Headscratchers / Promising Young Woman

• Why would Madison think that Cassie had answers for her?
  • About her "rape"? Because Cassie was at the hotel with her drinking in the bar before she passed out. Cassie at least could've seen her talking to the guy, and more generally, from what she says, Madison was probably blackout drunk. It wouldn't be surprising if talking to Cassie is literally the last thing she remembers.
  • Madison also makes several references to how that guy seemed like a friend of Cassie's, so she has reason to connect them. He probably said "hey, your friend asked me to take care of you, let me help you..." as he was maneuvering her upstairs. That's a very common way to prey on people in real life ("Hey kid, your mom asked me to pick up from school and take you home", etc.).

• This could be a case of the idiot ball but why would so many people smart enough to have graduated medical school say "we were only kids." Medical students are nowhere near childhood. They are 22 at the very youngest and could go up to 28 or more.
  • The excuse "We were just kids" is often used by rapists and their enablers to excuse themselves. It's likely that having them say it referring to when they were in medical school is to emphasis how often the excuse is used and how stupid it is.
  • Bo Burham refers to Ryan being 19 in an AVClub article on his character, it's possible they were intended to be pre-med students, though the film doesn't include this fact. The bigger issue is that as adults they only view themselves as kids who didn't know any better: they were drunk, they can't be held responsible for not doing more, which is also true for Nina, but they do hold her responsible for her actions

• Does Ryan being at the scene of the crime automatically mean he's guilty? He could be too inebriated to remember anything from the incident.
  • He likely wouldn't be found criminally guilty if he didn't take part in the assault itself. However, the fact that he is on camera witnessing a rape and not doing anything about it makes him look very bad. He's only concerned about how it'll affect his career.
    • In addition to the above, Ryan exhibits Incriminating Indifference when he sees the video, which basically told Cassie that he remembered Nina's rape and he'd shown no hesitation in getting into a relationship with her.

• Would the Dean (Connie Britton's character) even be allowed to discuss a closed case with Cassie?
  • Probably not, but you could argue that she didn't actually discuss the case itself in any detail. Plus Cassie had intentionally "tricked" her into admitting that she remembered Al; she probably thought it would make her look even worse if she just kicked Cassie out after that.

• How did Cassie do this for any period of time and not get roofied or beaten up? This seemed like a very bad idea.
  • Apparently the script indicates that the red marks in her notebook are for men who got violent when she revealed the truth.

• Why did Al and Joe decide to just dispose of Cassie's body instead of reporting the incident to the Police? Al almost certainly would've gotten away with arguing self-defense when he killed Cassie. After all she had drugged everyone else, handcuffed him to the bed, and was brandishing a scalpel. He had every reasonable right in the world to believe his life was in imminent danger. Even after he had managed to free one of his hands she still could've easily killed him with the scalpel if she'd gotten away from him. Yes, an investigation could've led to finding out about the rape of Nina, but that's a lot better than being convicted of murder and covering it up.
  • Panic at first. He might also fear they wouldn't believe him, and it could bring up awkward questions anyway, since it's hard to see why people would just believe a random woman attacked for no reason. Any investigation, even if it finally concluded he acted in self-defense, might turn up his past dirt which he doesn't want too. Even if he was never actually convicted for that, his reputation could be destroyed.
    • More specific to this: any investigation would've, at a minimum, turned up that Cassie and Al knew each other from college. We know that there's a video of Al raping Nina that at least Madison still has; who knows if she's the only one? Even if the police believed Al considering all of that, no way would he want them digging into his very real crimes.

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