Pop Culture Happy Hour - Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery and What’s Making Us Happy

Episode Date: December 12, 2025

Netflix’s Wake Up Dead Man is the third installment in the Knives Out franchise. Daniel Craig returns as detective Benoit Blanc -- with a cast of suspects that includes Josh O’Connor, Glenn Close, Jeremy Renner, Andrew Scott, Kerry Washington and Thomas Haden Church. This time out, the mystery gets ecclesiastical in nature, involving the murder of Josh Brolin’s fire-and-brimstone priest at a small church.Follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com/nprpopcultureSee pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Hey, it's Linda Holmes. Before we start the show today, I want to talk for a minute about something near and dear to our hearts around here, public media. It's a phrase that's been in the news a lot this year. It's also what makes pop culture happy hour and all the podcasts you love from NPR unique. Here in the U.S., the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 said that local public media stations should be responsive to their communities. To this day, that's what NPR member stations are doing. in so many towns and regions where newspapers have stopped publishing by providing news and information and cultural programming to everyone. Even as digital paywalls rise elsewhere, we offer these resources for free, regardless of anyone's ability to pay. We still believe in these commitments of public media at NPR. We always will. But as of this fall, federal funding for public media, including NPR and local NPR stations, has been eliminated. As we move into this, this uncharted future together, we know that you will not let the service that has been here for you all these years falter. We rely on your support to bring you Pop Culture Happy Hour now more than ever.

This year, we have loved bringing you conversations about new releases and old favorites and everything from awards show recaps to our favorite YouTube channels and one-hit wonders. And we can't wait to see what we'll get into together in 2026. If you already go the extra mile as an NPR Plus supporter, thank you so much. If not, you can join the Plus community, get a bunch of perks like bonus episodes and more from across NPR's podcasts and support public media by signing up for NPR Plus today at plus.npr.org. Benoit Blanc is back, baby, and Netflix has got them. And the four of us are spoiler, very happy about that fact. Wake Up Dead Man is the third installment of the Knives Out franchise. and in this one, Daniel Craig returns as everyone's favorite detective with a flashy wardrobe

and a southern drawl thicker than shoefly pie. The mystery gets ecclesiastical in nature this time out, involving the murder of Josh Brolin's Fire and Brimstone Monsignor at a small church. The suspects include Josh O'Connor, Glenn Close, Jeremy Renner, Andrew Scott, Kerry Washington, and Thomas Hayden Church. I'm Stephen Thompson. And I'm Glenn Weldon, and today on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour, we're talking about Wake Up Dead Man, a Knives Out mystery.

Joining us are our fellow co-hosts, the Corps for Aisha Harris. Hey, Aisha. I do declare, I think a murder is afoot. Thank you, Foghorn Legwood. And Linda Holmes, hey, Linda? Hello, Glenn. All right, let's do this. In Wake Up Dead Man, Daniel Craig's Benoit Blanc investigates the murder of a fiercely conservative priest,

played by Josh Brolin, who was murdered under impossible circumstances during a Good Friday Mass at his small stone church in upstate New York. The church is small, but its membership is even smaller, including a squirly doctor, played by Jeremy Renner, a down on his luck novelist played by Andrew Scott, a young cellist looking for a miracle. That's Kaylee Spaney. There's also Kerry Washington as a lawyer. Glenn Close and Thomas Aden Church keep the church running, but the main suspect is Father Judd, a young idealistic priest played by Josh O'Connor, who clashed publicly and often with the murdered Monsignor and his conservative rhetoric. Wake Up Dead Man is now streaming on Netflix. Linda, you've seen it twice. I have. How'd that go for you?

Oh, I really, really like this. I saw it the first time in Toronto at the film festival, and then I saw it again more recently. And the first time I saw it, I really liked it. The second time I saw it, I just locked in. I am a huge admirer of this movie. I think as an emotional story, it's the most satisfying of the three. I cannot say enough about this Josh O'Connor performance, which really is left alone to anchor the first 40 minutes of the movie as they introduce you to the entire story of how Judd comes to

the church, tries to serve the people who attend, and tries to make peace with his own hostile feelings toward the Monsignor. You know, the mood of this one is somewhat darker. It's less joky, I think, than the other two. It's certainly less jokey than Glass Onion. And there is a melancholy at the center of it. Ryan Johnson has talked about how one of the inspirations for this is Po. So it's, if Knives Out is kind of an old house movie and Glass Onion is kind of a private island movie, this is really a foggy graveyard kind of movie. And it has a different tone. Within that, it is still very funny. A lot of the time, there is still some great stuff. Glenn Close jump scares that I just think are so, so funny.

And yet an incredibly rich and satisfying story just full of kindness and compassion for the characters and not for nothing, the very rare, really good American mainstream movie about faith, which you just don't find that many of. I loved this. I really, really was a fan of this. Absolutely. All right, Stephen, what did you make of it? In a very, very similar boat. To me, I want to call out one specific scene to illuminate just exactly how and why. I love this movie so much. The movie's been rolling along for a while. By this point, Judd is kind of the chief suspect, but he's kind of working with Benoit Blanc, trying to give him the information that he needs to solve the case. And they've kind of had these arguments about faith, right? Benoit Blanc is a

non-believer. Judd is very, very devout, obviously bifitting his job. And there is a moment where Judd has to call this construction company to get information. And the woman who picks up from the construction company is played by Bridget Everett from somebody somewhere. And man, first of all, I just love Bridget Everett and everything she's in. It's a good get. It's a perfect get in that moment because Bridget Everett is a cut-up. She's funny. She's silly, but she's also, if you've ever seen somebody somewhere, a hell of an actor. And so first, she's kind of a chatty Kathy on the phone. And it's just this kind of comedic bit, right? And all of a sudden, it pivots to her telling him about a sick relative and needing his counsel, and he pivots into priest mode, and suddenly, like, everything

else washes away, and he, like, excuses himself from the room to pray with her. And let me tell you, I saw this thing in a press screening. There were not that many people in the room. The snorffles were extremely audible, and they weren't even all coming from me. And that is in the middle of this big, you know, whodunit, all of a sudden you stop and you get this. this brief glimpse of like what this job is. What the stakes are. Yeah, and like how important it is to do this job right. And to me, it is such an act of filmmaking empathy.

You are suddenly drawn into this woman's story and you understand what makes him tick and why he's good at his job. And it clearly unlocks something in Benoit Blanc as well. It's a wonderful moment. And I know I'm kind of dwelling on this one scene. But to me, this hammers home exactly why this movie works. Absolutely, because I focused on that scene as well because I came at it as a Bridget Everett fan. And there's a really interesting directing choice that makes the movie in that moment, which is where we start to see Bridget Everett talking on the phone.

Then we cut to Josh O'Connor. And we stay on Josh O'Connor while Bridget Everett's character, Louise, is telling her story. And I got frustrated. I was like, why are we sticking with Jud? Of course. This is the reason we're sticking with Judd. That is the movie nudging Father Judd back into his mode of being of service to others. And we watch him listening to someone in pain and being in the moment.

And that's why this movie works. One of the many reasons why this movie works. What do you think, Aisha? Well, Stephen basically stole my thunder because that was going to be. I mean, no, it's okay. It's okay. Like, that is the scene. I think anyone who watches this movie is going to be like, that's the scene.

That is what, I don't want to say elevates this movie because the movie is already operating on a completely different level than most movies. about these subject matters do. But I loved this. And I think to the point about this feeling like the most emotionally rich iteration so far of the Knives Out series is the fact that we do spend so much time with Judd. And Benoit doesn't really come into play at all for like a very long time. Like the first third, he's not anywhere to be found pretty much. And I think that's crucial because, you know, Judd is the emotional center.

he's the heart. And one of the things that I love the most about the way this plays out is, yes, Judd, yes, that scene, but then also like the lighting cues, I want to go back and rewatch this. I've only seen it once, but I started noticing that there's these very, they're subtle, but you notice them. Or at least I notice them. They're subtle until they're not subtle. I will say that.

Yes. I loved that because, yes, it's dark and cold and dreary and Po-like, but then there's moments where you're in this beautiful church and the light starts coming and it comes directly on Judd's face sometimes or it might just shine and the sun is all of a sudden appearing. And just the way that this movie does so, so much with the lighting and all those things, like I loved it. And on top of that, you have a movie that is coming out at a time where we're seeing the rise of the religious right and we're seeing all of these powerful people, you know, hiding behind their faith. And to have a movie,

that is so obviously not skeptical of faith, but skeptical of those who protest too much. And it's about faith, but it's also about anger and how those things fuel both faith and religion. And so I just loved it, and it's probably my favorite of the three so far. But I'd have to go back and rewatch the others, but it's just so good.

What a tough assignment that will be to go back and rewatch them all. I think this is my favorite of the three because it is darker and shaggier than some. previous installments. But again, you have to come to these movies knowing that in a Knives Out movie, shagginess is a feature not a bug. You don't come to these for steel trap plotting necessarily. You come to these, what you come to any, what I guess, cozy mystery for really, is character beats, character moments like that moment between Bridget Everett and Josh O'Connor. There's always a sympathetic suspect in these movies, as we've mentioned, and I think

Josh O'Connor's father Judd is by far the most fully developed, the most three-dimensional, the most alive, the most interesting, which you need, because again, as Linda mentioned, he's your guy for the first 40 minutes of the movie. You know, the faith stuff is going to hit people differently. It hits me differently than it hits him of y'all because I think in the end, because the opposing characters in this movie, the evil hate monger versus the compassionate caregiver, are such clear constructs that I think this movie ends up talking more about itself that it does about, say, the Catholic Church or the state of society. But I'm fine with that because any time you put Josh O'Connor and Daniel Craig in a scene together, they're bouncing off each other. they're engaging deeply. But in the end, these movies are all about casting.

Did you guys have a favorite bit of casting besides? Obviously, Joshua Conner, obviously Bridget Everett, obviously Daniel Craig. Anybody else in the mix stand out for you? Well, I personally, watching this movie, I just kept thinking, I wonder if there's going to be a point in this movie where it's just Glenn Close off the top rope. And the answer is yes. And I think as many times as I've seen her, this is a really tremendous performance from her. As I mentioned earlier, the beginning of it, they keep showing her sort of popping out and she startles, Father Judd several times. And it's really funny because he has a very funny startle.

And so he just said, oh, geez, and it's really funny. Like, she is the woman who is most devoted to this church and most. devoted to this Monsignor who has died and her trying to make her way through her faith and her history and her feelings, I just was sitting there the whole time thinking, like, I got a feeling at some point it's just going to be, boom. Listen, she's great. She's great. And also, I will say, I have not seen Carrie Washington get a lot of great opportunities

in movies. Yeah. And I think this is a great opportunity for her. I wish it were a bigger part. I feel the same way about Andrew Scott. I do too. I would have taken more of her and more of Andrew Scott and maybe even more of Jeremy Runner.

I would have taken maybe more of the Kaylee Spaney character, these kind of other suspects who are in the mix other than Judd. But I think they're all really good. And I think Carrie Washington finds this. I mean, if you've seen scandal, you've seen some of the notes of anger that she gets to in this film. But I did really like seeing. her get used in this way in this film. I also don't want to forget to say, Daniel Craig, I think,

holds these movies down in such an admirable and kind of effortless way. It's easy to focus on the accent. But this guy, because he always is there to help, to help a person, he is an incredibly compassionate figure through all of that affect, right? Here he's got like a slightly different kind suit and it's longer hair and, you know. That hair. But it always comes through that he's this very, very kind and compassionate person. And I think that's really admirable as well. This film emphasizes the fact that there's ego here as well, which becomes part of his arc,

which is a very important part of the character, too. I do think to kind of to Linda's point that there is this kind of secondary cast, this cast of suspects, and some of those characters do feel a little underdrawn. I specifically, like any time I see Andrew Scott on screen, I want more Andrew Scott. But I did think just even the casting of Jeremy Renner, one film after there is that wonderful punchline about a Jeremy Renner branded hot sauce to then just like put Jeremy Renner in the next movie, I found delightful even if I just wanted to swim around with more of these characters more. Yeah, I mean, that's the tradeoff, right? It's like we get this emotional center in Judd. and this character who is the bleeding heart of this movie,

but then you also have to have like six or seven other characters. And I guess I could say, I think I agree, and my run critique would be maybe you pull back on having so many suspects. Like there's just, there's so many. And you can't possibly give them all the attention and the time that they deserve. Yeah, I think that's true. Yeah. And we haven't even said, by the way, Thomas Aden Church,

who has a small role, but basically is always good in the, this kind of part. And, you know, he, like several of the people in this film are people who have done a lot of comedy. And this is still a funny movie in many places. There is a church organ joke that has made me bark laugh two different times. Oh, my goodness. It was so, so good. As soon as I heard, I was like, yes. It's delightful. It's delightful. And all that stuff, I think, is great and funny. Yeah, we haven't mentioned Josh Brolin yet. Now, that is a very specific piece of casting. He has to be scary and imposing, but he also has to be charismatic. He won't buy any of this if he's not charismatic. And Intelligia, right? And kind of a silver fox,

that hair and the beer is working for him. And the first scene where he's sizing up Josh O'Connor, it's a really funny piece of writing and performance. It's smart. And it sets them up as a real adversary, which is what you need for this whole film to proceed together. One of my favorite things about these movies is their writing. You mentioned the organ joke. There's a line where a Joshua Cunner's character describes himself as young, dumb, and full of Christ. That's a funny line. But also the three card Monty of the plot. You notice something, right?

As you're watching, you think, well, that's going to be the key to the mystery. And I noticed it. And I was like, I have solved the mystery. And it turns out to be 10 minutes later, it's a thing that gets mentioned in passing. Without getting specific, did you get faked out? Were you on to this movie at all? I think the thing about this movie, and I don't think this is a spoiler to say. Like, there are some mysteries.

where the whodunit, that is what we're looking for. That's the payoff. And there are other mysteries where the who done it is probably way more obvious. Or like, if you think about it too long, it's like, oh, of course. But it's how they done it. That is what is whoever was involved. That's the payoff. And this is.

And I think in this case, why. Yes. How and why. And so this is the latter, right? And I think that I found it emotionally satisfying regardless of like who did it. what we figure out for why they did it and how that is the fun. That's like that entire scene where we're kind of breaking it down. That is the payoff for me.

So I like the way this is constructed in that way. I mean, I would liken it to Brian Johnson is building a Rube Goldberg device, right? Like this is not a matter of like ex person did it with the candlestick. It's a matter of like the elaborate interlocking construction of many different clues and many different components. and many different motives. And everything is kind of relying on these other interlocking parts. And so when you're getting kind of a solve at the end of a movie like this, there's not necessarily one component to be like,

ah, look out for this in this scene. Even though that's there. As Glenn said, that's only going to solve one piece of the puzzle. You were just watching a puzzle master at work kind of building and then unleashing a device and the enjoyment comes from just like watching that magic happen. It's like a final destination movie. It's like all the ways that you can die and all the ways that this person was murdered. Right. You know, that's the fun.

Well, and I think if you've spent a lot of time listening to Ryan Johnson talk about these movies, oh, you have. He talks a lot about the fact that spending the whole movie just waiting for a reveal, it's not actually a very durable way to make a movie narratively interesting. It's not necessarily a great narrative engine. And so it tends to happen in these films, and it happens in this one, too, is that you have a thing you're trying to figure out. But then something else happens that now you also got to figure that out. In Glass Onion, for example, you have a murder that you think you're going to get.

And then you get a different murder. And then you get a shooting that then you got to figure out why that happened, which is separate. And so they tend to be stories that unravel more than one thing. So I would say, like, I don't try to predict them, I think, because first of all, all, I don't want to ruin it for myself, but second of all, to me, they're not built that way. It's not necessarily going to have like a, you know, so-and-so did it and that's the end. Yeah. Absolutely.

Yeah. Well, listeners, I think what you've just heard is the rare PCH core four full-throated endorsement in four-part harmony. So tell us what you now think about wake up, dead man, and knives out mystery. Find us at Facebook at facebook.com slash PCH and on letterboxed at letterboxed.com slash np PR pop culture, we'll have a link in our episode description up next. What is Making Us Happy This Week? Now it is time for our favorite segment of this week and every week. What is making us happy this week?

Linda, what is making you happy this week? Well, I try not to be too much of a cheerleader for the home team, but I will tell you that earlier this month, NPR Music released the Tiny Desk concert of David Byrne. And he came in with a large cast. of musicians. And a bunch of the musicians are wearing these kind of custom wearable instruments on kind of frames so that you can walk around with them, which in a way is kind of perfect for the tiny desk because they can fit a lot of people back there because they can just kind of wiggle back there. There is a group of backup singers. There are a bunch of people. And he performed

four songs and two are from his new album and two are two are talking head songs, including life during war time. You can really get the physicality of not just his work in this, but also all of the members of the ensemble. Every individual person in the ensemble is fun to watch. It's very pleasing to the eye. They have these kind of bright blue, almost like cover-all suits that they have on, which, because the tiny desk has that incredibly busy background,

Those blue suits just stand out in this great way. And I loved it. I'm not necessarily a huge talking heads person, but I had so much fun watching it. And listen, I forgive everyone for not telling me so that I could come see it. We send out a newsletter, Linda. Check your email. All right. Thank you so much.

That is David Byrne at the tiny desk. I am a talking ed's guy. And I have been waiting for David Byrne to come to the tiny desk for as long as the tiny desk. has been tiny. Thank you so much. Stephen Thompson, co-creator of the Tiny Desk. What's making you happy this week? Well, it's the time of year when I've been working on a lot of year-end music coverage, best songs of the year, best albums of the year, that sort of thing. One record I've been rediscovering a lot in the last week or two is this beautiful little jewel of a record called a dawning. It's a collaboration between the Icelandic composer Olafer Arnold's and an Irish singer

and electronic musician named Owen French who recorded under the name Telos. Now, I've been a casual fan of both artists for years, but this project has a deeper and unfortunately a sadder story attached. The two were already kind of working together when Owen French was diagnosed with cancer in 2023, and this project took on more urgency as his health declined.

He died in 2024. He was just 36, and Olafer Arnold's finished this work as a tribute. The album that emerges has a warm, ringing, almost joyous quality to it. It actually feels like a celebration with notes of wonder and optimism. And I've gone back to this record again and again, and it's just hitting me harder and harder. And to give you a sense of the vibe, my favorite song on the record is called Signs. It's kind of hypnotic and swoopy and, oh, it's so, so warm. I love this record.

It's so beautiful. I think more people should discover it. Sip tea on a cloudy Sunday while staring into the middle distance. There you go. It's so beautiful. It's called A Dawning by Olafer Arnold's and Talos. Thank you very much, Stephen Thompson, on brand. Aisha Harris, what is making you happy this week?

I'm going to keep the music train going. It is that time of year where I am listening to all the holiday playlists. That is my main soundtrack. It's helping me get through the dark early afternoons when it's very dark and I don't want to go outside. And I've noticed that whenever I listen to the streaming curated holiday playlist, you hear the same, like eight to ten songs. Oh, that drives me crazy to do. Five different versions of this Christmas, five different versions of last Christmas. Like, it's annoying.

So I want to suggest that people add a song that I grew up listening to. It's actually the 30th anniversary of this song. The album is titled This is Christmas by Luther Vandross. And I want to suggest that, you know, if you're making your own holiday playlist, you should add the song, The Missile Toll Jam. Everybody Kiss Somebody. which is an original song. It's cheesy.

It's Luther, you know, romancing a woman, shall we say, on this song. And this song opens with a fun little banter at the beginning with a woman, a vocalist. I don't know her name. But it sounds like this. Because you don't know how to act when you get under there. What are you talking about? You know what I'm talking about. What?

The last time I got under that thing with you. What happened? The last time I got under there with you, I had twins. Tell it on. Ooh, Jokener, the Mistletoe. Because you might wind up with twins afterwards. That is the song.

It's just a fun song that somehow people have forgotten. Maybe if you were a kid or someone who grew up in a black household in the 90s or you were a black person of a certain age in the 90s, you know this album. I don't have to tell you anything about this. But I want to hear this on more playlist. Add it. The Misletoe Jam. Everybody kissed somebody.

by Luther, check it out. It is making me happy this year and every year at this time of year. Great pick, Aisha. Thank you very much. What is making me happy this week? Viticulture is a board game that's been around a while, but I just recently got into it. Aisha, my fellow board game, have you played viticulture? No. So in viticulture, you inherit a down-on-its-luck winery from your parents and you have to get it up and running again.

This genre is called a worker placement game, which I know sounds so boring. I heard this was a worker placement. This can't possibly be for me. But, I mean, it's not lying. You have in any given year, you have only so many workers to perform all the chores necessary to make wine. In summer, you can assign some of them to plant vines and give tours and build structures that you need. And in winter, you can harvest grapes and crush them and turn them into wine. And each round goes through all four seasons.

And at the end of every year, if you have any wines in your celery, you can age them a bit and they get a little bit older and a little bit more valuable. The coolest thing about this game, though, is that you choose what time of the morning your workers wake up. And if you make them wake up very early, they can block your opponents from doing all the tasks they need to do, like planting and harvesting and crushing. But if you let them sleep in, they'll be much happier and they will give you more bonuses. This is like the sins. It's totally about the sins. And it's also about human nature. Now, the only thing about the game is that you need to make so many decisions on the fly at the same time that it can feel a bit, fiddly, a bit complicated.

But, man, once you learn the basic mechanics, you can bust out a game in like 45 minutes, half an hour. It is a lot of fun. That is the board game Viticulture, and that is what is making me happy this week. If you want links for what we recommended, plus some more recommendations, sign up for our newsletter at npr.org slash pop culture newsletter. that brings us to the end of our show. The Corps 4, Aisha Harris-Lid Holmes, Stephen Thompson. Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you, Glenn. Thank you. This episode was produced by Carly Rubin, Janay Morris, and Mike Katz, have been edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy, and Helocamim provides our theme music. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR.

I'm Glenn Weldon, and we'll see you all next week.