory seems assured. [[spoiler:Helen uses Miles' overconfidence to destroy the Glass Onion and ruin his future]]. |
| 290 | * NeverOneMurder: Played straight, but with zig-zagging details as a result of the HalfwayPlotSwitch context change flipping the audience's understanding of some incidents. At first it seems like the murders are [[spoiler:Duke by accident, from a tampered drink going to the wrong person]] and [[spoiler:Andi, from a targeted gunshot]], but the murders turn out to be [[spoiler:Andi, ''then'' Duke. Andi was actually killed ''prior'' to the film's events, with the woman shot being her undercover sister Helen, and Helen survives and plays dead at Blanc's advice. Duke, meanwhile was killed ''deliberately'' under the ruse of being the wrong recipient of the tampered drink, with a method ([[WeaponizedAllergy exploiting a pineapple allergy]]) only he was vulnerable to.]] |
| 291 | * NeverTheObviousSuspect: [[spoiler:Subverted. Blanc at one point ''says'' that Bron is probably not the culprit, since he's too intelligent to commit a murder where he would be the most obvious suspect ... but Bron turns out to be guilty after all, because he's not actually that intelligent.]] |
| 292 | * NewscasterCameo: That's CNN's Jake Tapper interviewing Claire in the opening of the film. |
| 293 | * NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: |
| 294 | ** Miles Bron is a fairly transparent riff on Elon Musk, reflecting the common criticism of Musk [[spoiler:stealing the credit for other people's work and attempting to present his wildly impractical and often stupid ideas as genius.]] [[https://twitter.com/EdwardNorton/status/1610520222586535936?s=20&t=uNRy-x-zyDE3yu2bElDEOA According to Edward Norton]], he was also intended to send up Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes. |
| 295 | ** Duke Cody, a bald, muscular, "men's rights activist" and social media influencer with a tendency to peddle AllNaturalSnakeOil evokes Creator/JoeRogan, with a little Andrew Tate hyper-toxic masculinity thrown in for good measure. |
| 296 | ** Birdie sends up celebrities like Music/RitaOra and Creator/KimKardashian who threw in-person parties during the height of lockdown. She also shows up to the dock in Greece wearing a mesh face mask, something Music/LanaDelRey [[RippedFromTheHeadlines was criticized for doing in]] [[https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-54416856 October 2020]]. |
| 297 | * NoEndorHolocaust: [[spoiler:Helen blows up the entire Glass Onion complex with Klear. The destruction is absolute, everything is on fire, and Miles' "Baby Blue" car even crashes down through the roof! Yet the Disruptors, Helen, Peg and Whiskey all conveniently survive without being maimed or killed. Furthermore, as Miles mentioned having sent all of his staff away before the Disruptors got to the island and Derol is seen smoking with Blanc at the end, no one has gotten hurt off-screen either.]] |
| 298 | * NoJustNoReaction: When [[spoiler:Blanc announces that Miles killed Duke opportunistically by [[WeaponizedAllergy slipping him pineapple juice]], which he is fatally allergic to,]] he decries it all as dumb. Birdie gasps that it's so dumb, it's brilliant, and Blanc irritatedly insists that, no, it's just ''dumb''. |
| 299 | * NoodleIncident: The Disruptors recognize Benoit Blanc from a murder case involving a ballet dancer, but no details are given. |
| 300 | * ObfuscatingStupidity: [[spoiler:In his own words, Blanc plays up his "Southern hokum" when he arrives to disarm Miles and the guests. The intent isn't to make himself seem less intelligent, however, but merely to make it seem as if he's been genuinely dropped into the situation and is excited to be there, drawing attention to himself and giving Helen more leeway to move around as Andi without the others catching onto the ruse.]] |
| 301 | * ObliquelyObfuscatedOccupation: It's never clarified what Alpha does. The napkin the initial idea was written on mentions "crypto scalability", one of Miles' ideas involved [=NFTs=], and it has a news network, delivery service, and planes and space rockets, but that's all we get. All in all, it comes off like a parody of Amazon, Apple, and Tesla all squashed together. |
| 302 | * OccamsRazor: Blanc eventually realizes the [[spoiler:murders of Andi and Duke]] weren't nearly as complicated as he had assumed. [[spoiler:Miles murdering the two to protect himself is a much cleaner and simpler theory than one of the Disruptors executing a complicated conspiracy on his behalf]]. |
| 303 | * OddlyNamedSequel2ElectricBoogaloo: The marketing used the unwieldy title of ''Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery'' to remind people that it's a sequel to ''Knives Out''. The film itself doesn't bother, and has the simple title ''Glass Onion'', with no extraneous subtitles. Rian Johnson has stated that he disliked having ''"Knives Out"'' in the title, and considers ''Glass Onion'' more of a follow-up to the former rather than a direct sequel, like "a new novel off the shelf." |
| 304 | * OhCrap: |
| 305 | ** When Miles reveals to the group that he's running the entire Glass Onion complex on his new revolutionary fuel Klear as proof that it's a viable energy resource despite testing not being complete, Lionel and Claire become visibly unnerved upon realizing they standing in a building running on a potentially unstable fuel source. [[spoiler:As Lionel reveals to Claire in a flashback, in a gaseous form, Klear is ''explosively'' volatile, and they realize that Miles turned the whole building into a potential bomb through his short-sightedness]]. |
| 306 | ** When [[spoiler:Helen throws the nugget of Klear into the fire she started, Lionel, realizing what's about to happen, lets out a loud "Oh shiiiiiit!". Similarly, when the heat of the initial blast starts making its way through the house's HVAC system, Claire can only gasp out a defeated "Hindenburg".]] |
| 307 | ** And finally, [[spoiler:Miles' face clearly says it all when he sees Helen looking at the ''Mona Lisa'' in the case he made for it as the mansion goes up in flames, and he realizes ''just'' what she's thinking. Then he gets one again as the thing burns, likely knowing he'll be in a deep world of shit for this.]] |
| 308 | * OnceMoreWithClarity: |
| 309 | ** An extended execution takes up much of the second half of the film. Halfway through the film, we flash back to the beginning and replay many of the earlier scenes, but now with the understanding that [[spoiler:"Andi" is really Helen and that she's already working with Blanc to catch a murderer]]. Many scenes diverge or are expanded on to account for that perspective, and ultimately lead to Blanc solving the case. To really hammer this home, the first half opens with a shot of a hand knocking on a black door, the second half with a shot of a hand knocking on a white one. |
| 310 | ** During TheSummation, several scenes of Miles showing the group around the island retreat are shown when [[spoiler:Blanc is pointing out how his SesquipedalianLoquaciousness makes him ''sound'' smart and intelligent, but was actually misused in context, and what he was actually said [[{{Malaproper}} sounded stupid]]. Likewise, a few moments of him giving incorrect basic facts that anybody would be able to know with even a simple query (such as the name of the stretch of ocean their island is on being the Aegean Sea) are used a proof when Blanc deduces that he's actually a shortsighted idiot who steals the ideas of others to give the illusion of being an eccentric genius]]. |
| 311 | ** Also subverted on one occasion. [[spoiler:Once Miles plants the lie about Duke accidentally picking up Miles' glass instead of his own, the film cuts back to that scene and shows exactly that happening, but later Blanc explicitly calls attention to everyone remembering it that way only when it was said, not because it happened. Both the original shot (easily missed as inconsequential) and the subsequent flashback when Blanc recalls it show Miles Bron ''placing'' the glass in Duke's hand.]] |
| 312 | ** Occurs InUniverse towards the end of TheSummation, when [[spoiler:Blanc is willing to lend Miles ''some'' credibility for his plan to murder Andi (actually Helen) with Duke's gun during the timed darkening of the lights that was originally meant to occur during his murder party, only to then be [[YouHaveGotToBeKiddingMe flabbergasted]] when he realizes that Miles lifted the entire idea wholesale from ''himself'', when he was earlier warning him about how risky it was to invite a bunch of people with a grudge against him to an isolated island, using said hypothetical situation to underline the risk Miles appeared to be placing him under. It further proves Blanc's point about how unoriginal and ''stupid'' Miles actually is past all of his deceptions]]. |
| 313 | * OneDialogueTwoConversations: Unaware that [[spoiler:Duke is dead, Helen assumes that Whiskey is upset because they've just broken up and assures Whiskey that Duke was a bad person who deserved what he got]]. Cue Whiskey assuming [[spoiler:Helen is the killer and pulling a spear gun on her.]] |
| 314 | * OpenSecret: Miles' affair with Whiskey is common knowledge. Certainly, they do very little to hide it; Miles greets her with flirty chit-chat and a ''very'' protracted embrace while she's dressed in a bikini, while Duke stands right next to him and tries to pretend that he isn't noticing, [[EveryoneHasStandards which even the other Disruptors find extremely distasteful]], and they later get hot and heavy in a ground-floor room with massive glass windows that open directly onto the gardens. In fact, the twist about [[spoiler:Duke seeing her and Miles getting hot and heavy isn't that he's finding out about it, it's that he asked her to [[GoSeduceMyArchnemesis seduce Miles]] into giving Duke the Alpha News position he wants, tying once again into his macho-man persona being completely fake as he willingly (albeit clearly reluctantly) pimps out his girlfriend and submits to being [[EmasculatedCuckold cuckolded]] by a man he could physically snap in half.]] |
| 315 | * PacManFever: While playing ''VideoGame/AmongUs'', the "body discovered" sound effect plays even though the imposter (Blanc) hasn't killed anybody or is even doing anything.[[note]]Blanc and friends playing ''Among Us'' in May 2020 references when the game became massively popular during quarantine, though in real life ''Among Us'' [[https://steamcharts.com/app/945360 only had a small audience in May and didn't explode in popularity until August]].[[/note]] |
| 316 | * PassThePopcorn: As [[spoiler:Helen uses Klear to destroy Miles' home]], Blanc is shown kicking back with Derol while smoking. |
| 317 | * PercussiveTherapy: Subverted. In the climax, [[spoiler:Helen]] starts smashing Miles' glass sculptures and the other Disruptors join in. He humors them, assuming they're only destroying his stuff to get the night's events out of their system. But then [[spoiler:the destruction causes a fire, and it becomes clear what Helen's ''actual'' goal was: destroy the estate via the unstable energy source Klear]]. |
| 318 | * PlayingUpTheStereotype: Benoit Blanc tells Andi that while investigating the mystery he'll "really lay on some Southern hokum", thereby distracting the suspects into dismissing him as a silly Southerner while his partner secretly investigates. |
| 319 | * PocketProtector: [[spoiler:Helen Brand]] survives a gunshot to the chest from an unknown assailant, which ''looks'' like it kills her, but it later turns out that [[spoiler:her sister's journal in her coat pocket stopped the bullet, saving her life. It helps that said gun appears to be low-calibre and was first fired through a thick pane of glass, and even then, it still came close to piercing her skin, just barely stopping short]]. |
| 320 | * PoisonedChaliceSwitcheroo: Played with. Miles [[spoiler: passes off Duke's murder by poison drink as an attempt on his life by claiming that the drink was meant for him and that Duke accidentally took his glass.]] |
| 321 | * PolarOppositeTwins: One twin is a high-flying big-city Disruptor, the other is a humble small-town teacher. [[spoiler:The latter Brand twin, Helen, has to impersonate her glamorous executive sister Andi, and is very uncomfortable throughout.]] |
| 322 | * PoliceAreUseless: While it's implied rather than stated, fairly standard police work should be able to place [[spoiler:Miles at the scene of Andi's murder]], even assuming [[spoiler:Andi]] doesn't have anything akin to a Ring doorbell and that the car has no navigation system. The car itself is iconic and rare. Between toll roads, security cameras, and red light cameras, the police should be able to easily prove [[spoiler:Miles]] was on the scene shortly after being threatened and that he was one of if not the last person to see [[spoiler:Andi]] alive. Then, while the gunshot might have been harder to prove, fingerprints or DNA might have also pinned him for [[spoiler:Helen's]] attempted murder. The idea that without the napkin, he was obviously going to walk free, is nonsensical. While the movie mentions the police [[spoiler:crossed it out as suicide, Andi having just lost everything in court and no obvious sign of struggle being enough to not bother with further investigation, that is a completely absurd assumption to make, making them quite useless in the initial investigation as well.]] |
| 323 | * PoorCommunicationKills: Or "almost kills", in this case: [[spoiler:as Helen-as-Andi is searching the rooms]], she discovers Whiskey crying because she "left" Duke. The former assumes Whiskey and Duke have broken up, so she calls Duke a "bastard" and tells Whiskey he got what he deserved. Unfortunately, Whiskey is actually crying because [[spoiler:Duke has just been ''murdered'' and she "left" his body in a panic. Helen inadvertently comes across like she's gloating over having killed him, which causes Whiskey to attempt to shoot her with a spear gun.]] |
| 324 | %%* PrecisionFStrike: [[spoiler:Helen]] when Whiskey has a trident gun aimed at her. |
| 325 | * PricelessMingVase: Miles has the actual Mona Lisa in his house. [[spoiler:It's destroyed by the end of the movie]]. |
| 326 | * ProtagonistCenteredMorality: [[spoiler:The film treats Helen's destruction of the ''Mona Lisa'' -- an almost unthinkable act of vandalism under any other circumstances -- as a heroic and awesome act to bring down Miles and prevent Klear from harming the public. It does at least acknowledge via Blanc that this is not a strictly legal solution to defeating the villain, but Helen is not presented as angsting about it at all. Klear was also established as being incredibly dangerous and could've caused untold death and destruction. While it is good that it is stopped from being released, it's also only sheer luck that no one is injured or killed when Helen blows up the Glass Onion]]. |
| 327 | * PuzzleBox: Miles Bron's invitation to his murder mystery party takes the form of elaborate-looking puzzle boxes with various layers, each being unlocked with every subsequent puzzle. Most of Bron's cohorts enjoy themselves solving it together, but Andi ([[spoiler:or rather, her twin sister, Helen]]) opts to simply put on a pair of safety goggles [[CuttingTheKnot and smash it to pieces with a hammer]]. [[spoiler:Later on, the puzzle box is brought up again [[RuleOfSymbolism as an early hint of Bron's true character]] -- while presenting as some kind of eccentric genius, not only is it not even his own work [[StealingTheCredit as he claims]] (it was commissioned), it's also not as clever as he or his fellow Disruptors think it to be (the puzzles are simple enough that Duke's mother calls out the solution from across the room repeatedly), and are in the end just an easily-deconstructable facade, much like how Bron himself is a thieving KnowNothingKnowItAll.]] |
| 328 | [[/folder]] |
| 329 | |
| 330 | [[folder:R to Y]] |
| 331 | * RageBreakingPoint: [[spoiler:After Miles destroys the real napkin, Helen begins to smash all of his glass sculptures.]] |
| 332 | * TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: While not delivered ''directly'' to the recipient, Blanc delivers a fairly reserved yet scathing one to [[spoiler:Miles Bron]] during TheSummation: |
| 333 | -->'''Blanc:''' [[spoiler:His dock doesn't float. His wonder-fuel is a disaster. His grasp of disruption theory is remedial at best. He didn't design the puzzle boxes. He didn't write the mystery. ''Et voilà!'' It all adds up, the key to this entire case ... and it was staring me right in the face. Like everyone in the world, I assumed Miles Bron was a complicated genius, but why? Look into the clear center of this Glass Onion ... Miles Bron is an ''idiot.'']] |
| 334 | * RecurringElement: |
| 335 | ** Like ''Knives Out'', the film is TitledAfterTheSong. |
| 336 | ** Once again, Blanc uses a food-based metaphor during TheSummation-- concentric donuts with enigmatic holes in ''Knives Out'', and a glass onion, a metaphor handed to him by the shape and name of Bron's island complex, in this film. |
| 337 | ** The person Blanc focuses most on is again a woman of color [[spoiler:from the working class]] who he sympathizes and allies with. She also has a peculiar psychosomatic quirk that comes into play-- Marta in ''Knives Out'' vomited when she told lies, and here, [[spoiler:Helen gets very emboldened and quite effective when under the influence of alcohol.]] Blanc also knows a lot more about the female lead from the start than the audience is aware of-- [[spoiler:in ''Knives Out'', he sees a spot of blood on Marta that connects her closely to the scene of the crime right as they meet, and in ''Glass Onion'', he has been working with Helen to pretend she is her murdered sister Andi--the crime he is truly there to investigate.]] |
| 338 | ** Both films' protagonists are established early on by their refusal to play a game by someone else's rules, and win the story by playing by their own. |
| 339 | ** As in ''Knives Out'', an object travels and changes hands over the course of the film to a late payoff. In ''Knives Out'', a baseball from Harlan's study cycled hands until being returned there [[spoiler:by Linda, leading her to find the note revealing her husband's infidelity]], and here, it's a chunk of Klear fuel which travels and changes hands until [[spoiler: Blanc tosses it to Helen as a catalyst with which to blow the Glass Onion]]. |
| 340 | ** Subverted with one element of direct repetition which ultimately isn't one in truth: [[spoiler:Blanc and Bron discuss the fact that Blanc was invited with a puzzle box thar wasn't meant to go to him, ominously mirroring the way he was anonymously invited to the scene of what seemed to be a crime-free incident in ''Knives Out''.]] It turns out, though, that [[spoiler: this was a lie on Blanc's part. The box he received was openly delivered by Helen, the twin sister of the suspiciously-dead Cassandra Brand, and Helen and Blanc recruited each other in turn to investigate the party at Miles' island.]] |
| 341 | * RedHerring: |
| 342 | ** A random man named Derol briefly appears after the boat reaches the island, and Miles explains that Derol is living on the island because he's "going through some things", but the circumstances are never explained, so the viewer may assume he's going to play an important role later. [[spoiler:Derol has no relation at all to the murders, either of Duke or of the real Cassandra Brand previously; Helen-as-Andi finds him while searching the rooms, and he appears at the end of the movie with Blanc watching the Glass Onion blow up, but ultimately, he's not related to the mystery at all.]] |
| 343 | ** Blanc is delivered a box. Of the five known to exist, Andi smashed hers, so one of the four Disruptors must be responsible for involving him. [[spoiler:Nope, his invitation is Andi's, which was smashed by and given to him by Helen as part of their gambit.]] |
| 344 | ** During the pool scene, Peg plays with a butterfly knife while talking to Birdie. [[spoiler:It has nothing to do with the plot and never appears again.]] |
| 345 | ** There is one specific shot shortly before [[spoiler:Duke's death (and the reveal that his gun that he always wears on his front waist is missing)]] where Claire noticeably bumps into Duke that doesn't seem to contribute anything, but after the spoiler [[spoiler:may make you think [[PercussivePickpocket she took the gun]] before he died. In reality, she really did just bump into him, and Miles was the one who took the gun.]] |
| 346 | ** After the lights go out, Blanc searches the kitchen and finds that a knife is missing from its holder. [[spoiler:This doesn't actually come into play later, as Miles uses Duke's gun to try to kill Helen. Birdie simply grabbed it for protection and drops it when "Andi's" body is discovered, after which it is never seen again.]] |
| 347 | ** The high-tech security system on the Mona Lisa snaps shut at the slightest disturbance, even a phone getting a push notification. It seems like an easily manipulatable [[OffWithHisHead guillotine]] could find use in a murder mystery, with the added bonus of MonumentalDamage in an artful spray of blood across the most famous painting in history. [[spoiler:Nothing remotely like this happens.]] |
| 348 | * RefugeInAudacity: Miles believes Disruption Theory relies on breaking a rule openly and brazenly and succeeding, then continuing to push and break more and more rules until you reach a point where nobody is able to stop you. It's [[spoiler:why he was able to get away with killing Andi and racing off in his [[MetallicarSyndrome extremely noticeable car]] (well, this and PoliceAreUseless)]]. Benoit Blanc is both surprised and appalled that Miles, the extremely obvious suspect of said murder, was [[StupidCrooks so damned]] StupidEvil that this actually removed him from the list of suspects. |
| 349 | ** The [[ArcSymbol Glass Onion]] is a metaphor for this trope, as explained by Blanc: |
| 350 | -->'''Blanc''': It hides, not behind complexity, but behind mind-numbing obvious clarity. |
| 351 | * RewatchBonus: |
| 352 | ** When Miles is inviting everyone to the island, he flirts with Whiskey by complimenting her necklace. [[spoiler:On the first watch, it just seems like he's making a move on Duke's girl. On a rewatch, you know that this is only the latest of several moves and that the necklace was a gift from Miles.]] |
| 353 | ** Watching the film a second time confirms that [[spoiler:instead of accidentally switching the tainted drink with Duke's as he had claimed, Miles gave Duke the tainted drink on purpose]]. |
| 354 | ** Likewise, [[spoiler:after Miles gives Duke a hug and steals the gun,]] one can see [[spoiler:the gun bulge in the small of Miles' back and Miles throwing Duke's gun into the ice bucket in the cocktail mixing table.]] And if you listen ''really'' carefully, [[spoiler: you can even hear the sound of Miles's hand on Duke's gun during said hug.]] |
| 355 | ** On a second viewing, one can spot [[spoiler:both Duke's phone in Miles' back pocket when he hides behind Blanc and a brief shot of Miles holding Duke's gun when walking around the blacked-out hallway.]] |
| 356 | ** At his home, Miles has the painting "Number 207" by Mark Rothko hanging upside down, another sign of his superficial appreciation for art. |
| 357 | ** One can easily notice Duke actually mentioning that [[spoiler:he saw Miles' car driving away from Andi's home before Miles turned it around by mentioning Anderson Cooper.]] |
| 358 | ** When rewatching the film, eagle-eyed audiences can see [[spoiler:Helen tossing the recorder in Birdie's bag and her silhouette through Birdie's hat before she's revealed.]] |
| 359 | ** Claire ignores a call from her husband after Blanc ruins the murder mystery. A second viewing makes it clear [[spoiler:he's calling to tell her about Andi's death.]] |
| 360 | ** Everyone's surprised at Andi's arrival because of the bad blood that resulted from her split. It's the second time you realize [[spoiler:Miles is doubly surprised because she should be dead as far as he's concerned.]] |
| 361 | ** Blanc can clearly be heard [[spoiler:calling Andi "Helen" when she runs into him outside on the patio after the lights went out, and she can be heard to be speaking in a Southern accent when she says "Why would I take Duke's gun?", and "I don't understand," right before the gunshot]]. |
| 362 | ** As Blanc is disappointedly starting to walk away after [[spoiler:Miles burns the napkin]], he can be seen in the background reaching into his pocket and stopping just before he walks offscreen: he's discovered [[spoiler:the Klear sample and realizes how it can help him and Helen bring Miles to justice]]. |
| 363 | * RichReclusesRealm: The bulk of the film is set on Miles Bron's private island off the coast of Greece, which includes a fantastical Banksy-designed dock, lush gardens with automated anti-smoke warnings, robotic servants for carrying luggage, and his palatial mansion, the Glass Onion. For good measure, Miles enjoys his privacy on the island so much that there's no phones - only an outdated fax machine. |
| 364 | * RoaringRampageOfRevenge: When justice for [[spoiler:her sister appears to be an impossibility, Blanc gives Helen the tools to destroy Miles' home, wealth, career, and reputation. This also proves to be the catalyst for the Disruptors turning on him, guaranteeing he'll be facing lengthy prison sentences for murder in both the US and Greece.]] |
| 365 | * RuleOfSymbolism: |
| 366 | ** Glass is used physically and metaphorically as a symbol for awe-inspiring creations and utter fragility, paralleling how [[spoiler:Miles Bron's tech empire is built on idiotic buzzwords sorted into workable ideas by other people, plus his house and prized objects consist largely of glass that is easy to wreck]] and how [[spoiler:the mystery solution at hand is bleeding obvious and only baffles Blanc and the audience because in these circumstances (a mystery story, a billionaire's party, etc.) an intricate and logical plot would have been expected--they expected a beautifully-wrought sculpture, but found something transparent that shattered instantly with a bit of pushing.]] |
| 367 | ** Miles' invitation puzzle boxes summarize everything about his character and the film's message. The boxes are showy and full of puzzles, but they're relatively easy to solve and even easier to smash through with brute force, reflecting the hollowness of Miles' tech empire and the film's thesis that one should not be distracted by showmanship or get caught playing someone else's game in the goal of getting to the core of an issue. The boxes also weren't designed by Miles and aren't themed to the recipients' skill sets or histories, making them an impersonal product and not made by Miles at all, showing him to be a weak friend and a figure bereft of creativity who gets by by being ostentatious and parading others' achievements in his name. |
| 368 | ** ''Art/TheMonaLisa'' appears in the film as one of Miles' arrogant trophies, and the subject's mysterious qualities are set off against Andi, the most inscrutable person in the cast by that point. Miles describes the painting as being something simple at first glance that surprises you with its depth and shifting character, and [[spoiler:the easy-to-grasp resentful Andi is really a whole other character--her sister Helen undercover investigating Andi's death with Blanc, making her mystique well-founded and just as deceptively simple as the painting.]] Later, in the scene building to [[spoiler:Duke's murder]], closeups on the ''Mona Lisa's'' eyes and smile give her a watchful, knowing presence in the room, paralleling how [[spoiler:"Andi" and Blanc are working together and know much more than the audience does.]] By the end of the film, [[spoiler:the painting is destroyed and Helen, impersonating Andi, essentially replaces the ''Mona Lisa'', imitating the figure in the last shot as a woman with many secrets and unusual reasons to smile.]] |
| 369 | ** Speaking of the ''Mona Lisa'', Miles' speech about the perfection and beauty of the painting and framing it as the world's greatest painting would make any actual art historian laugh. For much of its history the ''Mona Lisa'' was relatively unremarkable, a commission work that some historians believe was never finished at all, until it was stolen in 1911 and the theft caused a media circus that propelled it to great fame. It's appropriate that Miles, an idiot whose fame is entirely the result of image and marketing, was inspired by something unremarkable that would have languished in obscurity if not for getting a bunch of media attention. |
| 370 | * SarcasticClapping: After Miles gives his rah-rah speech about how all the Disruptors are such awesome innovators, Andi responds with sarcastic clapping. Then she points out how everyone there is actually leeching off of Miles. |
| 371 | * SayingSoundEffectsOutLoud: The hour-marking 'dong' on the island is literally a recording of someone saying 'Dong', with slight musical backing. |
| 372 | * SeparatedByACommonLanguage: Two separate Greek locals call Bron's island and dock setup a "piece of shit" since it can only be accessed at low tide. Lionel doesn't recognize that they are speaking English and thinks "Pieceofshite" is the Greek name for the island, or a saying in Greek. |
| 373 | * SequelGoesForeign: The first film was set entirely in the USA; ''Glass Onion'' sees Blanc travel to UsefulNotes/{{Greece}}. |
| 374 | * SexySurfacingShot: Whiskey emerges from the pool in slow motion to emphasize both her youthful beauty and Birdie's awareness that her own looks are starting to go. |
| 375 | * SherlockScan: When the time comes for the "murder game", [[spoiler:Blanc solves it before it's even started, pointing out a distinctive but out-of-character necklace Bron is wearing, recalling a magazine article seen earlier, and noticing a genuine crossbow positioned in just the right position, to realize that the solution of the game is that Birdie killed Miles for stealing her necklace]]. |
| 376 | * ShoutOut: |
| 377 | ** Blanc telling his celebrity friends that he's going out of his mind without a good case to solve mirrors Literature/SherlockHolmes's complaints about the same problem, though Blanc's method of dealing with it (sitting in his tub for days on end while drinking and playing ''VideoGame/AmongUs'' with his friends) is marginally less self-destructive than Holmes' habit of shooting up with cocaine when he's bored. |
| 378 | --->'''Blanc:''' My mind is like a fueled-up racing car, and I got nowhere to drive it. I don't need puzzles or games, and the last thing I need is a vacation. I need danger, the hunt, challenge. I need ... a great case.\ |
| 379 | '''Sherlock Holmes:''' My mind rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation. |
| 380 | ** Upon seeing a glass icosahedron in Miles' office, Blanc says "My God, it's full of stars!", correctly attributing the line to ''Film/TwoThousandTenTheYearWeMakeContact'' rather than ''Film/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey''. |
| 381 | ** Miles cut Andi entirely out of their billion-dollar tech company, which Lionel refers to as him having "[[Film/TheSocialNetwork Social Networked her ass.]]" |
| 382 | ** Andi has a mug in her house with the Janus Films logo, famous for their collaborations with Creator/TheCriterionCollection. [[spoiler:Fitting, since she's poisoned by someone she thought was her friend, or a two-faced liar.]][[spoiler:Also, as she's a twin, there are two people with Andi's own face.]] |
| 383 | ** Miles notes that his murder-mystery weekend's plot was written by Creator/GillianFlynn. [[spoiler:Later in the movie, a blackout screen precedes the reveal that a woman the audience thought was dead was actually pulling an elaborate ruse, à la Flynn's ''Literature/GoneGirl''.]] |
| 384 | ** Miles also boasts that the designers of his puzzle box "trained under Ricky Jay". This isn't Jay's first association with Rian Johnson -- he performed the opening narration for ''Film/TheBrothersBloom'', and was set to appear in ''Film/KnivesOut'' before his untimely death forced the production to recast him with M. Emmet Walsh. |
| 385 | ** [[spoiler:Helen]] compares the situation to ''TabletopGame/{{Clue}}'' and tries to emulate its "ticking boxes" format by noting which of the suspects has both motive and opportunity to commit the murder. Blanc, who has a negative opinion of the game, reminds her that real crime is not so simple, and is proven right when ''everyone'' is shown to have had motive and opportunity. |
| 386 | ** There are one or two nods to the movie ''Film/{{Clue}}'' also: |
| 387 | *** As in that film, the majority of the characters are prominent, morally corrupted people summoned by a person who financially controls them, in order to solve his "murder"; |
| 388 | *** Midway through both films, a sudden blackout causes confusion and the characters spread out, providing an opportunity for a new murder; |
| 389 | *** In both films, at least one murder is carried out by a mysterious person identifiable only by a black leather glove; |
| 390 | *** In both films, a prominent glass set piece is shattered to dramatic effect; |
| 391 | *** As in ''Knives Out'', the end credits follow the lead of ''Clue'', displaying an illustrated card of each prominent character that flips over to reveal the actor's name. |
| 392 | ** Like the previous Benoit Blanc story, ''Knives Out'', the setup is reminiscent of a Creator/AgathaChristie mystery, this time mirroring ''Literature/AndThenThereWereNone''. Both Blanc stories also parallel with ''Literature/MurderOnTheOrientExpress'' in giving every possible suspect a solid motivation and opportunity for the murder. There's even a bait-and-switch in this movie where Miles Bron is set up to be an unlikeable monster a la Samuel Ratchett, the murder victim of ''Orient Express'', leading certain mystery-savvy audience members to believe one or more of the other "Disruptors" would end up killing him. There are also similarities with ''Literature/AMurderIsAnnounced'', [[spoiler:with Helen sharing part of Charlotte Blacklock's character arc: taking on the persona of her deceased sister, a successful businesswoman]]. The very method of the crime, which includes [[spoiler:the murderer deliberately poisoning his own drink, then swapping it with the victim's to make it seem like the culprit was the intended target]] appears in a couple of Christie's works, notably ''Literature/TheMirrorCrackdFromSideToSide''. It also mirrors the setting of the film adaptation of ''Literature/EvilUnderTheSun'', a luxury vacation spot on an isolated island somewhere in the Mediterranean. |
| 393 | ** In the flashback of how the Disruptors all met each other, Miles is dressed identically (including his haircut) to Frank T.J. Mackey in ''Film/{{Magnolia}}''. |
| 394 | ** One of the glass statues [[spoiler:that's broken in the climax]] resembles [[Literature/TheMalteseFalcon the Maltese Falcon]]. |
| 395 | ** Miles cues up Music/DavidBowie's [[Music/TheRiseAndFallOfZiggyStardustAndTheSpidersFromMars "Star" and "Starman"]] during the after-dinner party. Later, when [[spoiler:fuming over the destruction of the Glass Onion]], he alludes to "Moonage Daydream" by [[spoiler:mockingly describing Helen with the line "I'm an alligator."]] |
| 396 | ** Blanc's invitation [[spoiler:has a bent corner, indicating it was actually Andi/Helen's invitation that she bent smashing open the puzzle box to retrieve, which she then passed on to him]]. In the film ''Film/TheLastOfSheila'', which this film was inspired by, [[spoiler:one of the key elements of the mystery game in that film were secret clue cards that were shared among the partygoers. In the final sequence, one of the clues that Creator/JamesMason (Philip) uses to reveal Creator/RichardBenjamin (Tom) is the killer of two people, is the fact that he started to crumple and bend his clue card to throw it away, then retyped a new clue card that he didn't bend in order to convince one character that the game they were playing was set up to reveal she killed "Sheila", when in actuality, the game was just a game]]. Both films [[spoiler:feature bent cards that later turn out to be a huge reveal to the solution of the mystery, and both are clearly telegraphed to observant audience members, but largely go unnoticed until a RewatchBonus]]. |
| 397 | ** When Helen meets with Blanc, she says that she googled "World's Greatest Detective" to find him. Blanc recognizes the phrase, and specifically notes that he is ''not'' ComicBook/{{Batman}}. |
| 398 | ** When [[spoiler:the Mona Lisa is burned]], Miles screams with his hands on each side of his face, evoking Munch's ''[[Art/TheScreamMunch Scream]]''. |
| 399 | * ShowerOfAngst: Blanc, depressed over not being able to sink his teeth into a good mystery, has been spending nearly his entire lockdown in the bathtub. |
| 400 | * ShrineToSelf: The Glass Onion is essentially one big trophy case for Miles to show off his influence, with one of the largest and most prominent portraits being him shirtless with far more muscles than seen in the film. |
| 401 | * SlidingScaleOfIdealismVsCynicism: Despite being [[LighterAndSofter lighter]] and [[DenserAndWackier more comedic]], the film leans more on the cynical side compared to ''Film/KnivesOut'' which was darker but more optimistic. It doesn't lean ''too'' far down though, as [[spoiler:Miles is still going to prison and all the other characters do find the courage to report him although it could be argued that since the others have to lie in their reports it is still pretty dark]]. |
| 402 | * SlippingAMickey: As revealed in a flashback, [[spoiler:Miles drugged Andi by putting sleeping pills in her drink. He then moved her to the garage where he [[NeverSuicide stages a suicide by carbon monoxide]]]]. |
| 403 | * SplitScreenPhoneCall: The opening phone call between the Disruptors is framed through a frequently-changing split screen configuration since they're all in different locations and characters join in on the conversation randomly. |
| 404 | * StandardSnippet: The teaser trailer uses a version of "Habanera" from ''Theatre/{{Carmen}}'' that punctuates some of the beats with characters moving puzzle pieces around to set the mood of mystery and intrigue. |
| 405 | * StealthPun: |
| 406 | ** Miles Bron's big upcoming product, a revolutionary new clean energy source with serious risks if it goes wrong, is new Klear power. |
| 407 | ** "Jared Leto's Hard Kombucha," as Blanc refers to it, is labeled "Red Planet Kombucha." Leto is the lead singer of Music/ThirtySecondsToMars. |
| 408 | ** After the lights in the mansion go off, Blanc is seen stumbling through the kitchen where he notices there's a knife missing from a counterop knife rack. In other words, one of the ''knives'' is ''out''. |
| 409 | ** Benoît Blanc's surname is French for "white". The character he is playing in '' Among Us''? White of course. |
| 410 | * StuffBlowingUp: In the denouement, [[spoiler:the ''entire'' estate on the island]] loudly and flashily explodes as a result of [[spoiler:the unstable fuel source Klear being thrown into a fire]]. Blanc kicks back and watches it happen, extremely satisfied. |
| 411 | * TheSummation: Delivered at the climax after [[spoiler:Andi's 'death']]. Like the last time, it's given a bit of a twist: Blanc is [[spoiler:intentionally drawing out the reveal of the killer and their motives to give Helen, whose death they briefly faked beforehand, time enough to search the Glass Onion to find the incriminating evidence they need to prove Miles' guilt]]. |
| 412 | * SymbolicGlassHouse: The titular location is one, and it is just as opulent and absurd as it sounds. The fact that a glass onion is a contradictory concept is relevant, as it foreshadows the fact that its owner Miles Bron is actually an idiot. |
| 413 | * TakingYouWithMe: The success of the Disruptors is inextricably linked to Miles, such that him failing will destroy their careers as well. [[spoiler:Miles will be ruined by his Klear destroying the Glass Onion and ''The Mona Lisa'', and the Disruptors will go down with him -- Lionel and Claire have staked their reputations on Klear's success and Miles won't have the free funds to bail Birdie out. With no benefit to supporting him, they are only too happy to ensure that he takes the fall for his murders.]] |
| 414 | * TamperingWithFoodAndDrink: Subverted. [[spoiler:Duke]] is killed when someone slips something into his whiskey, which makes Miles panic because he drank from his cup. [[spoiler:As it turns out, it wasn't poisoned at all; Duke died because the drink had pineapple juice in it, which he was deathly allergic to, and Miles himself is the murderer who put the pineapple juice in there because he had asked for everyone's dietary restrictions ahead of time and thus was aware of this.]] |
| 415 | * TemptingFate: |
| 416 | ** Once the issue of Blanc's unexpected attendance is handwaved away, Miles is absolutely giddy to have a renowned detective for his murder mystery party and boasts that Blanc will be totally stumped by his "next level" mystery plot. Blanc solves the whole thing in seconds before the "murder" can even occur, leaving Miles fuming. |
| 417 | --->'''Miles:''' Hey, try to solve the murder mystery, ''if you can''. |
| 418 | ** Miles decides to secretly break his contract with the Louvre by having a secret button to lower the protective glass that pops up to protect the Mona Lisa if it detects any disturbances nearby, apparently for no other reason than because he's rich enough to rent the painting out and because he simply can. [[spoiler:It ends up coming back to bite him after Helen blows his mansion up with the provably explosive Klear crystal. Initially, the protection failsafe worked as intended to protect the painting from the billowing flames around it, but Helen is able to press the button to lower the protective glass, leading to the Mona Lisa getting incinerated, a final nail in Miles's proverbial coffin.]] |
| 419 | * ThatLiarLies: In a flashback to the Alpha trial, Claire claims that [[spoiler:Alpha was entirely Miles' idea]]. Andi stands up and dramatically calls her a liar. |
| 420 | * ThemeTwinNaming: Identical twins [[spoiler:Cassandra]] and [[spoiler:Helen]] are named for figures from UsefulNotes/TheTrojanWar. |
| 421 | * ThisIsGonnaSuck: Lionel's "Oh, shit!" reaction to seeing Helen throwing the piece of Klear into the bonfire. |
| 422 | * ThisIsReality: |
| 423 | ** When Blanc is first asked to investigate the Disruptors, he warns against unreasonable expectations and explains that he is not Batman. He has no power to punish anybody, and if he does uncover a crime all he can do is provide any evidence to the police and legal authorities to let them make the best case they can. |
| 424 | ** Blanc repeatedly insults mystery/crime games since their clear simplicity bears no resemblance to real-life crimes. He points out that ''Clue'' only has a single perpetrator who could have committed the crime, while ''Among Us'' just ends once the impostor is identified. In real-life multiple people have motives and opportunities, and identifying the true culprit doesn't prove anything. |
| 425 | * ThoseTwoGuys: Claire and Lionel. They're clearly closer to each other than anyone else in the group and are often seen right next to each other while on the island. Claire calls Lionel first when she gets Miles' puzzle box, and they each call out for the other after the island's lights shut off. [[spoiler:They also show up to Andi's house together after they get her email.]] |
| 426 | * TitledAfterTheSong: While the title of the first movie (and subtitle of this one, as seen in the teaser and poster) derives from a Music/{{Radiohead}} song, Music/TheBeatles are the source of this one. |
| 427 | * TooDumbToLive: Duke gets this twice over. [[spoiler:Not only does he [[BlackmailBackfire blackmail someone he knows to be a murderer]], he travels around without an Epipen despite having a deadly food allergy.]] |
| 428 | * TooGoodToBeTrue: Miles hypes up his new product Klear, a clean hydrogen energy source generated from seawater. It's cheap and easy to produce, and his luxurious private estate on the island is already fully powered by it. Unfortunately, as Lionel keeps warning him, it has a very obvious weakness: hydrogen gas leaks out of pipes and is highly flammable. [[spoiler:Miles gets the message when the mansion explodes due to a sample of Klear getting tossed into a fire, which ignites the huge amounts of hydrogen gas that are powering the entire island.]] |
| 429 | * TrailersAlwaysLie: The scene in the trailer where everyone runs outside after [[spoiler:Helen is shot]] shows a variation where [[spoiler:Miles doesn't show up behind Birdie and Peg]], probably to set [[spoiler:him]] up as the murder victim. |
| 430 | * TrashTheSet: [[spoiler:Helen smashes all the glass statues, with the others joining in. And then she breaks one decorative piece with a wooden onion to start a bonfire and subsequently blow the entire place sky high ...]] |
| 431 | * TwinSwitch: [[spoiler:As it turns out, Andi is dead. Her twin sister Helen appealed to Benoit Blanc for help, and it was Blanc's idea to have her impersonate Andi for the weekend getaway.]] |
| 432 | * UndercoverWhenAlone: While everyone else is already out of earshot during the arrival on the beach, Helen and Blanc shake hands and introduce each as though they were strangers. |
| 433 | * TheUntwist: InUniverse, much to Blanc's ''[[DisappointedByTheMotive profound]]'' disappointment. [[spoiler:Miles and Andi were having a drawn-out legal battle over the creator's rights to Alpha at the time of her death. Since Miles the multi-millionaire would be the first suspected of her death in the event of foul play, he's initially ruled out as a suspect, with Blanc and Helen believing one of the Disruptors who were being financed by Miles must have killed her instead to protect their investments. However, as Blanc realizes at the end, Miles merely ''pretends'' to be an eccentric genius while leeching off of other peoples' more intelligent ideas, and is actually ''far'' stupider than he presents himself to be, meaning he really did kill Andi]]. |
| 434 | * VillainousBreakdown: Zig-zagged with [[spoiler:Miles Bron. He initially takes being exposed by Blanc as a murderer in stride, knowing he'd be able to get away with his crimes due to a lack of evidence (especially once he burns the napkin that could've incriminated him in Helen's hands). He even seems relatively calm when Helen proceeds to destroy several of his expensive glass sculptures, as he has more than enough money to replace them, and considers the notion childish.]] But when [[spoiler:Helen uses Klear to destroy his entire mansion, and ''especially'' once she manages to destroy the ''Mona Lisa'', he completely breaks down into a screaming and crying PsychopathicManchild.]] |
| 435 | * WardrobeFlawOfCharacterization: A variation when the Disruptors and Blanc first convene at the port -- the film takes place in the early stages of the COVID pandemic, so masking up is crucial, and how the characters handle mask etiquette suggests their responsibility and competence. Duke and Whiskey don't wear any at all, Birdie has a sheer mesh that looks fashionable and does absolutely nothing, and Claire has a beige one that slips down her nose; Peg, Blanc, and Lionel, on the other hand, all have secure and well-fitting ones (Blanc color-coordinates his, and Lionel even has a scientific and stylish-looking black P95 mask). [[spoiler:Helen as Andi doesn't have a mask, either, but is introduced as arriving separately by car and keeping her distance, signifying not only that she's removed from the others, but also that she's inexperienced in her deception, though not unintelligent.]] |
| 436 | * WeaponizedAllergy: [[spoiler:Miles slips Duke a drink containing pineapple juice, knowing he's deathly allergic, to silence him after he figures out about Andi's death.]] |
| 437 | * WhamLine: |
| 438 | ** Two throw what we know about a key character into an entirely different light. |
| 439 | *** [[spoiler:"My name is Helen Brand." Turns out Andi has a twin sister we didn't know about.]] |
| 440 | *** This is then topped by, [[spoiler:"Two days ago, my twin sister committed suicide," revealing that Andi has been DeadAllAlong, and Helen's actually been the sister we've been following this whole time!]] |
| 441 | ** Another one occurs when Blanc reveals the main thing that's been bothering him the entire trip, which leads to his larger summation about the murderer: |
| 442 | --->'''Blanc:''' [[spoiler:''"Inbreathiate"''. It's not a word."]] |
| 443 | * WhamShot: |
| 444 | ** TheReveal of how Blanc got the box. [[spoiler:It was brought to him by Andi ... or, as we soon find out, someone who ''looks'' just like Andi. Audience, meet Helen Brand!]] |
| 445 | ** [[spoiler:After we see the whole day again from Helen's perspective, we [[HowWeGotHere get to the point where she got shot]] ... and then she sits up, startled but perfectly fine.]] |
| 446 | ** [[spoiler:While Helen rips apart Miles' office searching for the red envelope, Helen suddenly realizes that the Fibonacci spiral decorating one wall has a ''red'' square at the center.]] |
| 447 | * WhiteShirtOfDeath: Zigzagged. Andi is wearing a fabulous all-white suit [[spoiler:when she is seemingly shot to death, and the blood spreads all over the pristine suit. But then it's revealed that "Andi" was her sister Helen, who had survived the gunshot but faked being dead via hot sauce to buy time. Helen survives the film in the suit, but the flashback that imagines Andi's death by poison shows her in the same all-white outfit.]] |
| 448 | * WhoMurderedTheAsshole: The fact that all guests have a valid motive to see Andi dead complicates the case for Blanc and Helen. Lampshaded by Blanc in his summation: |
| 449 | -->"You have a house on a remote island, filled with desperate people, all of whom have a real-life reason to wish this woman harm." |
| 450 | * WhoWouldBeStupidEnough: Early on in the investigation, [[spoiler:Blanc states that Miles would have to be a complete idiot to personally murder Andi right after a very public legal battle with her, and assumes that one of the other Disruptors was more likely to have done it. At the climax of the story, he realizes that Miles ''is'' in fact a complete idiot, and from there determines that Miles was the one who murdered Andi]]. |
| 451 | * WrongGenreSavvy: [[spoiler:Blanc and Helen clearly expect a more Byzantine plot when looking into Cassandra's death. The straightforward nature of Miles' murder of her is how he manages to evade suspicion until close to the end of the movie, [[DoWrongRight much to Blanc's disappointment]].]] |
| 452 | * XanatosSpeedChess: [[spoiler:The villain trying to murder Helen with Duke's gun when the lights go off is definitely ''not'' part of her and Blanc's plan to find Andi's murderer. But when Helen thankfully survives the attempt thanks to a PocketProtector, the two of them quickly turn it to their favor, with her FakingTheDead by pouring Blanc's hot sauce onto her shirt as fake blood and him using it to induce CrocodileTears in front of the suspects. He then takes the rest of the cast inside, away from her "corpse", to talk to them, which gives her the additional time she needs to find the envelope.]] |
| 453 | ** Attempted by the chess game's OTHER player, [[spoiler:Miles]] but ultimately deconstructed. On the surface, their individual improvisations (weaponizing someone's food allergy, sneaking a gun away in plain sight) seem brilliant, but it's quickly made clear that the actions are impulsive and not thought out; when Blanc thinks back to the evening's events, he's able to unravel the case in ''minutes.'' |
| 454 | * YouCanTurnBack: In a flashback to the night before the gathering, we see [[spoiler:Blanc talking to Helen on a bench and giving her the choice to call their dangerous plan off. She remains determined to go through with it to find out who murdered her sister]]. |
| 455 | * YouHaveGotToBeKiddingMe: |
| 456 | ** Blanc gives off this reaction when he realizes that Miles has, not a duplicate of the ''Mona Lisa'', but the ''actual Mona Lisa'' in his mansion. |
| 457 | ** Peg's horrified reaction when she discovers that Birdie, on being warned that her Bangladesh factory was a notorious sweatshop, misinterpreted what that last word meant and gave the go-ahead with a "dabbing Memoji". |
| 458 | ** Blanc tells Miles how stupid it is to invite people with motives to kill him to a remote island, saying it's like leaving a loaded gun on a table and turning off the lights. He later realizes that [[spoiler:Miles used his idea verbatim in his attempt to kill Helen, further proof that he steals ideas from everyone around him.]] |
| 459 | * YourFavorite: Miles serves his friends their favorite cocktails after dinner. [[spoiler:This plays into Duke's murder, because Birdie's drink of choice has pineapple juice as the main ingredient.]] |
| 460 | [[/folder]] |
| 461 | ---- |
| 462 | ->''[[Music/TheWhiteAlbum ♫ Looking through the bent-backed tulips\ |
| 463 | To see how the other half live\ |
| 464 | Looking through a glass onion ♫]]'' |
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