One outrageous facet of mysteries is that you know the culprit will be unravelled in the end, though it’s occasionally subverted; usually, it isn’t. Rest becomes riddled within the screenplay, the theatrics, the monologues, with literary devices, and in mid of it, you find yourself deciphering the clues that hang in. Wake Up Dead Man, the third instalment of Benoit Blanc’s Knives Out mystery, is no otherwise to the drill—but the layers that it imposes can be on your week’s introspection diary.
From the moment I saw Martha (Glenn Close), I sensed she was the one. I hesitate to call it predictable—not because it was obvious, but because it was psychological. As your gaze traces the characters and their body language, you notice the unspoken—Martha, especially, has been connecting the dots from the start. She is a woman shaped by an unfortunate childhood, now the sole guardian of the place, and the only thread linking everything back to Eve’s Apple—what else could you expect?
Martha is immersed in her pompous faith. Eve’s Apple bothers her too much—it is sin for her—but what she doesn’t realise is that her mind and soul all reside in the Eve’s Apple (the precious jewel), her fixation with Eve’s Apple became so loud, camouflaged under her faith, that she got driven by a sinister saviour complex. All the while, while Martha tells everyone to be aware of Eve’s Apple, doesn’t realise that she is the one who has been biting off it since her childhood.
The headline might suggest I’m an atheist, but the ‘ism’ and ‘ist’ debates are beside the point. This is more about the context of Jesus—my realisation extends to all religions: sin isn’t limited to material possessions or outward displays. It can be any toxic desire. Martha, who believes she is ‘saving,’ is deeply entangled in church politics—in every sense of the word. And her desire to save the world from Eve’s Apple was subconsciously her will to have possession over Eve’s Apple for eternity.
Makes sense why Father Jud (Josh O’Connor) places Eve’s Apple inside the new crucifix—why it makes sense? Well, that’s on you to realise.
