Wake Up Dead Man Provides One Shocking First For The Knives Out Series

Do not cross the threshold of the church if you haven't seen "Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery" — because massive spoilers, including the identity of the killer or killers, follow! (In fact, spoilers for all three "Knives Out" movies ahead!)

For movies that bill themselves as murder mysteries, there's a surprising lack of murders in the "Knives Out" franchise — but the third movie, "Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery," doesn't just provide a pile of dead bodies. It also kills the killers. Let me explain.

In writer-director Rian Johnson's clever first "Knives Out" movie in 2019 starring Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc, it turns out that the death of crime novelist Harlan Thrombey, played by the late, great Christopher Plummer, was by his own hand. That doesn't mean that Harlan's grandson Hugh "Ransom" Thrombey (Chris Evans, fresh off his turn as Captain America in the Marvel Cinematic Universe) didn't try to take his grandfather out to try and claim the guy's massive literary fortune, though; switching out his medications in an attempt to trick Harlan's nurse Marta Cabrera (Ana de Armas). Alas, it doesn't actually. work, and Harlan truly does take his own life.

That's what makes it at least a little shocking when, in Johnson's first follow-up with Netflix — "Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery" in 2022 — Dave Bautista's Duke Cody drops dead after, we eventually learn, he's poisoned by pineapple juice (Duke has a deathly allergy). Duke isn't the only casualty in "Glass Onion," either; we also learn that tech billionaire Miles Bron (Edward Norton) killed his former colleague Andi Brand (Janelle Monáe) before the story began. "Wake Up Dead Man" takes all of this much, much further, though; not only do four people end up dead, but two of them are murderers.

Here's roughly how it goes down in "Wake Up Dead Man." After getting into a physical altercation with a member of the congregation, Reverend Jud Duplenticy (Josh O'Connor) is transferred to Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude, a Catholic church run by the somewhat infamous Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin). Wicks spends most of his time absolutely tormenting Jud before Jud freaks out and the two argue, but the bottom line is that this all looks really terrible for Jud after Wicks turns up dead. Weirder still, it's not clear how anyone, much less Jud, killed Wicks; while he was taking a sip from his illicit flask during a small closet off the main pulpit, he falls, apparently stabbed to death by nobody. Dr. Nat Sharp (Jeremy Renner), the congregation's medical professional, pulls a knife from the man's back, seemingly proving his cause of death.

What actually happened, though, is Wicks's right-hand woman, Martha Delacroix (Glenn Close), slipped a paralytic into the Monsignor's flask, because she, Nat, and her romantic partner — the church's groundskeeper Samson Holt (Thomas Haden Church) — conspired to steal a precious and costly jewel from the Wicks family tomb. Samson ends up dead at Nat's hands when the "good" doctor tries to steal the jewel for himself, but Martha discovers Nat's heel turn and kills him with the same paralytic before he can use it to poison her too, staging a scene that makes it look like Wicks killed Nat in a vat of acid. Finally, when Benoit Blanc and Jud get Martha to confess, he's taken the same paralytic, and she also dies ... letting Jud take the jewel and hide it for good as it falls from her hand.

Now that I've clarified that Jefferson Wicks, Nat Sharp, Samson Holt, and Martha Delacroix are the four dead bodies in "Wake Up Dead Man," let me be incredibly clear: this is the darkest film in the series thus far. Not only do the bodies really stack up in "Wake Up Dead Man," but the deaths are much more visual and violent — Nat kills Samson by stabbing him in the heart, and even though Wicks isn't actually stabbed to death as well, the way that Martha tries to cover up her own crimes by arranging the dead bodies of Wicks and Nat in a bathtub full of acid is particularly grotesque (it's definitely the grossest thing I've seen in a "Knives Out" movie, and I am very familiar with this franchise). 

"Wake Up Dead Man" isn't just dark because it's gruesome, though. The only reason all four of these people end up dead is a lethal combination of greed and pure vitriol; the fervor surrounding the jewel goes back to Wicks's grandfather and mother, who hid and fought over the jewel, respectively, and pure desire for this massive gem drives all of the movie's evil deeds. It's particularly notable, then, that Jud decides to hide the jewel forever. Instead of keeping the spot where a cross should hang empty to "honor" Wicks's wayward mother, Jud hand-carves a sculpture of Jesus Christ on the cross and hides the jewel in his heart, hopefully ending this deeply disturbing cycle. Still, this is a first for the "Knives Out" franchise — not only do the murderers pay for their crimes, but they also die in the process.

"Wake Up Dead Man" is now available to stream on Netflix.