What a mess.

KERRY WASHINGTON as VERA DRAVEN

KNIVES OUT: WAKE UP DEAD MAN (2025)

one thing i have loved from the knives out movies is the way benoit blanc visually changes to fit each narrative. classic noir in the first, beach vacation in the second, and new england gothic in the third. his taste remains consistent across movies, but he makes enough adjustments to his style to blend into each story. i just find it such a nice detail that works so well with the anthology aspect of the series

Btw Vera in Wake Up Dead Man is SUUUCHHHH a good metaphor for anti-abortion rhetoric.

Given a child and told she had to raise it? Put her life on hold for a child she didn’t want? All because of social, religious, and familial expectations? Yeah that sounds about right.

I love when you watch a movie about a sad priest trying desperately to fix a broken church with a corrupt cult leader and then you get to gasp when benoit blanc shows up because you literally forgot what you walked into this theater for

I don't think we're ever gonna get a full backstory for Benoit Blanc, because the series seems pretty keen on harkening back to the Golden Age of detective fiction, and in most of the stories from that era the detective is more of a plot device than a protagonist.

Obviously they have personalities, and occasional hints at backstories, and personal relationships and all that junk, but it's never the main focus of the story. Hell, a lot of the time the detective isn't even the viewpoint character (as is the case in Knives Out and Wake Up Dead Man).

I think we're gonna keep getting casual lore drops, with no obvious flashbacks or deep dives. Frankly I'd be disappointed if that wasn't the case.

But I am fucking obsessed with what is implied about his backstory in Wake Up Dead Man.

His mother was very religious. They were close when he was a boy. They are not close now. Blanc tells the audience these three facts right before immediately latching onto this troubled young priest like a Kentucky Fried mother hen.

This isn't the same as how it was with Marta in the first film. Blanc stated later that he knew from the moment he met Marta that she was hiding something about her role in Harlan's death. He's kindly and compassionate in his dealings with her, but he's also consciously playing the role of the “slightly naïve country detective” to try and get her to give herself away.

This is not the case with Jud.

Benoit says, from the moment he sees Jud, that he knows the priest is innocent. He does not waver from this view, even when the evidence against him gets really strong.

Despite having been apparently hired by the police this time (rather than just working alongside them like in Knives Out), Benoit Blanc is incredibly uncooperative. Lying about Jud's location, obscuring evidence and going so far as to drag him by the arm out of a crowded police station, shove him in the back of his car and drive off with him, just to keep him from confessing.

When he first involves Jud in his investigation, he doesn't even pretend that it's because he needs his assistance. “Will you let me help you?” he asks.

He takes him into the autopsy room, not because it's necessary for the case, but because he genuinely seems to believe that it is necessary for this young man to feel absolved.

“See him as not the mythologised man you have built up in your mind, but flesh and blood.” There is a sense of desperation in his voice when he's snapping Jud out of his resultant anxiety attack. “You need to go through this with me” “we have to get your life back”.

(Was showing him the corpse of his former boss an effective strategy for helping him feel better? Not even slightly. But an effort is being made!)

Blanc is openly disdainful of religion, but he listens to Jud when he talks about faith— even if he doesn't agree with him— to the extent that it plays a key role in how he later resolves the case. He's clearly making an effort to be supportive during their interactions, even if he does get frustrated at points. He puts a hand on his arm or shoulder to comfort him more than once (iirc), and he accepts his hug at the end.

Blanc meets this young man who is not only being accused of a crime he didn't commit, but who is also struggling with the feeling that his faith and his church have turned against him, and makes a genuine effort to be the person who helps him through this crisis.

And I want to know… was there a person like that for a young Benoit Blanc? Or is that instinct to help borne of having gone through the experience of being cast out with nobody in his corner?

We know his father was a cop. We know his mother was religious. We know he grew up to be a private detective who rages against Christianity and regularly subverts police authority.

What did he think when he heard Jud say that he was worried about how he would go on if he lost his priesthood, and that he was worried that he had somehow caused bad things to happen in the world, purely through the power of Sinful Thoughts?

Was he trying to be the person who helped him? Or the person he wishes had been around to help?

jud duplenticy writes some fantastic lines in his account of the murder like "The darkness of that story was the bedrock of this place" or "Testing tolerances, tapping deep poisoned wells, hardening, binding with complicity" or "Because in the part of my soul that cannot lie to Christ, or myself, or you…" but he did also write "Young, dumb, and full of Christ" which doesn't necessarily undermine his skill as a storyteller or anything but what an insane thing that is to say to benoit at this point in the story

Spoilers for Wake Up Dead Man!

One of my favorite details about Wake Up Dead Man is that Grace was never narratively “redeemed.” Yes, the tone of her scenes changes as her story was told differently, but we are never told why, never given a factual change in the story. And that stands out, not due to this movie, but because of how it defies the usual script.

We aren’t told that she had a kindhearted or desperate need for the money. (There is no surgery, no starving child)

We aren’t told that her romantic relationship was horribly abusive or ended with a tragic death, we aren’t told whether or not she was sleeping around

We aren’t even told that her living at the church, with her father, was horrible or abusive

These are all things we can fill in the blanks for, with varying results, but we’ll never actually know because that isn’t the point. The point isn’t that she deserved it through piety or need or as recompense for tradegy.

The point is probably many things and far more complex than this, but she was promised something in return for years of her life and lied to. That’s all the movie thought we needed to know.

so you’re telling me one of the characters in wake up dead man is a formerly beloved author who, after the culmination of his wildly popular fiction series, has been radicalized online by right-wing conspiracy theorists, has abandoned his successful writing career in favor of spending all of his time on social media (and what little writing he does put out on his substack is praised only by his staunchest supporters), and is SO convinced that everyone’s out to get him that he’s dug a literal moat around his (distinctly castle-shaped) house?

lol. lmao, even.

So you're telling me that in Wake Up Dead Man, this Catholic Church:

1. has a notable lack of Mary imagery;
2. forsook and mocked a young woman named Grace because she had a child out of wedlock when she was young;
3. literally removed the cross from their sanctuary as part of the campaign of denigrating Grace;
4. preaches a harsh and cruel interpretation of scripture and entirely neglects mercy (i.e..... grace);
5. initially rejects the young priest who came to them preaching mercy, forgiveness, love, serving the sinner, etc.; and
6. ends up embracing the approach of the young priest, who is also an amateur carpenter who literally builds them a replacement cross

I do love how the characters in wake up dead man are a lot more subtle with how awful they are. They're not the cartoonish evils of Glass Onion or the loud and chaotic old money evils of the first movie (which fit the vibe of their own movie). But the evil was more grounded. They were normal people that were radicalized by a man who used their bad sides to secure their undying loyalty. The incel behaviour is played for laughs, but it's also a sobering moment of ah, fuck these were just normal people before. They weren't rich. They weren't powerful. They were vulnerable. And easily manipulated.