Characters / Glass Onion

The character page for Glass Onion.

For Benoit Blanc, see the first film's character page.

Beware of spoilers!

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The Disruptors

In General

The Disruptors

"Disruptors have assembled!"

— Duke Cody

A group of (mostly) reputable influencers and celebrities led by billionaire Miles Bron, who are all invited to his private island to partake in a special game.

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• Asshole Victim: The members of Miles' clique are far from likable, but the hold that he has on them is parasitic. It's shown that they're at least aware of how dangerous and foolish he can be, and if not for his iron grip on their livelihoods, they would turn against him. In the end, they do.
• Being Evil Sucks: They have all been floundering in their recent years as a result of their very parasitic relationship with Miles. None of them remotely like the guy, but they are completely dependent on him because his wealth is the only thing keeping their careers afloat, stuck following his stupid whims despite their own feelings on the matter. And true to the nature of this sort of relationship, Miles would have brought all of them to ruin eventually once it came out that his highly-touted Klear was incredibly dangerous and unstable. After Helen tanks Miles' net worth, they finally see an out and turn on him immediately.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: This group of suspects contrasts the previous film's, the Thrombey family.
  • While both groups are motivated by money, the Thrombeys are a backstabbing family of leeches who seem adversarial at first but ultimately came together to protect their generational wealth. The Disruptors are a morally gray friend group of new money who initially seem close and harmonious, but turn out to have no such loyalty to each other.
  • While it was left ambiguous if the Thrombeys will eventually change for the better, to the Disruptors' credit, they do turn on Miles in the end.
  • Similarly, while the Thrombeys were all born wealthy except for Harlan, all of the Disruptors come from relatively modest backgrounds and built up their careers with Miles' assistance. The Thrombeys also live fairly normal lives while each of the Disruptors are very notable public figures with massive influence.
  • Perhaps the biggest contrast is that while both groups have leader figures, the Thrombey patriarch Harlan is the previous film's Big Good and the victim, while the Disruptors' leader Miles is this film's Big Bad and the murderer.
  • Another pretty big distinction is that the Thrombeys were malicious to a particular individual, their patriarch's immigrant nurse Marta, and by extension her family. Meanwhile, the Disruptors' moral cowardice goes beyond a few individuals, as their complicity in Klear's distribution could literally cause homes to explode in flames, causing countless deaths and/or homelessness. And the Disruptors are aware of this. Despite the consequences of their villainy being more far-reaching, the Disruptors aren't as malicious as the Thrombeys were to Marta; they're mostly just cowards and care more about their careers than human lives.
• Dirty Coward: In a towering example of moral cowardice, the Disruptors, to a person, perjure themselves during Andi and Miles' civil trial to protect their own interests. When Miles destroys the evidence suggesting that he murdered Andi, they likewise refuse to testify against him out of fear for the consequences, even knowing that he committed two murders and attempted a third. It's only when Miles' status and reputation are irreparably broken that they find the courage to make sure that he'll pay for what he's done... or at least when they know that standing by him will have consequences as well.
• The Dog Bites Back: With the exception of Duke (who was already dead) and Andi (also dead and whose attempt at blackmail was already an example of this trope), the Disruptors, all of whom perjured themselves to protect Miles, prove perfectly willing to do so against him once his power over them is gone, getting back at him for years of keeping them under his thumb.
• Drink-Based Characterization:
  • Lionel drinks 16-year-old Scotch, neat, reflecting his precise nature as a scientist. He also appreciates the "peaty" flavour, indicating that he is one of the most grounded people in the room.
  • Birdie's Cuban Breeze is a tropical concoction that's both eye-catching and sweet, as she loves being at the center of attention, but also has a vodka base, a flavorless and generic spirit. That it also contains pineapple when one of her closest friends is fatally allergic to it also speaks to her tendency to operate without self-awareness or concern for others.
  • Claire, occasionally compared to a "soccer mom", drinks a safe, room-temperature white wine, a cliché suburban mom drink.
  • Duke and Miles both drink Old Fashioneds; for the former, it's a traditional "manly" drink, and for the latter it's a classic cocktail considered to be refined, which Miles wants to be seen as. Their shared order is also significant, as the drink contains whiskey and both men are, to varying degrees, in a relationship with Whiskey the character. It also gives Miles an easy way to spike Duke's drink with pineapple.
  • Andi prefers whiskey soda, a drink that's sophisticated, and yet ordinary enough that it could be ordered at a dive bar like the original Glass Onion — reinforcing that she is trying to remind the group of their roots, which she never lost sight of.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: While definitely not evil, the Disruptors are still a bunch of unscrupulous people who were willing to testify against Andi in order to protect themselves, and do some heinous individual acts of their own, but even though their friendship is mostly nominal and held together by the hold that Miles has on them, Claire and Lionel seem to have a genuine bond, and it's implied that Claire was close to Andi prior to the trial.
• Everyone Has Standards: They are not good people and are terrible friends, but Lionel, Claire, and Birdie are all genuinely appalled when they realize Miles is a murderer. Claire and Lionel are particularly disgusted when Miles rubs in his murder of Andi in Helen's face, and they cheer her on when she begins vandalising his house and even join her. After Miles' reputation is well and utterly trashed, they decide to turn on him for killing Duke and Andi, without Helen or Blanc even asking them to.
• Fair-Weather Friend: With a dash of Chronic Backstabbing Disorder. The Disruptors turned on Andi and perjured themselves to help Miles during the civil trial, Miles turns on Duke when he tries to blackmail Miles with the truth about Andi's death, and the Disruptors turn on Miles when the destruction of his house (and the Mona Lisa) ends his aspirations for Klear as well as his reputation.
• Heel Realization: The Disruptors, even when it's revealed that Miles killed Andi and Duke, fail to support Helen's cause when Miles destroys the only physical evidence of his crimes. They have too much dependency on Miles to turn on him. It's only after Helen destroys Miles' mansion — and the Mona Lisa, which will be blamed on Miles because he ignored safety protocols for displaying it — that the surviving Disruptors realize that Miles is no longer worth protecting.
• Hypocrite: Most of them appear to have drunk Miles' kool-aid about being "disruptors" and self-made men, though the movie frequently points out how most of them owe their success to Miles (and, by extension, Andi) and don't admit it. To be more specific:
  • Claire presents herself as a staunch, confrontational progressive, but happily takes Miles' money and is friends with Duke, an MRA.
  • Duke puts on an over-the-top manly persona, but is still easily dominated by his mother. He also got banned from his first platform despite thinking himself a great influencer, and took on the role of a cuckold just for the chance that Miles would give him a spot on Alpha News.
  • Birdie says she speaks "the truth", when the only time she gives any thought to what she's saying is to better follow Miles' script. Her Sweetie Pants fashion line was also a stroke of dumb luck more than anything, as it was in development long before the pandemic and simply happened to hit at just the right time and place to become massively popular.
  • Lionel's career as a scientist is heavily criticized by his peers not because of his disruption, but because he'll greenlight everything Miles asks him no matter what. For his part, he's at least shown to be uncomfortable about Miles' praise during his speech, as it's an open secret that he's Bron's Yes-Man.
• Informed Ability: As a group of intelligent and farsighted individuals. With the exception of Birdie (who is consistently portrayed as an airhead), they are all supposed to be very smart, and both Andi and Lionel especially are depicted as geniuses or at least close to it. While they do seem to be Book Smart (Lionel having a healthy fear of Klear for instance), they are also completely fooled by Miles' con man job for years with no indication they'd have figured things out if not for outside intervention.
• Ironic Name: The two characters who act as the movie's disruptors are the two who aren't members of the Disruptors: Blanc and Helen.
• Jerkass: To varying degrees, the Disruptors are, as Helen crudely puts it, "shitheads", with Miles and Duke being overtly nastier than the rest. Andi, the most moral and sympathetic of the lot, is the exception, though even she's shown to be slightly cold and haughty.
• Leitmotif: Disruption.
• Never My Fault: A constant theme in the film is that each disruptor is incapable of understanding why Andi would be so mad at them. After Helen reads Andi's diary, she discovers each disruptor perjured themselves on the stand so that Andi would lose to Miles. Helen just ups the bitterness while disguised as Andi because she doesn't know which of them killed her sister.
• Non-Indicative Name: Bron builds them all up as disruptors, iconoclasts and anarchists, when it's clear they're nothing of the sort, and are in fact cowards and yes-men. The only person in the film's original ensemble whom one can really call a "Disruptor" is Helen, who is willing to destroy the Mona Lisa if it means Bron will take the blame for it.
• Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: They call themselves "the Disruptors" because they claim to have "disrupted" the status quo for the better and gotten rich off of it, when really they're just a bunch of opportunistic assholes who've done a lot of morally compromised things, and Miles himself is an Upper-Class Twit whose wealth makes him immune to the consequences of his short-sightedness.
• Nouveau Riche: All of them came to fortune and fame thanks to their connections with Miles and Andi making it work, luck, and admittedly in small measure their own potential.
• Odd Friendship: Blanc comments that a left-wing politician, a right-wing streamer, a scientist, and a model-turned-businesswoman are an extremely eclectic combination of people and asks how they all met each other. It turns out before they made it big they were a group of losers hanging out at a local bar with Andi. Miles joined the group later and helped them make it big.
• Only in It for the Money: Miles claims that each of the Disruptors gets to be in his inner circle because they're all movers and shakers who are changing the world with their actions. An unimpressed Andi then snaps that the real reason they're all hanging around him is because he's bankrolled their various enterprises — without him, none of them would be successful. Their literal and figurative fortunes depend on him, and they put up with all of his whims in the name of money.
• Paper Tiger: They at first glance appear to be a group of rich and famous elites, but closer inspection makes it clear that only Birdie is really "rich". Duke lives with his mother and is a streamer with a losing viewer count who is resorting to pimping out his girlfriend to get Miles to promote him, Lionel is directly employed by Miles rather than making his own profit and is barely respected by his underlings, and Claire is still living a modest middle-class life. Even Birdie is just the face of a product that Miles bankrolls.
• Rags to Riches: Unlike the Thrombey family from the first film, the Disruptors all come from modest backgrounds and were able to become successful thanks to Miles and Andi acting as a benefactor to give their talents the chance to flourish. Even there, there's a degree of Paper Tiger at play, as besides Birdie it appears most of their wealth is a show; without Miles' bankrolling, none of them would be anywhere, and even with that backing they're clearly struggling to maintain it.
• Self-Made Lie: All of the Disruptors are guilty of this to some degree, each one claiming to have become filthy rich in their respective fields through their own talent and acumen. In reality, all of them were riding off the coattails of Miles Bron and relying on his wealth to jumpstart their pursuits. While Lionel and Claire seem to have competently maintained their careers, Duke and Birdie have been steadily declining and have stumbled from one controversy to another, and it's clear all of them have become codependent on Miles' wealth to keep going, all while he shamelessly exploits them for his own ventures. Even Miles himself is later revealed to be lying about his self-made background, as Alpha — the tech company that made him a billionaire — wasn't even his idea; he just stole the credit for it.
• Uncertain Doom: While Andi and Duke die, and Miles will go to prison for murdering both, it's unclear what him going under will do to the rest of them. However, seeing as he can no longer hold their careers hostage — and that the Disruptors' association with him will tarnish their own reputations regardless, meaning they have nothing to lose — the rest of the group decides they might as well help do him in.
• With Friends Like These...: They're supposed to be the best of friends, but Blanc quickly realizes they're all backstabbing opportunists. Let us count the ways...
  • Claire and Lionel, at least, appear to be genuinely close, but Claire doesn't even attempt to hide her disdain for Duke and especially Birdie. When Duke dies, Claire seems less sad that her friend is dead and more upset about how bad this whole mess will make her look.
  • Miles rather callously kicked Andi out of their company and screwed her out of her shares. He also stole credit from her for having come up with the idea to begin with.
  • Miles is sleeping with Duke's girlfriend, and everyone knows it. Duke, for his part, set this up to manipulate Miles into giving him what he wants.
  • Miles is ruthlessly holding everyone's careers hostage so they have to bow to his will.
  • All the other Disruptors perjured themselves to back Miles in court, throwing Andi to the wolves. Claire and Lionel seem at least a little ashamed of this, but not enough to do the right thing.
  • Duke delivers a The Reason You Suck speech to Andi, mocking her for being a "loser" when she expresses anger over how she was treated.
  • Similarly, Claire refuses to apologize and mockingly asks Andi if she wants a check or fake sympathy for her trouble.
  • Miles almost ran Duke over once. While this was a genuine accident, he also doesn't seem to be sorry about it.
  • None of Andi's so-called friends remembered that she has an identical twin.
  • And to top it all off, Miles straight-up murdered Andi and Duke.
  • On the bright side, this also means once Miles loses his leverage, the others turn on him, with far more relish than when they turned on Andi.
• Villainous Friendship: For a given definition of "villain", anyway.
  • Lionel seems to get along well with Claire, to the point where they feel safe confiding in each other about their reservations about Klear.
  • Despite Duke being a sexist asshole, he seems to get along well with Birdie. He greets her with a hearty hug when they reunite on the pier, she congratulates him on his record numbers and Alpha News position and asks to see them and she is the only Disruptor who cries over his death. Considering his push into Alt-Right talking points and her constant casual racism and dismissal of political correctness, this makes an odd amount of sense.

Miles

Miles Bron

Played by: Edward Norton

The Eccentric Billionaire

"Geez, Detective, your next assignment is who killed the party."

A tech billionaire who owns the private island the film takes place on.

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• Accent Upon The Wrong Syllable: He casually mispronounces certain complex words in passing, such as "aca-DEMM-ia" and "LOO-vuhr" (Louvre), but he speaks so quickly that it's hard to notice. It's one of many hints that he's not as clever as he pretends to be.
• Actually a Good Idea: Most of Miles' faxed ideas are bizarre amalgams of concepts, existing things, and buzzwords ("Uber for biospheres", "A.I. in dogs = discourse"), which Lionel then has to translate into workable projects. In his defense, though, as Lionel points out, every so often he comes up with a winner; "child = NFT" led to the massively successful Crypto Kids app. It's eventually revealed that Miles isn't an inscrutable, incomprehensible genius so much as a fool that tosses out brainfarts and hopes Lionel can turn them into something. When he's not exploiting other people's ideas, that is.
  Lab Worker: [bitterly] Yeah, we know — never bet against Bron.
• Ambition Is Evil: He's not content with simply being a fabulously wealthy entrepreneur and inventor. He wants to revolutionize the world and leave a legacy that will last forever in the form of his new fuel.
• Asshole Victim: A nonlethal example. He isn't killed, but his mansion goes up in smoke at the hands of his own snake oil energy source, and his friends decide to finally turn on him and send him to prison. Even if he managed to get out of that, he still would lose, as his legacy would forever be "Miles Bron, the rich dumbass who destroyed the Mona Lisa."
• Attention Whore: He always butts into conversations in the loudest and most showy manner, indicating that he has a compulsive need to be the center of attention. A most prominent example is him rudely interrupting Duke's reminiscing about how his Cool Car, though it's also Miles clumsily trying to cover up his murder of Andi.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Miles Bron often states that he would like to be remembered in the future "in the same breath as the Mona Lisa", in the sense that of having created something that will last forever. He will go down in history as the idiot who destroyed the Mona Lisa, as his supposedly revolutionary new energy source set fire to his house with the Mona Lisa in it.
• Beneath Suspicion:
  • Blanc initially dismisses Miles as a suspect in Andi's murder, believing that Miles isn't stupid enough to murder someone with whom he'd just had a very public legal battle. As it turns out, Miles is exactly that stupid, even using his one-of-a-kind car that he takes with him everywhere he goes as his getaway vehicle. Blanc is left beside himself with anger realizing just how stupid Miles really is.
  • Andi herself dismissed Miles as a threat just because she knew how dumb Miles really was and didn't fear him.
• Berserk Button: Miles gets very annoyed when his attempts to dazzle people are undermined or go over poorly, throwing a tantrum when Blanc solves the mystery he had planned for the weekend in less than a minute.
• Big Bad: He controls all of the Disruptors, ultimately setting him up as the real source of their damage. Prior to the story proper, he murdered Andi to cover up how he stole Alpha and then murdered Duke for trying to blackmail him.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Miles Bron attempts to present himself as a loveable, well-mannered, and educated tech genius who cares very much about his friends and enjoys flaunting his wealth to entertain them. In truth, he's an incompetent and idiotic Psychopathic Manchild who wants to be the center of attention as one of the richest men in the world, and is more than willing to kill people to keep his power and influence.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: During his Villainous Breakdown, he mirrors Helen's usage of the word "shitheads".
• Break the Haughty: Twice in the film. The first time is more comedic as Blanc easily solves his supposedly difficult murder mystery in seconds. The second instance is more karmic as his empire, reputation, and home all literally go up in smoke from Helen igniting his dangerous fuel.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: He's rather eccentric, with a habit of coming up with bizarre and impractical ideas for inventions, but is still capable enough to run and manage a highly successful tech venture. Ultimately subverted, as he's truly not competent at all, simply riding off the coattails of his former partner, Andi, and all of his employees who actually do the day-to-day work of running a company.
• The Charmer: Awkward as he is, Miles is undeniably very charismatic and skilled at making everyone, even Benoit, believe he's the eccentric genius he pretends to be. This, along with friendship, was presumably why Andi put up with him for so many years, letting him handle all the publicity and gaining support from the public and investors while she did the actual work.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Miles has no qualms with betraying anyone the moment they get between him and his goals or pose a potential threat, killing Andi to save himself and later Duke to cover his tracks.
• Chronic Evidence Retention Syndrome: Miles keeps the napkin with Andi's original plan Hidden in Plain Sight in his office — he took it after he murdered her. The stupidity is Lampshaded: Lionel is baffled by the decision to keep it (poorly) hidden instead of immediately destroying it, since the item can serve no purpose except self-incrimination. In The Summation delivered by Blanc, this is Justified: contrary to his public image, Miles Bron is an idiot who Didn't Think This Through.
• Complexity Addiction: Subverted, his puzzle box and murder mystery at first makes it seems like Miles is big on brain teasers but he paid people to come up with them so he looks cool. Miles is really simple to the point of being stupid when it comes to do something by himself.
• Conspicuous Consumption: Miles oozes this. Virtually every corner of his mansion is filled with artworks and artifacts that belonged to famous people, such as a Matisse, a Rothko, (allegedly) Paul McCartney's guitar, and the Mona Lisa. In addition, he's commissioned various people such as Serena Williams for personal training and Philip Glass for the Hourly Dong. However, this also showcases how he's Rich in Dollars, Poor in Sense - the Rothko is hung upside down and he's being absolutely fleeced by the people he commissioned.
• Consummate Liar: Blanc remembers Miles gave Duke his own drink in plain sight, but Miles sounds so genuine in his recollection of the events that no one questions it.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: To Ransom Drysdale from the first movie.
  • Ransom is an unmotivated slacker who's openly rude to everybody, but underneath this persona he hides a devious mind. In contrast, Miles is ambitious to a fault and puts on a friendly façade to everyone he meets, but beneath it all, he's truthfully a corrupt and selfish idiot.
  • Their motives also contrast. Ransom, born into wealth, wishes to secure the family fortune so that he can continue living his carefree pampered life. Miles started off as a nobody before getting rich by riding off the coattails of Andi's ideas, and wants to maintain his wealth and status so that he can continue pushing boundaries in technology and make himself renowned throughout the world.
  • The methods of murder they employ also greatly contrast: Ransom concocts a deviously clever plot to murder his grandfather Harlan and frame Marta for it using a secret trick window on Harlan's mansion, goes largely undetected in his execution of it save for a couple of dogs and his senile great-grandmother, and engages in copious amounts of Xanatos Speed Chess in order to smooth out the complications that arise to achieve his intended outcome — while Harlan ends up making nearly the same plan to create an alibi for Marta when he commits suicide, he does so after Ransom's plan and is completely unaware of his grandson's machinations. Meanwhile, Miles' murder of Andi is ineptly blunt and direct, to the point that he even uses his signature baby-blue Porsche as his getaway vehicle, is witnessed by Duke as he's fleeing the scene of the crime in said car (his only attempt at obscuring this after the fact is forcing a Last Minute Word Swap when Duke's about to give an anecdote about it), and when it comes time to kill Duke when he attempts to blackmail Miles once the news of Andi's death breaks out, he just hands him pineapple-spiked whiskey in plain view of everyone and just lies very loudly shortly afterwards. He does have a single idea with the panache of shooting Helen with Duke's gun in the middle of his scheduled blackout, but he stole this directly from Blanc's hypothetical scenario earlier in the night. He could have also gotten rid of Duke's phone during the blackout when he was alone, but instead he kept it in his pocket, and thus Blanc is easily able to find it on his person, especially since it was established he doesn't own a phone.
  • They also react to their downfalls in opposite ways. While Ransom, after an initial failed attempt to murder Marta, goes quietly and accepts his defeat with grace, even giving a small look of respect to Marta, Miles completely breaks down as his entire world collapses and his friends turn against him.
• Control Freak: A more downplayed part of his personality that ties into his being an Attention Whore, but during his little gloating rant near the end, he mentions that everyone should have been doing his (already ruined) murder mystery instead of focusing on the actual murders he committed, indicating he cares more about that his "friends" should be doing what he wants at all times.
• Cool Car: His pride and joy of a car is the 2015 Porsche 918 Spyder, which he takes everywhere, even to murdering his former business partner. It gets turned into scrap metal along with the rest of the Glass Onion when Helen blows it sky high.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: He stole Alpha from his business partner Andi when they came into conflict over Klear, and kicked her from the company without leaving her a dime. Miles later murders Andi when he finds out she has proof that she came up with the idea for Alpha, later doing the same to Duke when he blackmails him over it. Miles is also implied to be responsible for making a company he invested in use sweatshop labor.
• Creative Sterility: Aside from building his name and fortune on a stolen concept, the plot slowly reveals Miles as being very bad at coming up with original or successful ideas, especially when his back's against the wall. A big part of the reason that his murders stymie Blanc for so long is that Blanc (and, by extension, the audience) was anticipating a more intelligent scheme, not something easily spotted.
  • Miles' approach to innovation is to fax Lionel nonsense mashups of tech concepts, existing things, and buzzwords (such as "child = NFT"), then entrust that he can turn at least one of them into a success. The completely incoherent ones are interpreted by Lionel to be too brilliant and cutting-edge to be understood.
  • He murders Andi in a very obvious, clumsy way by drugging her and staging a suicide-by-asphyxiation in her garage, as if the drugs in her system couldn't be found by a routine toxicology report. He even speeds away from the scene of the crime in his signature personal car, which Duke witnesses.
  • While Duke is on his private island, he doses his cocktail with pineapple juice and hands it to him while he's distracted, inducing anaphylactic shock. Everyone sees him give it to Duke, but Miles already has the Disruptors so intimidated and cowed that they trust him when he lies that he didn't.
  • The notion of shooting Helen with Duke's gun while the lights are turned off was suggested by Blanc himself (see Glad I Thought of It) in an offhand way as one of the most basic, obvious things a murderer could do. Blanc is enraged when he realizes this fact.
  • He literally never thought of burning the napkin of the Glass Onion bar, the only hard piece of evidence of Andi's contributions to the creation of his empire, until Lionel wondered aloud why he had not done so. He even thanks Lionel for the idea in the middle of his grand "what napkin?" gloating speech.
• Delusions of Eloquence: Miles regularly makes grand statements where he completely misuses a word, but it's dismissed as an eccentricity. Blanc eventually realizes he's just a moron.
• Detrimental Determination: He is so focused on being "Mentioned in the same breath as the Mona Lisa" that for two years he worked on making Klear into the premier alternate power source for the whole world. Andi could see what hack science it was and tried to take Alpha with her when she quit, but when given the chance he kills her without hesitation. In the pool Lionel admits to Claire that Klear is basically going to turn people's homes into miniature Hindenberg's, but Miles ignores his warnings until his Glass Onion mansion blows up and takes the Mona Lisa with it.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • Having a nicely decorated dock dramatically emerge from the ocean when visitors arrive at low tide may be visually cool, but, as the film points out, it also keeps anyone from arriving before low tide — including local emergency services.
  • His home is powered by a fuel system he knows to be unsafe. The same home in which he keeps the world's most famous painting.
  • Sending an invite to Andi, knowing she's dead, means that Helen can use it to come to his island to find evidence of his murder of Andi, and he can't expose Helen without revealing he knows Andi's dead. To be fair, the Twin Switch was hard to see coming.
  • He keeps Andi's envelope, despite having no use for it, which would link him to the murder. Lionel calls him out for keeping it.
  • He never questions Blanc's excuse for being present, simply accepting that one of his guests invited him because it'd be funny to have a great detective at a murder mystery game and going along with that. This is despite the fact that he knows Andi should be dead, so that Blanc and the "Andi" on his island being in cahoots and here for the envelope ought to be the most obvious conclusion.
  • After coincidentally finding out that Duke is deathly allergic to pineapples, he doses him and induces death by anaphylaxis. While this murder method could be passed off as a tragic and unfortunate accident, it would've begged the question of why he risked serving anything with pineapple juice to anyone that night, especially if he'd requested their allergy info beforehand, for exactly this reason.
  • He establishes that he doesn't own a phone, and yet he keeps Duke's phone on his person after he murdered Duke. When he turns the lights out and runs off on his own, he has every opportunity to put it anywhere, even drop it off a balcony – but he keeps it with him, and thus Blanc easily finds it in his pocket.
  • He personally murders Andi and even does so using his signature car. Pretty much any competent investigator would've made him a suspect right away due to their public falling out and found out about the envelope by searching Andi's emails, giving Miles a clear motive, and any person or camera in the vicinity would've spotted him going to and from the house on the day.
• Dumber Than They Look: While he puts on the illusion that he's a complex genius, Miles Bron is just an idiot who's reliant on riding off of other people's ideas. He's at least smarter than Birdie, but that's a ridiculously low bar to clear.
• Establishing Character Moment:
  • Miles is introduced on-screen strumming "Blackbird" on the vintage guitar used to compose the song, all just to impress Birdie. He then carelessly chucks the guitar aside, likely causing significant damage. This establishes Miles as being very good at impressing people but having more dollars than proper sense and little care for the damage he might cause. He also misplays a chord, establishing that he's not as perfect and polished as he seems.
  • Offscreen, Miles first introduces himself through the invitations he sends to the Disruptors for a visit to his private island, which he sends via an elaborate puzzle box to each of them. While the Disruptors are clearly caught up in the pageantry of the boxes, Duke's mother is able to easily work out each puzzle while barely glancing at them from across the room, Andi simply smashes through the box with a hammer to get the invitation, and Benoit later offhandedly dismisses the puzzles as childishly simple. This is an early indicator that Miles is simply dazzling people into believing that he's a smart and eccentric entrepreneur through ostentatious displays. Once that veneer is removed, he's revealed to be a simpleton.
• Everyone Has Standards: He often comes up with bizarre, often impractical ideas for inventions, but even he wants to steer clear of being associated with Duke's "rhino horn boner pills". After how loathsome Miles really is comes to the surface, this devolves into Even Evil Has Standards.
• The Face: Miles was this for The Disruptors as a unit, being the slick, socially gifted talker and "salesman" who helped get everyone either their current jobs or resurgence in standing. He tried to portray himself as The Smart Guy, but that was actually Andi. And he serves as a deconstruction of the trope, as his removal of Andi from the group and murder of her leaves the Disruptors doomed to an inevitable slide into disarray and obscurity, as even the most competent of them are chained to Miles' Klear scheme.
• Fatal Flaw: His lack of imagination and foresight prove to be his undoing. While Miles is often derided as an idiot (and he definitely is one,) he showcases a certain low cunning, and he has a genuine talent for finding opportunities for people. Yet his tendency to steal ideas and his lack of subtlety really does him in. He kills Duke in plain sight and kept the envelope that incriminated him instead of getting rid of it. Also his bright idea of using an unstable fuel source to power his house is ultimately what dooms him.
• Faux Affably Evil: He's all smiles and charm when dealing with others who transparently hate him and is perfectly willing to commit murder, smugly aware that with his money and resources, he's virtually immune to consequences. When his composure finally breaks, he shows his true self: childish, selfish, and deeply stupid.
• Feigning Intelligence: Miles is constantly trying to seem much smarter than he is through misuse of fancy-sounding terms, talking about subjects he has an at best-limited understanding of and using other people's work to make himself seem more impressive. It's eventually revealed that not only is Miles not as smart as he wants to seem, he's a complete idiot who just benefitted from Andi's work.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: None of the Disruptors seem to genuinely care for Miles, only hanging onto him because he bankrolled their careers and saved them from ruin. Helen confirms that, even back in their Glass Onion days when they'd bottomed out in their thirties, the Disruptors all thought Miles was a huge loser, and only hung with him for Andi's sake. As soon as he is ruined by the explosion of his Klear-powered house, they're only too happy to drop him.
• Glad I Thought of It: Miles' modus operandi. Not only did he steal the idea that made him billions, but he only comes up with the ideas of shutting the lights off and shooting someone and burning the napkin after Blanc and Lionel respectively plant the seeds in his head.
• Global Ignorance: He misidentifies the sea his private island is set on as the Ionian Sea, when both Blanc and Claire later correct him that they are, in fact, on the Aegean Sea, on the complete opposite side of Greece. Blanc includes this in his summation as further evidence that Miles Bron is a moron who doesn't know what he's talking about.
• Hate Sink: Miles is a two-faced fraud who got to where he is by leeching off his friends, ignores repeated warnings about how incredibly dangerous his plans really are, uses blackmail and leverage to keep them under his sway, and is fully willing to murder them outright when they prove dangerous to his career. And unlike Ransom, he lacks any genuine cunning, and doesn't own up and embrace any of his awfulness.
• Hidden Depths:
  • There's no staff on his private island during the events of the film (he explains he sent them home early), implying he mixed all his friends' favorite cocktails and cooked the food himself.
  • His explanation on Da Vinci's painting technique is actually correct.
  • Alongside the cocktail napkin he created Alpha on is a picture of himself hanging out with his friends at the original Glass Onion, implying that at least some part of him genuinely misses the good ol' days. Supposedly created Alpha, that is.
  • He's a talented guitarist, though if one pays attention, he misplays several chords, which is one of the first hints Miles isn't who he says he is.
• History with Celebrity: Miles' island is filled with evidence of his celebrity associations: artist Banksy designed the dock to his island, he's hawking products from actors Jared Leto and Jeremy Renner, writer Gillian Flynn wrote his initial murder mystery plan, composer Philip Glass composed the hourly "dong" noise, and tennis superstar Serena Williams is his personal trainer. He also attended journalist Anderson Cooper's birthday party.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • Miles' loud, egotistical need to flaunt his wealth and be theatrical results in him explaining the safety mechanism behind the Mona Lisa's protective casing in Helen's presence. Combine this with foolishly using Klear to power the house, and Helen is able to exploit this flaw and blow the entire building up along with the Mona Lisa, proving Klear is a dangerous substance and tanking Alpha and Miles' net worth in one fell swoop.
  • He sends one of his invitations to Andi knowing she's dead, not thinking of how the invitation could then be used by Andi's relatives to visit his island and expose him. And as another testament to his stupidity, he doesn't even consider Andi could be her twin Helen in disguise, whom the real Andi had told the Disruptors about many times before, even though he knows he killed her. His stunned reaction to Helen's true identity implies he genuinely believed Andi even managed to come Back from the Dead.
• Hypocrite:
  • During his Villainous Breakdown, he calls Helen a baby for blowing up the Glass Onion and destroying the Mona Lisa, before doubling over in a very childlike fit of rage. There's also the fact that his reaction to its destruction consists of him screaming and crying like, well, a baby.
  • A minor case: Miles' emphasis on Klear's sustainability makes him seem environmentally conscious… and clashes with him casually handing Peg a drink in a disposable Solo cup.
• Indy Ploy: Whenever Miles is faced with a problem, he immediately wings it rather than coming up with a real plan. When Duke tries to blackmail him over (the real) Andi's death, it only takes Miles a few seconds to improvise a way to kill him by spiking his own drink with pineapple juice, which he knows Duke is deathly allergic to, then slipping it into Duke's hand while directing his attention elsewhere. He also pickpockets Duke's gun immediately after the blackmail attempt and, after Duke dies, uses the fact that Duke was "poisoned" from his glass to play the panicked would-be victim and distract everyone from investigating further while shuffling Duke's gun and phone out of sight. Blanc remains unimpressed, however, since all of this was done in plain sight via an easily traceable method, and without a real plan for how to cover his tracks beyond some basic gaslighting, Miles is swiftly exposed as Duke's murderer.
• Immortality Through Memory: His great ambition in life is to be mentioned in the same breath as The Mona Lisa and thanks to Helen Brand he will be; as the complete idiot who destroyed the Mona Lisa.
• Insufferable Imbecile: What he actually turns out to be is an overgrown jock who's spent his whole life bullying smarter people into doing his homework for him. When it comes to his attempts to display his own intelligence, he is woefully inept to Too Dumb to Live levels.
• It's All About Me: Miles will not hesitate to throw even his oldest friends under the bus if it benefits him.
• Karma Houdini: Subverted. After Blanc exposes him as the killer of Andi, Duke, and nearly Helen, he responds by destroying the napkin proving that he stole Alpha from Andi and smugly points out there is no physical evidence, and for a moment it actually seems as if he will get away with everything. Helen then responds by destroying his entire home along with the Mona Lisa, which France will be on his case for, and his former friends all then choose to testify against him about all of his crimes when he inevitably gets sued for the damages, ensuring he will lose everything.
• Kick the Dog: After burning the napkin, Miles has an especially cruel line when he tells Helen that any further attempt against him would go as well as her dead sister's.
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Miles is the epitome of the trope. He has serious delusions of grandeur; his ideas are either stupid, impractical, or dangerous; and the few good ideas credited to him actually came from Andi, his business partner. Then there is his obsession with putting Klear on the market, even though he knows damn well that the material is untested and unstable and would put countless lives at risk if something bad were to happen.
• Lack of Imagination: Miles truly cannot come up with a brilliantly original idea. His invitations, murder mystery, personas, and actual murder ideas were essentially done or suggested by other people, and he just assumed all the credit for himself. Blanc is especially flabbergasted when he realizes Miles got the idea to shoot Helen in the dark from him. He even stole Andi's way of signing envelopes.
• Large Ham: Miles is almost always "on" and speaks to people like he's doing a press conference or a Ted Talk rather than having a conversation. Edward Norton is clearly enjoying himself in the role.
• Logical Weakness: As the rest of these entries indicate, Miles is an overgrown Manchild who whines when things don't go his way, throws tantrums, and generally acts like an entitled jerk who can't get used to being told "No." As such, he's completely powerless before—and ultimately brought down by—someone who has vast experience in dealing with Spoiled Brats, can keep her head in a frantic situation, and knows exactly how naughty children behave: Helen, an elementary school teacher.
• Malaproper: The guy invents and misapplies several big-sounding words to sound smarter than he actually is. Blanc eventually points out that it's a telltale sign of him being an idiot rather than the eccentric genius that the general public sees him as.
• Manchild: While he generally gives off a friendly, eccentric facade, once things start to not go his way, he throws a tantrum like a child. The lengths he will go to in order to protect his image have him bordering on a Psychopathic Manchild.
• Manipulative Bastard: He's not that clever or even very cunning, but he knows how to use whatever dirt he's got on the Disruptors to make them comply with his wishes, up until the moment that all his leverage and influence over them goes up in smoke. And while he isn't cunning, he is very charismatic, being able to fool not only the Disruptors, but the entire world that he's a genius.
• Meaningful Name: 'Bron' is pronounced 'brawn,' as in 'brains and brawn.' It turns out that while he is a clever thief, he's utterly incapable of independent thought otherwise, being entirely reliant on others to do the thinking for him, which was where Andi came in during Alpha's startup. Fittingly, he 'muscles ahead' with his ambitions no matter how ill-advised, which ends up costing him everything when all his idiotic ideas pile up and lead to him getting the Mona Lisa burnt to cinders on his island with his lighter using his 'miracle energy source,' the safety measures having been circumvented with a glitch in the system he showed off, ensuring horrific legal battles in his future that will almost certainly cost him everything he stole.
• Motifs: Miles is heavily associated with glass. There is the eponymous Glass Onion, his island retreat in Greece, which includes a home office composed almost entirely of glass furniture and a living room with several glass sculptures on display. Even the hourly "dong" noise was apparently composed by Philip Glass. Looking through glass can distort one's vision, reflecting how Miles has successfully fooled the world into regarding him as a technological genius when in reality he's an imbecile who stole everything he has from other people. Glass is also fragile and easily broken with brute force, just like how Miles is best dealt with by using direct methods to cut through his bullshit. The first sign of the other Disruptors rebelling against him is when they start smashing his glass sculptures, and his ultimate downfall coincides with the Glass Onion itself being shattered by the Klear explosion.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed:
  • While Rian Johnson has gone on record as saying the similarity is a "horrible, horrible accident", Miles is a very blatant riff on Elon Musk, being a childish and controversial tech bro seen as a brilliant disruptor in media.
    • Both are strongly associated with high-end cars: Bron with his baby blue Porsche, and Musk with his red Tesla.
    • Lionel's introduction lists many things Miles does that Elon Musk is famous for, mentioning that Alpha makes both cars and space exploration products "Alpha Cars" and "Alpha Cosmos" (which parallels Musk's Tesla and SpaceX),
    • Miles' habit of faxing Lionel with ideas in the middle of the night reflects Musk, who is famous for working in the middle of the night and sending out emails at such hours.
    • It's mentioned that Miles has dabbled in cryptocurrency, specifically NFTs (both of which have been promoted by Elon Musk).
    • Finally, the way that Andi is the one who came up with the original idea for Alpha and made it work, only for Miles to later cut her out of the company and pretend he was the sole founder, almost exactly parallels the fact that despite the public often perceiving him as such, Elon Musk did not found Tesla. He provided funding in its early stages, but the idea for its creation certainly was not his. The only reason he's even allowed to call himself a co-founder of Tesla is because he won a lawsuit to do so — just like how Miles only reinvents himself as the sole founder of Alpha once he's won the lawsuit to push Andi out.
  • His product Klear, a supposedly revolutionary technology that doesn't work but is being fast-tracked and hyped due to publicity, is reminiscent of Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of Theranos who was convicted of fraud. Both cosplayed Steve Jobs while portraying themselves as visionaries. There is even a photo of him holding his napkin similar to Holmes' famous pose of holding her blood testing product (though Edward Norton stated on Twitter that the photo referenced was a slightly different, but still similar one).
  • The scene where he plans to cut Andi out of Alpha shows him wearing a black turtleneck — trademark apparel for Steve Jobs, who is well known for legally screwing over Steve Wozniak, among many others, throughout Apple's history. The scene in question also mentions a 'reality distortion field,' another infamous trait of Jobs'.
• Nobody's That Dumb: He is on the receiving end of this at the beginning of Benoit's investigation, because as Blanc points out, murdering Andi at the moment it happened, so soon after a very public court struggle, would make Miles a primary suspect and Miles has to be more clever than that. The Reveal that, no, Miles is an extremely impulsive idiot willing to commit murder at the drop of a hat if he thinks he can get away with it actually pisses Blanc off.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: Miles might be a pretentious goon and a moron with zero impulse control, but he still personally murdered two people, tried to kill Helen, and threatened to follow through on it should she attempt to stand against him. If anything, Miles' stupidity and lack of imagination actually make him more dangerous as he will either forego elaborate scams, such as when he immediately poisons Duke, or does things a smarter villain would avoid, such as killing Andi to begin with and then Duke in front of everyone. It even confounds Benoit who is used to dealing with complex schemes and intelligent criminals and so isn't used to someone who just acts without thinking.
• Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: Miles likes to think of himself as a revolutionary whose work will change the world for the better. He's really a petty, immature moron who only cares about himself and either doesn't know or care that Klear is incredibly dangerous.
• Obviously Evil: As Blanc points out in his "in plain sight" speech during The Summation, the fact that Miles, the obvious Jerkass with the biggest reason to want Andi dead, actually did kill her, is surprising exactly because it's so unsurprising.
• Opportunistic Bastard: He lacks anything in the way of technological smarts, creativity, or common sense, but he is skilled at spotting other talented people and taking advantage of them to further himself.
• Pet the Dog: For all his many faults, he lets Derol live on his private island due to him "going through some things", with seemingly no real gain for himself.
• Red Herring: Played with and even invoked as an explicit plot point, with Blanc even pointing out a real-life reason why red herrings might not be the obvious choice after all: when one is the obvious suspect, they would have to be a complete fool to actually commit the crime, and Miles is a genius. When the mysteries start piling up, Helen points out that as the one with the most to lose, Miles is the obvious suspect for her sister's murder, due to her unearthing the evidence of her stealing his idea. Blanc points out that since he publically feuded with Andi, her house was ransacked, and Andi sent an easily exposable email, a genius like Miles would know he'd be the first suspect. Then Blanc realizes, towards the end, that Miles isn't a genius – he's a superficial fool who, after all, would make such an obvious, desperate move, believing his lies to be invincible.
• Refuge in Audacity: Without the smarts to properly cover up his crimes, Miles generally relies on a combination of gaslighting and bribery to get away with things that he more or less does in plain sight.
• Rich Genius: Miles Bron, who owns his own private island and sends invitations to his friends in the form of puzzle boxes. Ultimately, the "genius" part is subverted, as Blanc points out in the denouement because Miles is really a Know-Nothing Know-It-All who relies on others to do anything clever, starting with stealing Andi's ideas for his company.
• Rich in Dollars, Poor in Sense: Miles is filthy rich, and has made multiple bad decisions using that money, such as building a dock that can only be used at low tide at the one docking point of his personal island, and installing an easily accessed bypass on the Mona Lisa's protective case. He also decided to run his entire compound on a dangerous and untested experimental fuel which he got from a Norwegian scientist at an ayahuasca retreat, kept damning evidence in a picture frame instead of destroying it, and utilized an easily recognizable car as his getaway vehicle.
• Smug Snake: This is his default personality trait, as he spends most of the movie being insufferably arrogant. He thinks his murder mystery will stump Blanc, who solves it almost immediately. He also thinks he'll get away with being exposed as a murderer and having his house destroyed by his unstable Klear fuel. He doesn't even realize the latter instance also destroyed the Mona Lisa until Helen points it out to him.
• The Sociopath: Miles fits a number of criteria for a low-functioning sociopath. He is superficially charming, has a colossal ego and sense of self-importance, is obsessed with sounding smart and dazzling people but has almost no actual knowledge of things he talks about, is a compulsive and very audacious liar, has absolutely terrible impulse control, is extremely reckless and takes stupid risks for bad reasons, has almost no capacity for genuine friendship and will turn on even old friends the moment it benefits him and is able to lie, manipulate, endanger others and even commit murder with no hint of remorse.
• Sore Loser: Miles is very petulant after Blanc solves his murder mystery weekend before it even begins. He doesn't take Helen's later actions any better.
• Stupid Crooks: He's a Corrupt Corporate Executive who stole his company from under his partner (whom he later murdered, then murdered one of his friends to keep it a secret) with roughly the IQ of an actual onion.
• Stupid Evil: Miles isn't just a cold-blooded murderer who will turn on or kill his friends without any remorse. He's also a complete idiot who only got away with his crimes by intimidating those who could've stopped him. Even Benoit seems genuinely angry at how stupid Miles is.
• Sympathy for the Devil: Downplayed; even before the major reveals of the movie, there are plenty of reasons to find Miles a deeply unlikeable and unsympathetic person. However, there is a scene alone with Blanc where he ruefully notes that Andi was always the one person who was willing to tell him the truth, and since becoming a fabulously wealthy tech innovator, he is only ever surrounded by fawning yes-people who will just tell him what they think he wants to hear or who will hate him if he doesn't dish out money to them that they feel entitled to, and he has no real friends or honest relationships with anyone, just people who owe him or want things from him. While there are reasons to doubt his sincerity, not least the fact that it turns out he murdered Andi himself, it nevertheless does suggest a certain rather pitiful sense of isolation and loneliness to the man.
• Take That!: Miles is a rather clear parody of Elon Musk (if an accidental one according to Rian Johnson), and not a flattering one.
• The Tell: Miles has a habit of squinting and darting his eyes to the side in contemplation whenever he hears an idea that he thinks is worth appropriating.
• The Team Benefactor: The financial benefactor of his friend group. Most obviously, he bankrolls Claire's political aspirations and employs Lionel. Halfway through the film, it's revealed that he met them at a bar and helped propel them to individual success with his money and connections. This does have the side effect of them having a twisted loyalty to him, since they all owe him in one form or another.
• Tech Bro: Bron is a childish CEO who made his billions from a tech company, beloved by media but hiding more insidious truths beneath his success.
• Too Clever by Half: Miles does have some notable skills, most notably his ability to spot and nurture upcoming talent, take advantage of opportunities, his charismatic personality, skill at making and using connections and his PR talents, which allowed him and Andi to thrive with him creating hype and her doing the behind the scenes work. However, he buys into his own hype and starts to see himself as an intellectual powerhouse and visionary, leading him to put all his power behind Klear and make the mistakes that would end up destroying his reputation. In short, Miles is a very good collaborator and someone who's skilled at working with talented people for mutual benefit plus when he has someone to rein him in. But when left to his own devices, his worst impulses come back to bite him.
• Too Dumb to Fool: Miles' stupidity actually works to his advantage as Blanc is used to dealing with devious criminals who exercise caution and isn't prepared for someone who acts seemingly entirely on impulse and is too stupid to take even basic measures to cover his tracks, working to find the killer because he struggles to believe that anyone could make the mistakes Miles did.
• Too Dumb to Live: Sure, Miles, why don't you keep the letter that can incriminate you as a fraud? That definitely won't bite you in the ass later. Also, why not power your entire house on that dangerously unstable power source that you've been peddling? Great idea, that definitely won't screw you over in the end.
• Too Important to Remember You: Peg has been Birdie's assistant for years, and doubtless accompanied her on many of Miles' excursions. Despite this, Miles barely seems to register her existence except for when she directly confronts him, and he doesn't know her name. Note that he has no such problem with Whiskey, who has been with the group for significantly less time, as he lusts after her.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Andi supported him when no one else did, defended his eccentricity to her friends, and took him on board to start Alpha, making him an equal partner despite him having little to do with the business. The second she disagreed with him (admittedly quite harshly), he not only refused to listen to her (completely valid) concerns, he screwed her out of the company, stole the credit for having come up with the idea, and murdered her when she found the evidence that could prove he was a liar.
• Villainous Breakdown: Double-subverted. He takes being exposed by Blanc as a murderer in stride, knowing he'd be able to get away with it due to a lack of evidence. When he realizes, however, that Helen intends to destroy his entire empire and especially once she manages to burn the Mona Lisa, he loses it, devolving into a screaming Psychopathic Manchild.
• Villain with Good Publicity: As far as the world, even Benoit, is concerned, Miles is an eccentric but brilliant inventor. Not only is he really a cold-hearted murderer, he's also a idiot who has used his charisma to hide his own lack of successful ideas and simply used Andi's intelligence for his own benefit.
• Wicked Pretentious: Miles has a designer mansion filled to the brim with famous works of art, every room covered wall to wall with recognizable paintings and sculptures. He even went to the trouble of having The Mona Lisa (as in the actual Mona Lisa) put on display in his living room, quoting a few choice bits of trivia about it (citing Da Vinci's use of sfumato technique). Closer inspection, however, shows that he seems to value quantity over quality, the walls covered with work of art from different movements and eras with no rhyme or reason for composition; one of the pictures, Rothko's "Number 27", is even hung upside down. His collection of glass sculptures are put on pedestals in the middle of what's meant to be a living room space, and he doesn't even react when everyone starts smashing them. Even his admiration for the Mona Lisa is based around his ego, always referring to it for the value of its fame and going to all the trouble of renting it from the French government just to show off to his investors when he unveils Klear. It takes either a strong opinion of Fauvism or a lack of respect towards art in general to hang Icarus by Henri Matisse in your bathroom, after all.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: Deconstructed. Miles is not intelligent enough to be a chessmaster, so the ideas he uses in the spur of the moment to outmaneuver his rivals are all stolen from someone else. He doesn't think about shooting Andi in the dark until Blanc mentions it could happen to him, and he doesn't burn the real napkin until Lionel asks why he hasn't already. This is one of the factors that lead to him being defeated by Helen.

Andi (ALL SPOILERS UNMARKED)

Cassandra "Andi" Brand

Played by: Janelle Monáe

The Ex-Partner

"I'll walk. And I'll take half the company to stop you from using it for this."

Miles' former business partner, and the true founder of Alpha.

---

• Brutal Honesty: When Miles proposes the Klear plan to her, she bluntly refuses it and tells him that she's willing to split the company if he doesn't stop pursuing it.
• The Cassandra: As befitting her name, Miles refuses to listen to her warnings about Klear being dangerous, which comes back to bite him at the end.
• Dead All Along: In truth, she was killed by Miles prior to the events of the movie.
• Didn't See That Coming: She knew full well that Miles was a fool and had no reason to truly fear him, but she didn't anticipate he would be reckless and stupid enough to kill her after all that they went through.
• Et Tu, Brute?: She's hurt and angered when all of her friends betray her in court and lie that Miles came up with the idea for Alpha.
• Everyone Has Standards: She was willing to put up with a lot from Miles, but drew the line at his attempts to make Klear the new dominant energy source for the planet, given how dangerously unstable it is.
• Fatal Flaw: Arrogance. Even at a young age, she always envisioned that she was going to be prominent, which is why she started writing a diary of herself, not because of wanting to keep memories of her day-to-day life, but because she was aiming to one day give it to the writers of her biographies (plural!). Afterwards, she would meet with Miles Bron and the rest of the Disruptors, where due them all having lower levels of intelligence than her, she would always see herself as the smartest person in the room, which inflated her ego even more. She disregarded her sister Helen's warnings about the Disruptors because she thought she had them all in check. When she found her napkin which proved her being right after the trial, she didn't give it to the authorities right away because she wanted to rub it in to the ones who betrayed her beforehand; and when she met with Miles as he visited her home she thought that she had the situation under control, which is why ultimately she didn't notice that Miles was trying to kill her, only realizing it after she was already drugged.
• Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: While she probably did know that Miles was a dick, she didn't think that he would be heartless or stupid enough to murder his best friend after a very public trial with her.
• Horrible Judge of Character: She didn't expect her friends to side with Miles, a hack they didn't like to begin with, over her, nor did she expect Miles to be blunt enough to try and kill her himself.
• Ice Queen: While she has a very good reason to be cold to her former friends, even her sister Helen, who loved and supported her, perceived her as rather haughty and aloof.
• Impersonation-Exclusive Character: All of her present-day scenes are actually her twin sister impersonating her; she's only really seen in flashbacks.
• Informed Attribute: Is touted as incredibly smart by the film's narrative, yet is depicted making several glaringly stupid errors in judgement throughout the film, the last of which results directly in her death at Miles' hands, though to be fair, it makes sense considering how arrogant she was. Conversely, her main claim to brilliance as presented by the film is her writing the initial (and unspecified) idea for Alpha on a napkin, a napkin which allegedly proves her to be a genius and Miles a fraud.
• Meaningful Name:
  • "Andi" is short for Cassandra, as in the Trojan prophet whose warnings of the city's destruction went unheeded. Likewise, Andi is the first to recognize Klear for the massive liability and potential disaster it is, but is ignored both by Miles and by the courts.
  • In addition, the name "Cassandra" means "one who excels and shines over men", a name both fitting and ironic for Alpha's real creator, who had her work stolen from her and her credit buried.
• Never Suicide: Andi's death is made to look like a suicide, but Helen finds proof that she had recently attempted to blackmail several people who might want her dead. It turns out she was right: Andi didn't kill herself.
• Not So Above It All:
  • It's implied that she was just as ambitious and ego-driven as Miles — heck, she had a journal called "Notes for Future Biographers" when she was six. The difference between her and Miles is that she actually had the intelligence to back it up and (almost) none of the recklessness.
  • It's implied by Helen's read of Andi's journals that Andi looked down on and manipulated all the Disruptors, just in a less transparent (and less cruel) way than Miles.
• Obliquely Obfuscated Occupation: Although she's claimed to be a genius, it's never stated what her area of expertise was. The napkin she wrote the initial idea on has a flowchart with Technobabble and various nonsensical buzzwords, including "Cyber-Risks," "Code A Delivery," "I.C.O," "Darkweb Efficacy," and "Crypto Scalability," which may arguably indicate a leaning towards computer science and cryptocurrency.
• Power Hair: Andi is a high-powered businesswoman and co-founder of a billion-dollar company who wears her hair in a neat, closely-cropped blonde bob. It's such a meticulous 'do that her twin Helen (who has long, curly black hair) worries about the work needed to emulate it for the Twin Switch.
• Repetitive Name: Andi Brand. It's glossed over since she's usually either referred to as just "Andi", or by her full name, Cassandra Brand (the repetition is also present in the latter, but more subtle).
• Rich Language, Poor Language: She shed her Alabama accent in favor of affecting one that she and her sister used in their impressions of a "rich bitch" character.
• The Smart Guy: As the film goes on, it's clear from both Helen and the Disruptors' accounts that Andi was the brains behind both Alpha and the Disruptors as a whole, having even recruited Miles into the group against everyone else's dislike of him implicitly to give the group The Face necessary to progress their careers and scribbled the original idea for Alpha on a bar napkin. Sadly, this intelligence does not appear to correspond to wisdom, as...
• Too Clever by Half: Andi was smart enough to know that Miles was an ineffectual dumbass and was unintimidated by him. Unfortunately, she didn't make the connection that his stupidity meant he would take dangerous actions that a smarter person would avoid, and so was unprepared when he showed up to kill her.
• Walking Spoiler: The Reveal midway through the film that "Andi" is actually Helen, and the real Andi was a previous victim, changes everything about the film.

Lionel

Dr. Lionel Toussaint

Played by: Leslie Odom Jr.

The Skeptical Scientist

"This is reckless."

A scientist who works for Miles.

---

• Book Smart: He is capable when it comes to science, but is stumped by the puzzle box like the rest of the Disruptors. He also seems to see Miles as a mad genius who's just taking things too far instead of an idiot, saying they still need to do some tests with Klear when every scientist and Andi has long concluded they have to drop it.
• Dirty Coward: He knows exactly how ridiculously dangerous Klear is, and has the evidence to back this up, but is planning to stand by and let Miles launch it regardless, either too fearful of potential retaliation or is unwilling to lose his position at Alpha.
• Do Wrong, Right: He's appalled both that Miles would murder somebody over the contents of Andi's blackmail envelope, and that Miles actually kept said envelope instead of immediately destroying it.
• Everyone Has Standards: Lionel is willing to put up with a lot of Miles' nonsensical bullshit, but Klear is where he draws the line; his previous "inventions" may have been stupid, but Klear can genuinely get someone killed.
• Hollywood Beauty Standards: A suave, well-dressed, and handsome scientist. Birdie comments that he's too good-looking to be a scientist.
• Ignored Expert: He repeatedly warns Miles that Klear, his new fuel source, is a very bad idea, but that doesn't stop him. He's tempted to go along with it out of self-preservation, but accepts the out when Helen provides it.
• Professional Butt-Kisser: In a sense. Lionel's entire position within Miles Bron's tech empire is to find ways to make Miles' outlandish and nonsensical ideas into a working product that can make him millions. When others complain about this, Lionel simply claims that Bron is a remarkable genius who thinks differently than the average man.
• Servile Snarker: Despite working for Miles, he is not afraid to voice his complaints and concerns about Klear, although he ultimately caves in to Miles' wishes.
• Smart People Wear Glasses: He's a scientist, and although in the present he doesn't wear glasses, in the flashback to before Miles made all the Disruptors rich, when he was only a substitute teacher, he does sport a pair of nerd glasses.
• Token Good Teammate: Played with. Out of all of Miles' friends, he's the most grounded, and shows the most guilt when betraying Andi. That said, he was also the one responsible for informing Miles of Andi's threats, making him indirectly responsible for her murder.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
  • Lionel informed Miles of Andi's threat of blackmail, seemingly just to keep him in the loop. Miles responded to this information by murdering Andi in cold blood, which Lionel neither wanted nor predicted, and which set off a chain of events that included Duke's death, the destruction of the Mona Lisa, and the (significantly less regrettable) downfall of Miles.
  • He accidentally gives Miles the idea to burn the napkin, letting him cover up his crime. This results in Helen taking more drastic measures to see him brought to justice, exploding the Glass Onion and destroying the Mona Lisa.
• Yes-Man: In his introduction, he gets called out for refusing to say no to Miles' demands, and Lionel defends Miles by saying he is a mad genius. In private, though, Lionel knows it's only a matter of time before Miles screws up, but he owes him too much to refuse his demands.

Duke

Duke Cody

Played by: Dave Bautista

The Reckless MRA

"Ma, where's my speargun? I gotta pack!"

A content creator who makes Men's Rights Activist videos.

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• Age-Gap Romance: He's dating a woman in her early or mid-twenties, and is played by an actor in his early fifties.
• All-Natural Snake Oil: He lost his Twitch deal and his internet show is on the brink of dying out due to hawking "rhino boner pills" in the past – which, as he weakly tries excusing himself with, actually didn't contain any rhino horn.
• Asshole Victim: Zig-zagged. Of the Disruptors, he's easily the most unpleasant after Miles himself, and ends up being killed by him. Despite this, his murder is still treated as a bad thing and a sign of Miles' egomania.
• At Least I Admit It: For all that he's a selfish asshole, he's at least aware that he's a selfish asshole who acknowledges out loud that he's leeching off of Miles' wealth.
• Bad Influencer: He's a violent and unpredictable MRA Twitch streamer who got cancelled for endorsing All-Natural Snake Oil and is back on track thanks to his billionaire friend's media influence. He later shows no qualms about pimping out his girlfriend to said benefactor to expand his reach.
• Basement-Dweller: Despite being a successful social media content creator, Duke still lives with his mother, who regularly puts him in his place, despite the manly "get back in the kitchen" persona he puts on.
• Big Guy Fatality Syndrome: The physically biggest of the Disruptors, and the only one aside from Andi to die at the hands of Miles.
• Blackmail Backfire: When he sees a news update on Andi's "suicide", he realizes Miles killed her and tries to get a position on Miles' news network in exchange for his silence. Apparently, even Miles wasn't enough of an idiot to take him up on that offer.
• Bling-Bling-BANG!: His beloved Tokarev handgun is elaborately engraved, and has a gleaming chrome or silver finish accompanied by a highly-polished reddish wood grip.
• Boisterous Weakling: Duke cultivates a macho image, but not only still lives with his mother even in his fifties, it doesn't take much for him to submit to her.
• Briefs Boasting: He swims in the compound's pool with a custom speedo that has an integral holster for his ever-present handgun right on its groin area.
• Brutal Honesty: Duke admits that he and the other Disruptors are opportunists leaching off Miles' "golden teats" and that Andi simply failed at their game.
• Compensating for Something: Notably carries his handgun at all times holstered right in front of his groin.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: Duke sees Whiskey come to Miles' room in a bikini, and they're apparently about to have an illicit encounter. At first, we don't hear the whole conversation, and Duke clenches his fists with rage, so it looks like Duke is angered upon finding out that Whiskey is cheating on him with Miles. Then subverted when we revisit this event from Helen's perspective; it turns out that Whiskey was going to seduce Miles, but it was Duke's idea, hoping that Miles would put Duke on Alpha News in exchange for favors from Whiskey. And Duke did hear the conversation, so there was no cheating or misunderstanding going on. The actual source of Duke's rage was that the plan failed, because Miles still refused to give a spot on Alpha News to Duke, disparagingly calling him the "rhino boner pill man".
• Didn't Think This Through: Duke is apparently not very familiar with mystery stories, and thus joins the ranks of countless characters in countless murder mysteries that thought blackmailing a murderer was ever going to end well.
• Dumb Muscle: His mother has to solve most of the puzzles for him, and his political views are an incoherent, hypocritical mess... but he is carrying a lot of tattooed beef on that frame.
• Evil Nerd: He got his start as a video game streamer, and has Superman and Galactic Empire tattoos. He's also by far the most amoral of the Disruptors (except Miles), willing to pimp out his girlfriend and blackmail to save his show.
• Firing in the Air a Lot: He has a habit of randomly firing his crotch gun in the air.
• Gun Nut: He carries a customized Tokarev pistol with him everywhere, believing he needs to be able to defend himself at all times.
• Hidden Depths:
  • He's a loud idiot, but he's also surprisingly self-aware in awkward situations; he fully admits that he's sucking off of Miles' "golden tit" immediately after the conversation in which he says that he's willing to be the asshole, so for all of his idiocy, he's at least aware that he's a selfish dick.
  • Again, for one of the dumbest members of the cast, Duke also immediately figures out that Miles killed Andi the moment he finds out she's dead, managing to beat Blanc to the punch even though he's known about Andi's death for about a week. If he hadn't tried to blackmail Miles over it, he could've cracked the case himself.
• Hypocrite:
  • For all his blather on social media about manliness and male superiority, Duke is clearly dominated by his elderly mother (who is obviously smarter than he is).
  • He watches his girlfriend Whiskey having sex with Miles, making him a literal cuckold. "Cuck" is a common insult in alt-right and MRA circles for men they perceive to be weak or feminine. This is carried further when the truth is revealed — it was his idea, meaning that he willingly let himself be "emasculated" so his girlfriend could achieve something that he couldn't do by himself, and it still failed because Miles, a weakling by comparison, thinks he's a complete loser.
  • He claims he carries his gun because he wants to be prepared for anything, but doesn't carry any medication for his food allergy, a much more likely threat to his life and what actually kills him.
• Incoming Ham: When Duke and Whiskey show up to the dock in Greece, Duke is riding a very loud motorcycle while simultaneously firing his gun in the air, with Whiskey holding onto him and whooping with glee.
  Duke: Crew! We've arrived.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: He's an arrogant blowhard who goes off on America for being supposedly subordinated to women instead of alpha males like he envisions himself as, but it all comes off as posturing to hide the fact that he still lives with his mom in his fifties and how his success is dependent entirely on the less ludicrously macho Miles.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • Invoked. He clearly thinks this is what he's doing when he viciously calls Andi (actually Helen) a loser who is just upset that she wasn't capable enough to keep up with the rest of them and takes her walking off in anger as proof that he was right. In reality, Helen, while her rage at hearing Duke insult her sister was likely genuine, deliberately provoked him into being a dick so she could leave the party and search everyone's rooms for the envelope without her absence being questioned.
  • Not to mention, Duke does actually HAVE a point. At the very least, no one can deny his assessment of the Disruptors, himself included, as desperate leeches off of Miles and Alpha's wealth and influence, is bang-on.
• Manchild: He seems to view himself as much younger than he really is.
• Meaningful Name: A "Duke" is a high-ruling official... but still someone who answers to the king (in this case, Miles Bron).
• Momma's Boy: He still lives with his mom despite being a rich influencer (and likely his house) and can't keep his machismo façade with her long before she cowes him into obedience.
• Mr. Fanservice: He is played by the incredibly muscular Dave Bautista, and wears as little clothing as possible to show off his physique.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed:
  • He's a far-from-flattering riff on Joe Rogan, Andrew Tate, and Matt Forney among others – being a bald, muscular, "men's rights activist" and social media influencer with a tendency to peddle All-Natural Snake Oil. His desire to get a late-night spot on Miles' new network "Alpha News" also seems to be a dig at Dan Bongino, though the movie was written before Dan was suspended from YouTube.
  • During the flashback scene to the Disruptors' past, there's a brief mention of Duke being at the time a "nerd doing video game tournaments". This traces a parallel between his character and many real-life video game reviewers on YouTube who through the latter half of the 2010s drifted into being far-right talking heads riding on culture war outrage and anti-feminism.
• Out-Gambitted: His attempt to blackmail Miles gets him killed within a few minutes.
• Pet the Dog: While all of the Disruptors are estranged from Andi for their own green, he tells "Andi" (really Helen in disguise) that he was the first to show up at Andi's house when she seemed to have disappeared and was driving so fast that he nearly crashed into Miles on the way in.
• Phallic Weapon: Invoked. He carries a pistol in a holster over his crotch at all times.
• Plot Allergy: Duke says early on that he doesn't "dance with" pineapple, which turns out to mean that he's allergic to it. Miles uses this knowledge to kill him.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: "Villain" may be too strong a word, but he's still a deeply misogynistic influencer.
• Reckless Gun Usage: He holsters his handgun over his crotch and is prone to firing it into the air without even looking where he's aiming (not to mention that bullets fired in the air can still do damage or inflict injury when falling back down). He does so while joining the others on the pier and when Lionel reacts to him keeping his gun on him in the pool.
• Skewed Priorities: He carries a gun everywhere he goes because "you never know when shit's gonna go down", but doesn't carry an epipen for his lethal food allergy.
• Smarter Than You Look: He's not that much smarter than he looks, or acts for that matter, but there is a certain level of cunning under the dumbass machismo. While the overall idea of blackmailing Miles was terminally bad, his immediate delivery of the actual threat is surprisingly clever given the short timeframe he had to come up with the idea. The claim that one of his videos had blown up on YouTube meant that he had a solid excuse to show Miles his phone without anyone else wanting a look; while it'd be easy to disprove, none of the others seem to care much about his channel beyond it existing, so they wouldn't have much motive to check. It even lets him segue into his demands in a plausibly deniable way that, again, wouldn't attract attention. Unfortunately for him, he did not plan beyond that point.
• Smug Snake: Duke's eventually revealed to be yet another manipulative but foolish member of the group alongside Miles, particularly in trying to get Whiskey to seduce Miles and later trying to blackmail him upon realizing he murdered Andi.
• Tattoo as Character Type: Before Duke met Miles, he was a "video game nerd." He has tattoos of the symbol of the Galactic Empire from Star Wars and the S symbol of Superman.
• Testosterone Poisoning: Fittingly for an MRA, Duke often prides himself on doing manly things such as showing off his muscles and bringing a pistol to the island which he occasionally fires into the air. Also fittingly for an MRA, this really just makes him look like a pathetic chump. Most tellingly, the twist about Duke seeing Whiskey and Miles getting hot and heavy isn't that he's finding out about the blatant affair and giving him a motive to Murder the Hypotenuse, it's that he asked her to 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 cuckolded by a man he could probably rip into confetti if he really wanted to.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Among the Disruptors, he's not exactly well-regarded. Claire is more upset about being associated with him than his death. Claire and Lionel also show way more emotion over Andi's apparent death (when Helen is still impersonating her), and when the facts of her real death are revealed, than they ever did for Duke, despite the fact they both turned on Andi.
• Too Dumb to Live: Immediately after realizing that Miles murdered Andi, Duke's first thought is to blackmail him... while still on Miles' private island and being fully aware that Miles is willing to kill to protect his reputation. Mere minutes later, Duke is dead. He also accepts a drink from Miles, despite having shown earlier he's at least careful about avoiding his allergy by asking what's in what he consumes, and he doesn't seem to have brought an epi-pen with him.
• Troll: The video he's shown making at the beginning has him call out Jimmy Kimmel by name, implying that he's responding to a segment in which Duke might or might not have been featured, and trying to carry out a one-sided feud against him.
• Trigger-Happy: He is prone to Firing in the Air a Lot with his handgun, even for something as mundane as coming out of the pool.
• The Unapologetic: He refuses to apologize for his role in screwing Andi over, simply calling her a loser.
• Unmanly Secret: He has three. First is that he still lives with his mother and is submissive to her. Second, he allows Miles to sleep with Whiskey after coercing her to do it so that he can get back in the good graces of a man half his size. And lastly, he is deathly allergic to pineapple but doesn't keep an epipen on him.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: Is shirtless or wearing unbuttoned shirts in many scenes, exposing his impressive professional wrestler's physique.
• Weapon-Based Characterization: He's a bumbling, excessive loudmouth who put a lot of unnecessary engravings and decoration on his Tokarev, a weapon notorious for having some batches with substandard safeties. Taken further when the gun of a “macho” man who’s life is rife with Unmanly Secret issues turns out to have a weak enough bullet to be blocked by a mere diary.

Claire

Claire Debella

Played by: Kathryn Hahn

The Paranoid Governor

"Are we even going to talk about the elephant in the room?"

The governor of Connecticut, currently running for the Senate.

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• Awful Wedded Life: Claire is never shown as anything but impatient towards her husband, and she ignores his calls on the island.
• Character Catchphrase: A panicked "Oh my god!"
• Corrupt Politician: While her campaign is publicly backed by her billionaire friend Miles, under the table said funding is contingent on her signing off on energy deals that contradict her green image, which cause her no end of stress throughout the film.
• Defeat Means Respect: When Helen torches the Glass Onion and the Mona Lisa and ruins the careers of the Disruptors, Claire is clearly shocked but still gives a small smile to her when Helen taunts Miles.
• Dirty Coward: When Miles reveals that he plans to launch the deadly Klear fuel across the nation, Claire is clearly horrified but doesn't try to argue with Miles, while Lionel at least attempts to put up a protest.
• Embarrassingly Painful Sunburn: After a few hours at the pool, Claire spends the rest of the movie with badly sunburned shoulders, and ditches her blazer at dinner, presumably to avoid irritating them further.
• Enraged by Idiocy: Claire is continually infuriated by Birdie's dimwittedness.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Crooked hypocrite and self-absorbed though she may be, Claire has little fondness for the loudmouthed, politically incorrect Duke.
  • Despite betraying Andi, Claire is visibly guilty and uneasy about doing it. Also, while she may be under Miles' thumb, she's obviously not happy about it.
  • While she did thoughtlessly rubber-stamp Klear, she's clearly unsettled to hear just how dangerous it is from Lionel.
• Granola Girl: Subverted. Claire portrays herself as socially and environmentally conscious, but is in reality a two-faced hypocrite who rubber-stamps Klear despite knowing that it's untested and unsafe. Her dialogue with Lionel at the pool suggests that she only gives lip service to green issues because it's what she expects her base wants to hear (Connecticut being a heavily left-leaning state) not because of any real principle.
• Hypocrite: Despite playing herself up in the media as an environmentally conscious, responsible, and trustworthy left-wing politician, Claire is anything but, signing off on Klear while knowing it to be untested and unsafe, failing to practice proper social distancing or mask-wearing during the pandemic, associating with an MRA^note MRAs aren't necessarily right-wing but are associated with right-wing groups, while Duke is portrayed as outright alt-right., and lying under oath to protect her own interests.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: After Blanc figures out Bron's murder mystery game, she spends most of her screen time after that cradling a bottle of Bacardi, after killing the bottle of white wine Miles provided.
• It's All About Me: Despite portraying herself as a climate warrior in the media, she's mostly concerned about how the launch of Miles' disastrous energy source will affect her campaign for the Senate. Also, her first concern after Duke's death is not over the wellbeing of the victim or even the possible danger to herself, but how the optics of being at the scene of the murder will affect her politically.
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Claire mocks Birdie's dimwittedness and eagerly nods along with Blanc's dense explanations throughout the film, no matter how baffling they are or how lost she clearly is.
  Blanc: That is the Aegean Sea.
  Claire: Oh yeah, it is! It is!
• Nervous Wreck: She is clearly eaten up with fear and guilt over her association with Miles, her betrayal of Andi, and the dangers of Klear, exacerbated by her drinking. She does not take the increasingly stressful events of the night well.
• Perpetual Frowner: It's rare to see her without a worried grimace on her face.
• Straw Hypocrite: There is very little about her political positions she is shown actually caring about beyond how any revelation of how she finds funding and of her friends will impact her ability to run ads.
• Stress Vomit: She throws up in a bucket shortly after being told that the authorities will be informed about Duke's death, as Claire's affiliation with him plus her vacationing on a billionaire's private island during a pandemic will be a political scandal for her.
• Take That!: While it's hard to pin down any one person to make her an example of No Celebrities Were Harmed, she's very clearly an unflattering parody of hypocritical politicians who claim to be left-leaning while secretly in bed with conservatives.^note Her closest analogue would probably be Joe Lieberman, another prominent politician from Connecticut who started out progressive but became increasingly right-leaning in his later years, to the point where he (like Claire) eventually ran as an independent. He was even briefly floated as a running mate for John McCain in a bipartisan bid, but Republicans freaked out when the info leaked and McCain went with Sarah Palin instead.
• The Unapologetic: While she clearly feels guilty for testifying against Andi, she's too proud and too far under Miles' thumb to apologize, and seems livid at the thought. It's implied this is partially because apologizing would require her to really face just how wrong her actions were.
• Wardrobe Flaw of Characterization: Claire has a tendency to look messy and frazzled no matter the environment. She solely wears baggy clothes in an unflattering shade of beige, her eyeshadow smears quickly on the island, and her hair is usually frizzy if not a straight-up rat's nest. Johnson himself said his direction for her outfits was for them to be the embodiment of a "sad trumpet noise". It sets her apart from the more glamorous Disruptors, and she clearly has a chip on her shoulder about it.
• We Used to Be Friends: It's implied she was closer to Cassandra than the others had been, since Andi took her betrayal particularly hard and Claire can't look her in the eye during the trial. She's also the first to notice that the disguised Helen isn't acting like the Andi she knew.

Birdie

Birdie Jay

Played by: Kate Hudson

The Clueless Fashionista

"I say it like I see it, no filter. If people can't handle it, that's their problem."

A dimwitted model turned fashion designer who frequently causes controversies online due to her own ignorance and lack of thought.

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• Abhorrent Admirer: She's one for Blanc, fawning over him the moment he arrives and being flirty towards him throughout. Blanc, unimpressed by her stupidity, makes his disinterest plain to see, though she fails to notice.
• Animal Motifs: Birds, unsurprisingly. Her full name is Birdie Jay, she's constantly making social gaffes with her 'tweets', she shows up at the dock in Greece wearing a feather-patterned sundress and a gold feather necklace, Miles' murder mystery has her killing Miles with a Jayhawk brand crossbow, and she owns a famous jewel called the Wren Diamond. Fitting, considering her role as a beautiful yet flighty member of Miles's crew.
• Blackface: Implied. The event that got her cancelled apparently involved a costume that was deemed a misguided "tribute to Beyoncé".
• Brainless Beauty: Birdie is a famous and beautiful former model who is so gaffe-prone that her assistant can't trust her with a phone in case she posts an offensive slur out of sheer ignorance and lack of thought. That same stupidity led to her using an infamous sweatshop to manufacture a line of designer sweat pants simply because she thought the term 'sweatshop' meant a place that made sweat pants.
• Brutal Honesty: Discussed and deconstructed – she fancies herself as 'someone who tells the truth' with no filter, but Blanc points out that she's only speaking without thinking and mistaking it for truth.
• Comically Missing the Point: When Blanc tells her that it's dangerous to confuse speaking thoughtlessly with being a truth-teller, Birdie coyly asks if Blanc is calling her dangerous. Blanc, clearly aware that Birdie has no self-awareness to speak of, doesn't bother to correct her.
• The Dog Bites Back: The rest of the Disruptors treat Birdie with contempt and frequently ignore her for being so stupid. Tellingly, she's the first of the group to agree to testify against Miles at the end of the movie, and it's clear that she's partially motivated by how horrible he's been to her over the years.
• Dumbass Has a Point: Birdie taking the fall for Bron will net her $30,000,000, and it's not like other celebrities haven't been involved in sweatshops for producing their clothing lines.
• Dumb Blonde: She's the only natural blonde among the Disruptors (aside from Whiskey, who is more of a hanger-on), and is easily the least intelligent. She's prone to bigoted gaffes out of astonishing ignorance, slower to catch on to things than her brunette friends, and had no idea that sweatshops are human rights disasters, thinking they were simply where sweatpants were manufactured.
• Establishing Character Moment: She's introduced holding a large party in her house during the height of the pandemic with not a single mask in sight, showcasing her reckless and featherbrained nature. Further, she's introduced with a fire-twirler in said party who prompts Peg to run out with a fire extinguisher, showing us her dynamic with Peg.
• Failed a Spot Check: She's so stupid, she didn't know using an antisemitic slur as a synonym for "cheap" was antisemitic despite having the word "Jew" in it. She also had her sweatpants made in a sweatshop thinking they were just where sweatpants were made.
• The Fashionista: A former supermodel who now works as a fashion designer, she wears colorful, flashy dresses throughout the film.
• Fall Guy: Miles wants her to swallow all the bad PR from the scandal caused by their sweatpants company's sweatshop factory. Peg worries that this will ruin both of them, but Birdie reasons that she'll get her shares cashed out.
• The Hedonist: Birdie's first scene has her throwing a wild party with dozens of guests during an outbreak of a very dangerous and contagious virus.
• Hidden Depths:
  • She's apparently well versed when it comes to valuable metals, being able to correctly identify a piece of silver in one of the puzzles.
  • When Miles casually tosses away Paul McCartney's guitar to greet his other guests, Birdie looks horrified that Miles would be so careless about such a significant artifact.
  • Though it shows a very selfish side to her as well, she confesses while poolside with Peg that she misses when Miles was "this little thing in my hand" and she was the most successful Disruptor, with a tacit admission that she knows her glory days as a model are over. She's also the first to turn on Miles after the Glass Onion burns, recognizing that he's finally done for.
• History with Celebrity: Famous cellist Yo-Yo Ma is one of her party guests.
• Incoming Ham: Birdie shows up to the dock in Greece riding a golf cart piled high with Lots of Luggage, whooping with glee the whole way there.
  Birdie: [getting off the golf cart, turning to Lionel and Claire] Hello! Oh my god! We can't hug, right? [immediately reaches to give Lionel a hug]
• Incompatible Orientation: She makes it no secret that she's attracted to Blanc, who's gay (and also doesn't think very highly of her).
• Innocent Bigot: It's heavily implied that she once wore Blackface as part of a Beyoncé costume, not realizing the offensiveness of this and simply wanting her costume to be an accurate tribute to the artist. She also genuinely thought an antisemitic slur was a synonym for "cheap".
• Innocently Insensitive: Downplayed; while Birdie has a history of offensive behavior, she's evidently too stupid to actually get that it's offensive, even if she refuses to admit to being in any way at fault.
• Lots of Luggage: She's a spoiled ex-model who packs multiple suitcases for a weekend getaway. Her assistant Peg is seen wrangling them as she goes to greet her old friends.
• Mean Boss: Downplayed; while Birdie isn't abusive towards Peg, her vanity, carelessness, and general stupidity make her a nightmare to work for. Peg even says that her therapist has identified their relationship as a toxic one. She also only takes into account how the sweatshop scandal would affect Peg when Peg finds out about it, having decided to take the fall for it without a word to Peg beforehand.
• Meaningful Name:
  • A beautiful, wealthy person kept under Bron's thumb... the adage "bird in a Gilded Cage" comes to mind.
  • There's also the fact that she's not very bright... in other words, she's a birdbrain.
  • As a former model who enjoys flashy attention-getting clothes, the film alludes to her as a bird displaying its plumage. She's also frequently in trouble for her thoughtlessly offensive Tweets.
• Ms. Fanservice: She's much more glamorous than Claire, and gets an extended sequence of her walking into the pool area with a fashionable bikini.
• Never My Fault: She's prone to deflecting criticism toward her offensive comments by claiming that she's simply brave enough to tell the "truth."
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Her portrayal as a past-her-prime Dumb Blonde fashionista prone to insensitive actions pins her down as an unflattering parody of Paris Hilton. Additionally, when she meets the group in Greece, she is wearing a face mask that's just a sheer mesh, like what Lana Del Rey infamously did for a meet and greet in October 2020, when COVID lockdowns were still in effect across the world.
• Obliviously Evil: Birdie is too stupid to realize how much of what she does or says is immoral. She casually tweets racist things without meaning them to be racist, it's implied that she wore blackface intending it as a tribute to someone she respects, and she turns out to be bankrolling a sweatshop because she honestly thought "sweatshop" meant "place where they make sweatpants" and is shocked and horrified to discover the truth.
• Open Mouth, Insert Foot: Birdie has a bad habit of insensitive actions thanks to her naivety.
  • She once tweeted an antisemitic slur, overlooking the fact that it had "Jew" in it and thinking that it was a generic synonym for "cheap".
  • She once wore a "costume" of American singer and songwriter Beyoncé, because she thought it would be a "tribute;" it's implied that blackface was involved.
  • She once went on Oprah and compared herself to the historical abolitionist Harriet Tubman.
  • The final example becomes plot-important, as it's what Miles Bron is using as leverage over her: the sweatpants fashion line she designed was made in a sweatshop in Bangladesh, and when informed of this, Birdie replied that it "sounds perfect" with a dabbing Memoji, because she thought the word "sweatshop" only means "place where they make sweatpants".
• Role-Ending Misdemeanor: In-universe, the aforementioned Halloween costume likely ended both her modeling career and her magazine editing job. As she puts it, she "had a lot of time [to spend] at home" afterwards.
• Spoiled Brat: Birdie is a grown woman, but she certainly fits this trope in her first scene, in which she is surveying the party she is throwing, sees that everyone is thoroughly enjoying themselves, proclaims, "I'm so bored," and then proceeds to yell for her Beleaguered Assistant, Peg, in a very childlike manner.
  Birdie: Peg? PEEEEEEEG?!
• White-Dwarf Starlet: Birdie is a former model who, despite the success of her new clothing line, deeply misses the days when she was the one on magazine covers. She's also becoming self-conscious of her appearance, as she shies away from sharing the same pool as the much younger Whiskey.

Disruptor Affiliates

Peg

Peg

Played by: Jessica Henwick

The Beleaguered Assistant

"My resumé is just Birdie Jay, Birdie Jay, a short stint in retail, and then Birdie Jay."

Birdie's assistant who constantly has to keep her on a leash.

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• Actually Pretty Funny: She's shown cracking a smile when Helen spells out how thoroughly she's made Miles dig his own grave.
• Ambiguously Gay: She's not at all interested in any of the men, but she swoons around Andi. Furthermore, her employment under Birdie comes off as a toxic, codependent on-and-off relationship.
• Beauty Inversion: Probably to be expected of a tired assistant that the vain, insecure Birdie likes to keep around. She isn't unattractive by any means, but she often looks haggard and unkempt, and often wears plain and loose or ill-fitting clothes, like here◊. Meanwhile, her actress is very glamorous in real life. (Take this portrait of Henwick◊ for the Glass Onion promotions as an example.)
• Blade Enthusiast: She fiddles with a butterfly knife while talking to Birdie, but doesn't use it for anything.
• Brainy Brunette: Apart from clearly being much more level-headed than her Dumb Blonde boss Birdie, Peg is shown to be Book Smart too when the Disruptors try to solve Miles' invitation box puzzles. For example, she is the one who correctly identifies the Morse code tapper in the Tic-Tac-Toe puzzle. Even though she's not even a member of the Disruptors, she is certainly a lot more useful than Birdie is and the other Disruptors happily accept her help.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of the Beleaguered Assistant and the Cloudcuckoolander's Minder. She's exasperated with how often she needs to do damage control for Birdie and prevent her from doing something stupid, something the movie demonstrates is an uphill battle on par with that of Sisyphus. In one scene, she's reduced to begging for Miles' help when she realizes just how bad Birdie's antics have landed her in hot water. Since Peg had spent so long working for Birdie, Birdie will inevitably take her down with her when her brand implodes.
• Establishing Character Moment: Peg first appears trying in vain to maintain order at Birdie's party, refusing to give Birdie her phone for fear of another accidentally offensive tweet, and is seen in the background literally putting out a fire while Birdie blathers on to the other Disruptors.
• Fangirl: Implied. Peg appears to have some admiration for Andi, judging by the awestruck face she sometimes makes around her.
• Flat "What": She has such a reaction when she walks in on Blanc's summation with no context. Although to be fair, pretty much anyone would have such a reaction to the phrase "consensual cuckolding for cable news assignments".
• Girl Friday: She's the loyal assistant to model/businesswoman Birdie, and handles everything from her luggage on vacation to the bad PR whenever Birdie causes a minor scandal.
• Not So Above It All: She's initially established as being more responsible than most of the Disruptors, but when Birdie's reputation is at risk of being sunk completely due to her condoning sweatshops, Peg believes that this'll ruin her as well since being an assistant for Birdie is the only real work on her resume. This causes her to go along with the others in refusing to testify against Miles since he offered to pay for Birdie to take responsibility for the fiasco.
• Satellite Character: Her role is just to be Birdie's assistant and voice of reason.
• Servile Snarker: Downplayed. Peg works for Birdie and doesn't treat her with particular politeness or respect, at one point threatening to punch her employer in the face if she didn't explain why Miles wanted her to release the Bangladesh statement.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Her reaction when she realizes that Birdie thought "sweatshop" meant "shop that makes sweatpants." Even she can't believe Birdie could possibly be that stupid.

Whiskey

Whiskey

Played by: Madelyn Cline

The Girlfriend

"I love my boobs. They're so much fun. Oops... sorry, feminists!"

Duke's girlfriend who regularly helps him with his videos.

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• Age-Gap Romance:
  • Madelyn Cline is 28 years younger than Dave Bautista, so assuming the two characters share their actors' ages, this trope definitely applies to Duke and Whiskey's relationship.
  • This is also presumably why she appeals so much to Miles, who used to be smitten with Birdie. Birdie has maintained her physical attractiveness and has a similar look to Whiskey, with both of them being blonde white bombshell types. Miles is no longer interested in Birdie, though, instead preferring the younger Whiskey.
• Blonde Republican Sex Kitten: Subverted. Duke regularly uses Whiskey, a pretty young blonde, as arm candy for his Men's Rights videos — something she isn't particularly thrilled about. She mentions that she may want to get into politics in the future, and judging by her worries of Duke's influence, is implied to be more liberal.
• Dumb Blonde: Subverted. She initially seems to be a run-of-the-mill vapid influencer with beach-blonde hair to match, but she's actually quite self-aware and ambitious.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • She's willing to pay lip-service to politics she doesn't believe in to advance her career, but she thinks it was super messed up of the Disruptors to throw Andi under the bus.
  • Her reaction to Duke's death goes beyond the inherent trauma in seeing another person die in front of her and suggests she may have cared about him at least a little. Despite not thinking much of his politics and considering dumping him, she clearly never wanted him hurt. She's also distraught at the prospect of having to explain this to his mother.
• First-Name Basis: She's only ever referred to as "Whiskey," even in the credits. It's unclear if this is even her real name in the first place.
• Flipping the Bird: She gives one to Miles when she decides to join Helen in destroying Miles' glass statues.
• Hidden Depths: The film reveals her to be a more intelligent and ambitious person than she lets on, hoping to use Duke's show to jumpstart her own career as an internet influencer and later politician.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Although she's more intelligent than she pretends to be, she does have a habit of being this.
  • She actually believes that Miles Bron is a "good guy" once you get to know him. In reality, Miles is an unrepentant murderer and doesn't hesitate to kill when it suits him.
  • She also seems to think that, despite his bigotry and general awfulness (like begging Whiskey to have sex with Miles more than once so she can ask him for favors that will benefit Duke), her boyfriend Duke was an ultimately decent person who was targeted by the killer for no reason. Duke was actually targeted because he found out that Miles killed Andi. Rather than trying to take this to the authorities and put a murderer behind bars, Duke used this to blackmail Miles into giving him his own TV show.
  • Although she recognizes that the Disruptors are snakes who screwed Andi over during the legal dispute, Whiskey's opinion of Andi (actually Helen) changes in an instant when Helen tries to comfort a shell-shocked Whiskey. Thanks to a very unfortunate case of One Dialogue, Two Conversations, Whiskey wrongly assumes that Andi murdered Duke, and goes around telling everyone else and chases after Helen with a speargun.
• Humanizing Tears: She's opportunistic and not above using the people in her life to get ahead, and privately admits she sticks with Duke mostly for the career boost. However, she openly and sincerely weeps over Duke's dead body, continuing to cry when she's alone later. Despite her scheming, she's still a young woman who just watched her boyfriend of over a year get murdered.
• Likes Older Men: She is Duke's girlfriend and is later revealed to have slept with Miles. However, this is Played With in that it is made clear she seeks out these older, more powerful men in pursuit of connections or favors, leaving the question of how much she actually likes the age gap aspect or she just goes for older men as a practical matter. She tells Andi at one point that she's actually thinking of breaking up with Duke and isn't even into his whole red-pill thing, but pretends to be. Plus, she only slept with Miles because Duke was basically pimping her out.
• Ms. Fanservice: Invoked; she's used as MRA eye candy in Duke's videos, and unlike the more plainly-dressed Peg and Claire, Whiskey dresses in fashionable but skimpy outfits throughout the film; even former model Birdie is intimidated by her beauty.
• Not So Above It All: Like Peg, she is more compassionate and sensible than the Disruptors, but she won't testify to having seen Miles burn the napkin or somewhat admitting to murdering Duke until Helen wrecks the Glass Onion because she is as much under his thumb as the others.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: In Whiskey's introduction, Duke is going on a senseless rant about the "breast-ification" of America. She comes in to flaunt her breasts and says she loves her own boobs. Her talks with Helen, though, reveal that she is ambitious, cunning, and doesn't even agree with Duke's right-wing schtick.
• Smarter Than You Look: Helen is surprised when she finds out Whiskey is ambitious, well-spoken, and perfectly aware of how bad Duke's red-pill rhetoric is.
• Token Good Teammate: Whiskey is the only one of the group (besides Blanc) to be friendly with Helen disguised as Andi, having a pleasant conversation with her where they share their gripes about the Disruptors. She is also the first of the others to start getting into Helen's destruction of Miles' property and cheering her on.
• Your Makeup Is Running: Near the end of the movie, her face is streaked with mascara that's melted because of her crying.

The Secret Guest (ALL SPOILERS UNMARKED)

Helen Brand

Played by: Janelle Monáe

The Imposter

"This rich people shit is weird."

Andi's twin sister, impersonating her at Miles' party to help Blanc investigate Andi's murder.

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• Angsty Surviving Twin: She goes to the island to find out who killed her twin sister. Scenes that originally portray Andi as aloof are revealed later to be Helen trying to hide her grief.
• Backup Twin: Inverted. The real Andi had been dead before the film started. Helen's only successful at impersonating her twin because the Disruptors forgot Helen existed.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Despite everything she goes through on the island — including getting shot at (twice in one night) — Helen's face comes out of it practically spotless.
• Can't Hold Her Liquor: She gets drunk very easily, very quickly. Moreover, she's an angry drunk who becomes very gung-ho, fired-up and confrontational when she has a bit of Liquid Courage in her. After Miles burns the real napkin, Blanc bets everything on this trait of hers to literally burn his entire house down. It works.
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character: While she has numerous similarities to Marta Cabrera, they diverge most in their attitudes — Marta tries to hide and fly under the radar of the movie's plot, while Helen is much more proactive, immediately going to Blanc in the guise of a delivery worker and being entirely willing to deceive Bron and his guests. Their goals are also contrary. Marta believes she's committed a crime and is trying to avoid being found out by Benoit. Helen, meanwhile, is trying to solve a crime and is working alongside Benoit. Marta is also quite timid by nature and is physically unable to lie or deceive anyone; Helen is far more confrontational, willing to indulge her anger, and shows herself to be a very skilled liar.
• Cutting the Knot: Her defining character trait: she refuses to play Bron's games and takes the direct approach, first when she takes a hammer to his puzzle box and then at the end when she burns down the Glass Onion with a piece of Klear.
• Dead Person Impersonation: Helen is impersonating her twin sister Andi, who is dead. This actually gets discussed during the flashback where Helen meets Blanc for the first time; at the time, Andi's death had not become public information, which pushes Blanc to propose the impersonation, as only the true culprit would know Andi had died. Duke is the first of the Disruptors to realize this due to having a Google Alert set for all the Disruptors' names, and thus he's immediately informed as soon as the news of Andi's death breaks. He uses this knowledge to blackmail Miles, which results in his death.
• Deep South: Helen is from Alabama, and has a Southern accent nearly as thick as Blanc's. She hides it during Miles' party when disguising herself as Andi, however, since it is implied Andi suppressed her own Southern accent as she became successful.
• Establishing Character Moment: The first scene she's in consists entirely of her staring coldly at the puzzle box that was sent to Andi, then walking offscreen, grabbing a hammer and safety goggles, and smashing it to bits. The rest of the film is shaped largely by her disdain for the Disruptors and her willingness to cut through their bullshit to see justice done. This also establishes her as being smarter than the others — instead of playing Bron's games, she finds the most efficient way to open the box.
• Excellent Judge of Character: When talking to Blanc about the Disruptors, she admits she tried to warn Andi that they were a bunch of "shitheads." She also thinks that if anyone had a motive to kill her sister it would be Miles. The only person on the island she actually gets along with is Whiskey.
• Ice Queen: Certainly seems that way on the island. Who can blame her, considering she's in the company of the people who betrayed her? We later learn she was instructed by Blanc to act haughty and not engage in too much conversation, lest her cover be blown.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: Listening to Miles go on about his "disruption theory" drives Helen to chug down hard kombucha in frustration.
• Informed Flaw: Due to her insecurity, she greatly underestimates herself. She describes Andi as having "enough brains for the both of us"; though Helen is not a tech genius like Andi, she's also clearly very sharp-minded and works as a teacher, which requires brains. When Blanc tells her to dress up as Andi, Helen claims that she couldn't possibly fit into Andi's tailored clothes, but we don't actually see her having any difficulty fitting into them and she is obviously in good shape.
• Lady in a Power Suit: While impersonating Andi, Helen wears a tailored white suit (pictured above) to Miles' dinner party. All of the clothes Helen-as-Andi wears were taken from Andi's actual wardrobe, so it's quite possible that Andi wore the suit many times herself while she was still in charge of Alpha.
• Liquid Courage: She doesn't usually drink, but knocks back several hard kombuchas to help herself impersonate her twin (though she's initially unaware that there's any alcohol in them). The result is that under the influence she turns from a meek stranger who's afraid to talk to any of the Disruptors to a firebrand who confronts them all at once chastising them on every one of their disgusting traits. When it seems like all is lost, Blanc tells her to down the cocktail meant for Andi to get up the courage to destroy Miles' estate.
• Meaningful Name: Cassandra and Helen's names are derived from the The Iliad.
  • Just like Helen of Troy, Helen Brand destroys a seemingly mighty empire with the help of the decisions of a stupid, impulsive man.
  • Cassandra in myth had a twin brother named Helenus, who was also a seer. However, unlike his sister, his prophecies were believed, much like how Helen will likely be believed about Bron despite the destroyed physical evidence.
  • Her surname, Brand, is a German word for fire, specifically the kind that destroys houses and other material property. Which is exactly what she does in the end.
• My Sibling Will Live Through Me: Helen disguises herself as her sister Andi during Miles' party to avenge Andi's murder.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: In-universe; while she tries to imitate Andi's refined manner of speaking while impersonating Andi, her own Alabama accent comes through briefly when she's letting her guard down around Whiskey.
• Penny Among Diamonds: As a humble schoolteacher from Alabama, she clearly feels out of place on the island among its cadre of the societal elite, only exacerbated by her needing to pretend to be one of those elites in Andi.
• Playing Their Own Twin: invokedAfter Andi is murdered by Miles, her twin Helen impersonates her to avenge her. Both characters are portrayed by Janelle Monae.
• Recurring Element: Like Marta in Knives Out, she's an honest, working-class minority woman who wins by playing the game her own way.
• Southern-Fried Genius: Not quite to the extent of Blanc (not that that's an especially damning indictment), but her true accent is a thick Alabama one and she's an extremely canny and perceptive woman who works as a teacher and is good at figuring out how to neatly avoid Bron's mind games.
• Taking You with Me: Setting the Glass Onion on fire and burning the Mona Lisa to ash sets her up for vandalism and arson charges, as well as blame for the painting's destruction, but she seems to be ready to accept it if Miles goes down with her. Plus, the Disruptors seem content with Miles receiving all the blame.
• Theme Twin Naming: Cassandra and Helen are both names derived from The Iliad.
• Tranquil Fury: Helen's rampage through Miles' collection starts slow, gently dropping and tipping over some of the glass sculptures. But even as she works her way up to throwing statues, and breaking the piano and bar with a mace, Helen doesn't utter a sound until she reveals the Klear in her hand with a quiet Meaningful Echo to Blanc's parting words.
• Walking Spoiler: In marketing and throughout the first half of the film, she is presented as Cassandra Brand. The information that Andi has a twin sister comes at the midpoint of the film, where we also learn that Helen is and has been actually the central character of the story, Andi is dead, and the entire first half of the film was a completely different story than the audience was made to think they were watching. The revelation of Helen's existence is tied up in all of the other major factors that turn the film upside-down.
• Wealthy Ever After: The ending implies she will inherit Andi's shares of the company and whatever money is left after the scandal breaks. However, it's clear she never cared about the money, only getting justice for Andi.
• White Shirt of Death: When she gets shot, there is red over her white shirt and blazer. Subverted when it's later revealed to be hot sauce.

Derol

Derol

Played by: Noah Segan

A random guy who lives on Miles' island.

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• Hero of Another Story: The circumstances under which he came to live on Bron's island, as well as his relationship with the billionaire in general, are never hinted at whatsoever.
• Nice Guy: Easily the nicest in the film. All he does is lounge around, say hello, apologize for being in the way, and happily share a smoke with Blanc while watching the Glass Onion go up in flames.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Celebrity freeloader Kato Kaelin was specifically cited as the inspiration for his character as a chronically "laid back" bohemian crashing at a rich man's mansion during the time of a murder where that same rich man was suspected of the crime.
• Noodle Incident: How he's affiliated with Miles or the circumstances that led Miles to let him live on his island is never explained. Miles simply states that Derol's "going through some things".
• The Pig-Pen: He appears disheveled and unkempt, with Whiskey complaining that he smells like kombucha.
• Red Herring: He's a random background character whose presence in the movie goes completely unexplained, with even Blanc seeming to forget he's there when listing suspects, which in many murder mystery films would be a setup for him being the unlikely mastermind killer. He's really just a joke character who has no relevance to anything.
• Rule of Funny: Why is he on the Glass Onion despite not being part of the Disruptors? Why do people seem to only barely acknowledge his existence despite there being a murder mystery going on and everybody is a suspect? It's never explained, as he has absolutely no relevance to the plot or the mystery and is just there to provide some small comic relief moments.
• The Stoner: He's shown smoking a joint in his room when Helen rummages through the rooms to find Andi's stolen letter, and later smoking alongside Blanc when they watch Miles' Glass Onion explode.
• The Thing That Would Not Leave: Subverted. While he's seen doing nothing other than drinking beer, smoking weed, and generally mooching off of a billionaire, Miles doesn't seem to care all that much about Derol's presence, even when he's wandering around in the background while trying to set things up for his friends.
• Token Good Teammate: He's implied to be the only one on the island, given there's no indication he is under Miles' thumb and lets out a happy "Fucking A!" when the Glass Onion explodes, as he shares a smoke with Blanc.
• Ungrateful Bastard: While why he is staying on the island is unknown, he appears unmoved by the Glass Onion's explosion and the possibility that his host was hurt in it. It's entirely possible, however, that he was fully aware from living with him that Miles is a Grade-A douchebag, and was merely satisfied seeing him get his just desserts.
• Whole Costume Reference: His long hair and patterned sweater in his final scene make him strongly resemble The Dude.

Ma Cody

Played by: Jackie Hoffman

Duke's mother whom he lives with.

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• Abusive Parents: She's not the warmest or most supportive mother, even slapping Duke across the face just for talking back to her. As awful as Duke is, she interrupts him while livestreaming over laundry and disrupts the team's attempts to solve the puzzle box, possibly just to mess with him.
• Affectionate Nickname: Calls Duke "Dukey."
• Deadpan Snarker: She delivers dry remarks to her son as she helps him solve the puzzle box.
• Ditzy Genius: She's smart enough to contribute significantly when the Disruptors are trying to solve Miles' invitation puzzles, but also admits by the end of it that she had no idea what it was even for. Justified because she's an elderly lady, and is clearly fed up with Duke's antics to the point she can barely find it in herself to care. It also serves to foreshadow the Disruptors are blindsided by Miles' antics. The puzzles are relatively common and simple but their belief that Miles is a mad genius instead of an idiot that commissioned someone on short notice to make a puzzle box stresses them too much to think straight.
• Hidden Depths: She has quite a wide array of random knowledge in various fields, and is quick to recognize certain mechanisms/patterns.
• Never Mess with Granny: Despite being older, smaller, and far shorter than Duke, she often puts her macho, muscular son in his place when he talks back to her.
• Outliving One's Offspring: Her son gets murdered. Whiskey worries about having to break this news to her.
• Smart People Wear Glasses: She wears a pair of large-rimmed glasses, and casually guesses the solutions to several of the invitation box's puzzles.

Devon

Devon

Played by: Dallas Roberts

Claire's husband.

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• Awful Wedded Life: He and Claire don't seem particularly fond of each other, as she rebukes him when he tries helping out with the puzzle box.
• House Husband: Implied. His few scenes in the intro show him tending to his and Claire's kids while she's on her interview with CNN.
• Satellite Character: Unlike Duke's mother (who gets a bit of depth beyond her relationship with her son), Devon doesn't have any characterization beyond being Claire's husband.

The Efficient Man

The Efficient Man

Played by: Ethan Hawke

A very efficient associate of Miles's, who proceeds to "disinfect" the Disruptors before they set sail to his island.

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• Ambiguously Evil: He works for Miles, the main villain of the film, and his behavior is definitely suspicious but he doesn't do anything directly evil so it's hard to say where he lands on the good/evil scale.
• The Cameo: For Ethan Hawke, who was filming Moon Knight (2022) in Greece at the same time as Glass Onion.
• Consummate Professional: He's not efficient for nothing.
• Disco Dan: Between his greasy ponytail, outdated sunglasses and loud pinstripe suit complete with sockless loafers, he could be mistaken for a lost and confused time traveler from The '80s.
• Noodle Implements: He carries around some sort of projectile gun that blasts a very clearly overpowering spray into the mouth, as an Anti-Covid measure. When Blanc inquires if it's some sort of disinfectant, he simply replies "you're good." Though given Miles's later-revealed scientific acumen, it's most likely the spray is next to useless.
• Sinister Shades: He wears shades, and looks more than a little shady.

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Others

Phillip

Phillip

Played by: Hugh Grant

Benoit Blanc's significant other.

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• Last-Name Basis: Despite being in a relationship, he still refers to Benoit by his last name.
• Masculine–Feminine Gay Couple: Possibly, as when he greets Helen at the door, he's wearing an apron and is covered with baking powder, suggesting he's the homemaker in the relationship; Word of God confirmed he was caught up in the then-popular hobby of baking bread.
• Satellite Character: He's not really given any depth outside of being Blanc's live-in boyfriend.

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