ScreenCrush: The Podcast! - Knives Out: Wake Up Dead Man Breakdown - Every Clue and Easter Egg You Missed

Episode Date: December 12, 2025

ScreenCrush The Podcast tackles all the movie and TV hot topics, offering reviews and analysis of Marvel, Star Wars, and everything you care about right now. Hosted by Ryan Arey, and featuring a panel of industry professionals.

Guys, we just noticed insane details in Wake Up Dead Man, and we're also going to break down every detail of the mystery that you need to know to clear up any confusion you might have about that doozy of an ending. With all that in mind, spoilers are ahead. Welcome back Screen Crush, I'm Ryan Erie, and this is all of the Easter eggs references and little things you might have missed in Knives Out, Wake Up Dead Man. Now, Wake Up Dead Man is the third and hopefully not last installment of Ryan Johnson's Knives Out trilogy. We joined Detective Benoit Blanc as he investigates a mysterious murder in a small town church, and of course, all is not, as it seems. Now, like Knives Out and Glass Onion, Wake Up Dead Man uses a structure that's not entirely chronological. We start with Benoit Blanc, reading Reverend Judd's account,

which frames most of the first hour of the movie as a flashback of this account. This is similar to the early flashbacks in Knives Out of Marta's perspective of the Night of the Murder, or of Helen's perspective in Glass Onion. Johnson likes to take the audience into the mind of a major character who is often also the main suspect. The first thing we see of Judd is him punching this asshole deacon right in the face.

So this tells us multiple things about Judd. He doesn't stand for things he disagrees with, and he has experience being violent. His form when he punches the deacon tells us about his boxing background before the movie even gets a chance to. Judd is told in his hearing that the church needs fighters to fight the world. Now Judd refuses to accept this point of view, arguing that... Christ came to heal the world, not fight it. This already sets up Judd as a counterpoint to Monsignor Wix, who absolutely feels that he is at war with the world and is why Langstrom sends Judd to Wix. And on the the far right is Reverend Frank, played by Gavin Spokes, who you might recognize as Lionel Strong

and House of the Dragon. I have come to resign my position as hand of the king. This all means that Judd opens the film Seeking Redemption, similar to the prodigal son, asking for another chance. Now we learned that Judd is being sent to Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude. Fortitude evokes the Catholic virtue of perseverance through struggle. By the end of the movie, this will be changed to Our Lady of Perpetual Grace to honor Wick's mother. That poor girl. The sign outside the church also has a different message by the end. Under Wix, it reads, turn from your sin, turn to Christ. Whereas under Judd, at the end of the movie, it reads, simply, all are welcome. As with most things, Wix takes a much more aggressive line toward his flock than Judd does. Judd mentions David facing off with Goliath, establishing the underdog versus a corrupt power dynamic that he and wicks will embody. He finishes by saying, young, dumb, and full of Christ, which is a tongue-in-cheek reflection of sincere but naive faith, like in Matthew 18-3. The first thing Judd notices inside the church is the missing crucifix. So this shows both how they're The shadow of the past haunts this church and also foreshadows how Judd will fill this void by the end of the movie.

In Wix's very first confession, there are hints about the way his character will go throughout the movie. I've envied the material wealth of others. I've envied the power of great men. Wix will ultimately choose material wealth and power over the church and lose his life for it. He confesses envy and lust, referencing the capital sense, but later we'll learn that he's only doing so performatively. In the first shot of Sam, we see him holding the sickle that will later be used to, to kill him. In the Bible, the sickle can represent divine judgment. A sickle is also a symbol held by the personification of death. We also get a better look at the fish-shaped brooch that Martha is wearing, which symbolizes Christ, showing how devout she is and how she keeps the church close

to her heart. Now, Sam's full name is Samson, who of course is a biblical figure. Samson was a man of incredibly divine strength until the woman he loved, Delilah, betrayed him. She cut off his hair, which was the source of his power, causing him to be captured by his enemies. Now, although Martha does not intentionally betray Samson, her actions do lead to his death. Sam talks about Martha, telling Judd, I'd do anything for him. Of course, later in the movie, he will go to quite some extremes for her, building a false coffin for Wix and hiding inside of it. Anything for you. Judd also says of Martha, she knew where the bodies were buried. So this hints to the audience, right from the start, that not only will Martha have something to do with the murder, but she knows where the diamond is hidden as well,

buried with the body of Wicks' grandfather, Prentice. There's even more foreshadowing in the scene, where Sam is cleaning graffiti off the crypt, when he mentions... Gotta put up a security camera. That motion sensor camera will be key to the resurrection mystery later in the movie. Sam mentions the door to the crypt is called a... It's Lazarus Door. Referencing Lazarus of Bethany, the man who was raised from the dead by Jesus, as Wix will soon appear to be.

Lazarus emerged from a crypt, and this door is a safeguard in case anybody alive inside needs to get out. Martha tells Judd the story of the... Harlot Hoar. This reflects the theme in the movie of misusing biblical storytelling to exploit and manipulate others. And as she does so, we see her making the spring reading list for the church book club, which, as we'll see later, includes an all-important 1935 novel, The Hollow Man.

As she relates the story of Prentice and Grace to Judd, the flashbacks are framed with color, as if the audience is watching the past through stained glass. Prentice says to young Martha, Wealth, and the power that comes with it is Eve's apple. This is both his philosophy and the name that will be given to the diamond in which he stores all of his own wealth, And even more foreshadowing, Martha says, I saw Apprentice take his final communion. Now, on first viewing, the audience interprets this metaphorically,

but on a rewatch, it's clear that the communion she's referring to is him literally consuming the diamond. Now Judd introduces us to the suspects, the regular members of the church. They include the lawyer Vera Draven and her adopted son, Sai, Dr. Nat Sharp, writer Lee Ross, and former cellist Simone Vivain. This group is a distorted echo of discipleship, including Martha, there are six suspects. The number six symbolizes incompleteness as seven is the number of perfection in the Bible.

In the first meeting with Vera, it's immediately apparent how much she resents her father and her role in preserving his legacy. She was forced to take in and raise sigh when she was just out of law school. Just like Wick's mother, Grace, she was a woman trapped by her father and son into responsibilities that she never asked for. Vera's freedom at the end of the movie represents a kind of spiritual justice for Grace, and she is also the first to recognize the tragedy in Grace's story. That poor girl. In Dr. Nat's introduction, we learned that his wife Darla has just left him because... He wasn't successful enough, rich enough, good enough for her. Once again, Jud is immediately establishing the motivation that will inspire Nat to kill Sam later in the movie

so he can earn back enough wealth to get his wife back. Dr. Nat is played by Jeremy Renner, who of course we heard mentioned in the second Knives-Out film, Glass Onion. That's Jeremy Renner's small-batch hot sauce. So I guess we can assume that in this universe, Jeremy has a doppelganger in upstate New York. It's also worth noting that every time an Avenger is cast in one of these movies, they're always involved in the murder. The background of celebrity sci-fi writer Lee Ross's study is covered in American flags and religious books, indicating the way he has become consumed by Wix's nationalistic viewpoint.

He mentions being angered that all of his current readers are. Survivorist freaks, they all look like John Goodman and the Big Lobosky. And of course, the conclusion to his story will show that his new book, ironically, only finds popularity with this same crowd that he hates. God has a sense of humor. Judd describes to the audience how every week Wix would pick a newcomer to the congregation to verbally attack. We see him attack a single mother, a gay couple, and an Asian woman in a mask. Now, this makes it clear that Wix is choosing to attack people who are marginalized because they're safe targets.

Sam is listening to a baseball game in the pew, and the baseball announcer is a cameo from Joseph Gordon Leavitt. Gordon Levitt previously cameoed in Knives Out on the television show. We have the nanny cam. And in Glass Onion as Miles Bronze Clock. Right before Judd's confrontation with Wix, he asked him, Are you enjoying it here? Are you breaking down some walls? Referencing Judd's speech at the beginning of his failed prayer group. This is all about breaking down walls between us and Christ.

Now, this is a power play from Wix, who's telling Judd that he knows everything Judd has been trying to do and that Wix will always be the one in charge. When Wix punches Judd, crows hover overhead, which symbolize corruption, decay, or judgment. Wix has utterly corrupted this church, which Judd also references when he compares him to a cancer. As Judd gets drunk in the local devil-themed bar, we see Noah Segan's third cameo in the Knives-Out franchise, this time as the bartender Nikolai. He appeared in Knives-Out as Trooper Wagner. Like, I don't spoil it for you, but, okay, like a thousand knives, the cow and the shotgun. Like, where do you come up with that?

And Glass Onion as Daryl. Want to hang out or... Nicolai says, The junk lamps, the junk lamps. Note, the plural. This foreshadow is the later revealed that this. there are, in fact, two wolf-headed lamps in the bar. When we see the Good Friday service on the day that Wix will be killed, note the back of his vestments. We can already see the wolfhead that Martha has placed

there hidden in plain sight. This is a technique that Ryan Johnson uses over and over in his mysteries, especially in Glass Onion. You can also see the wolf's head more closely when Wix enters the storage closet. His vestments are red in Good Friday Mass tradition, which is the liturgical color for Christ's passion and martyrdom. Wicks collapses just as Judd is singing to him, Behold the Wood of the Cross, which hung the salvation of the world. This invokes Christ's sacrifice and is another way that the film compares Wix and Christ. Notice that Dr. Nat is the first one to get up when Wix collapses and shares a glance with Martha on his way to the storage closet. As soon as Nat crouches down by the body, Martha screams to distract the attention of all the other churchgoers so that Nat can go

do the deed. And then, 40 minutes into the film, we finally get the introduction of Benoit Blanc. Hello! Similarly to Knives Out with Marta, Jud is the true protagonist of this movie. Blanc is just here to help him when he needs it. Judd prays for help and Blanc appears as if in an act of divine intervention. Now, Blanc shares that his mother was very religious and he was close with her as a boy before things got complicated between them. Considering Blanc's negative attitude toward the church, it's likely that his mother disapproved of his sexuality as a gay man. He later specifically cites homophobia as one of the reasons he dislikes the church. Malveillance and misogyny and homophobia. Blanc is someone whose opinion of the church is defined by people like Wix, who rule through feelings.

and hate. Throughout the film, Judd shows him another side of religious faith, about forgiveness, love, and acceptance of all people. As Judd speaks on his beliefs about the nature of the church, light shines in behind him through the window, highlighting him as a holy figure. Light will be used in the same way again later during the parlor room scene, when Blanc has his own moment of recognizing the goodness in Judd's beliefs and giving Martha Grace. At Nicolize Bar, we see a poster for Ricky and Jay and his 52 assistants, a one-man show featuring famous sleight-of-hand artist, It's fitting that Dr. Nat is a regular at this bar, considering that he had to do some sleight of hand of his own to commit this murder.

Once again, Nikolai refers to the lamps, in plural. She buys a devil lamps. In the photo that Blanc examines finding the second devil lamp, we also see Dr. Nat, hinting that he is the one with ties to this whole affair. And what's that on the wall behind Dr. Nat? That's right. It's Mephisto. When Jud returns to the church, Sam pointedly closes the garage door.

Now, we think that this is because Sam believes that Judd was responsible for the murder. Actually, Sam likely wants to hide the fact that he's meddling with Wix's coffin. Chief Geraldine says, I owe Detective Elliot a fruit basket for giving me your number. Detective Lieutenant Elliott is the character played by Lakeyde Stanfield in the first Knives Out movie. I'm Detective Lieutenant Elliott. It's also implied that in the past, Blanc might have spent some time near the Thromby estate from Knives Out, since his father knew Harlan Thrombie.

Considering that Elliot is the only character to refer to Blanc in a more familiar way, It could be that Lieutenant Elliot and Blanc have a longer history. Blanc discovers that the spring reading list for the church book club includes a number of locked door murder mysteries, The Hollow Man by John Dixon Carr, Who's Body by Dorothy L. Sayers, The Murders in the Room Org by Edgar Allan Poe, the murder of Roger Ackroyd, and the Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie. Each of these books contains an element of the mystery that we're watching unfold. As Blanc discusses later, the Hollow Man includes a famous lecture on the different ways in which a locked room murder can be committed.

Method number seven described in the book is almost identical to the way the murder was actually committed. The victim is presumed to be dead long before he actually is. The victim lies asleep, drug but unharmed, in a locked room. The murderer starts a foul play scare, forces the door, gets in a head and kills by stabbing or throat cutting while suggesting to other watchers that they have seen something they have not seen. In whose body, one corpse is swapped for another. to disguise the victim of the crime. Wix's body will later be swapped for Sam's to stage Wix's resurrection. The murders in Rue Morg is about clever deductions clearing the name of an innocent man,

as Blanc will do for Judd. The murder of Roger Ackroyd features an unreliable narrator who is concealing things from the audience and the detective, particularly the details of his actions, and while Judd is not the true killer, he does hide Wix's flask from his account by choosing to omit the details of his own actions. Finally, the murder at the Vicarage features a widely disliked an abrasive church official being murdered, much like Wix. The murder also involves a device set up by the killer meant to confuse the investigators. In the novel, the killers use a delayed gunshot device in the woods to puzzle witnesses. In the movie, Dr. Nat uses the remote to trigger the blood capsules, making Judd believed that Wix has already been stabbed before Nat enters

the closet. Now, when Judd suggests a false wall, Blanc says, Go to town, Father Brown. Referencing the Catholic priest's detective Father Brown, a character in a series of short stories in the early 20th century. Notice that when Blanc asked if anything else was found on the floor, Judd does not answer, as he told Blanc earlier. You can always be honest by not saying the unhonest part. The investigating group finds interference on Sam's taped baseball game, and it seems like the cop helping them might be a screencrush viewer.

Blanc asked Judd to write the account of Wix's murder, which is all the narration we've been hearing up to this point. Judd says, So I've spent the past hour doing exactly that. And this is almost exactly one hour into the movie. It turns out that when Judd said Wix needed to, who fortify himself in the supply closet, what he actually meant was that Wix needed a drink

that he hid inside the breaker box, which also adds a layer of ironic meaning to the name of the church, Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude. And hey, it turns out Blanc got his iPad after all. I just thought maybe there was a prize or something. An iPad or... Also noticed the timing of Martha's entrance

to the funeral in Wix's speech. I am betrayed by Judas. The true threat comes from within. While Blanc is interrogating the flock about what happened the night of Palm Sunday, Lee says, The idiot versions of all of us will end up on Netflix. A little meta reference to the fact that these are Netflix releases. In Cy's video, we see that Vera revealed to the flock that Wix was Sy's biological father.

Wix rails in his sermons about the nuclear family and his Harlethor mother, but he too had a child out of wedlock, and he took absolutely no responsibility to raise his kid. Wix reveals to Cy that he's found the location of his grandfather's wealth, and Sye persuades him to burn his bridges with the rest of the flock, so that he can widen his sphere of influence using the internet and possibly go into politics. Give me four years. You could be president. Sy finishes his proposal with this. Together we can build a real empire as father and son.

Of course, referencing this line. Together we can rule the galaxy as father and son. Although Sai seems to be getting his references confused. Yeah, exactly like the rebels. As Blanc and Judd break apart the jewelry box looking for a clue to Princess's fortune, they are unknowingly mimicking Grace's actions from years earlier when she tore the church apart looking for the gym. What would come in a custom-made Faberjeet box itself was maybe $20,000, not a trinket or a plastic Jesus? As Julianne Greep on Reddit points out, when Blanc smashes the Jesus statue, this is also a reference to the Sherlock Holmes story, The Adventure of the Six Napoleons.

That story concludes with Holmes smashing a bust of Napoleon to find a precious pearl. Now Louise, the receptionist of the construction company, is played by, actress and comedian Bridget Everett. As Judd listens to Louise pouring her heart out on the phone, he focuses on the small model of Christ that he and Blanc just broke. Suddenly, he is overcome with his Road to Damascus moment, the feeling that he has lost sight of who he is and what his purpose should be in the world. The Road to Damascus story, which Judd is referencing, is about Saul, a persecutor of the church who was struck blind with a holy revelation while traveling. God led Saul to Damascus, where he was given his sight back and became the Apostle Paul. Judd feels that, in getting wrapped up in the mystery,

he has forgotten to be a servant to the church and to the people who need his help. This plea for help from Louise is his holy revelation. When he shuts the door on Blanc to take Louise's call, this is him choosing his duties as a priest over his desire to exonerate himself and solve the mystery. The scales fall from his eyes and he can see his path forward. As Jud and Blanc's ideologies clash, in the background, we see a mysterious figure with a lantern crossed through the woods. This is the same outfit we've seen Sam wear before,

on the night that Judd threw the wolf's head through the church window, so the audience will naturally assume that it's Sam. However, later we'll find out that this is actually Dr. Nat. Now, the framing of this shot is important because of the way it's putting this clash of cynical atheism and passionate belief in the forefront while the events of the mystery play out in the background. The mystery is crucial to the movie's plot,

but it's really just backdrop for the actual emotional center, the conflict between Blanc's idea of reason and Judd's idea of faith. Judd says, God didn't hide me or fix me. He loves me when I'm guilty. That's what I should be doing for these. people, not this whodunit game. Now, the ideals of a holy man are ideologically opposed to those of a

detective. Rather than focusing on chasing out guilt, Judd realizes that his role is in forgiveness and grace. At the end of the movie, Blanc will acknowledge the ways in which this is a positive thing, when he chooses not to expose Martha in front of the flock, to give her some grace. When Judd says, Otherwise, I'm just as bad as Wix, making it about me and not Jesus. This is the revelation that Blanc needs to realize that in Wix's final homily, he was never talking about Christ. Everything he said was about himself. And left in a hole to rot.

To be forgotten, as with our Savior, so with the church. Geraldine and her officer stormed the church, and she reveals that she's read the Hollow Man and has decided that the fourth method the book describes for a locked-room murder mystery must have been the truth of the matter. However, what she describes is actually not the fourth method from the Hollow Man, but actually the seventh method that we discussed earlier. The idea that the victim is not dead initially, but instead killed when people come to investigate the dead body. The fourth method actually described in the hollow man is that of

a suicide which is intended to look like a murder, which this is not. But I'll give them some artistic license because sitting through a lecture on seven murder methods would not be great for pacing. Geraldine is almost entirely correct in her hypothesis. She just has one thing wrong, who committed the murder. She believes that Judd is the killer because he was the first one to reach Wix. Meanwhile, Judd is witnessing the supposed resurrection of Wix. Of course, what he's actually seen as Dr. Nat and Sam taking the jewel from Prentice's body. When Judd sees the tomb open, we're treated to a vertigo shot or a dolly zoom. Jud has been through hell and now he's seeing what appears to be a miracle. This shot technique shows the way that his world is being upended.

While unconscious, Jud hallucinates himself attacking and stabbing Wix. This is a manifestation of the guilt that he feels over being glad that Wix died and his desire to cut you out like a cancer. When he wakes up, he finds his hand wrapped around the sickle buried in Sam's chest. So this leads him to believe that he killed Sam, when in fact this was all staged by Dr. Nat. Martha arrives on the scene to Loudwicks' resurrection, all according to her staging. However, she quickly learns that all has not gone according to plan. The groundskeeper is dead. When she screams,

Lay into the jock! You madder! The cut to Judd would have the audience believe that that's who she's speaking to. But in actuality, she already knows the killer as Dr. Nat, and she will have her vengeance before too long. Louise calls Judd to let him know that the person who placed the order for construction equipment to open the tomb, you know, before the murder, was actually Monsignor Wix. In the context of his resurrection, this would have you believe that he knew he was about to be killed and returned to life. However, it turns out that these are actually two unrelated events. One was Wix finding out that the

jewel was hidden in the tomb and planning to open it up, and the other was Martha arranging Wix's deaths so that he wouldn't get his hands on the money. Judd thinks he sees Wicks in the woods, but it turns out to just be one of those creepy trees from Snow White. This is our hint at the Wix that Judd saw while he was under unconscious was also an illusion. Dr. Nat's house is absolutely covered in butterflies, in the paintings on the wallpaper, and even on the outside of his door. Earlier in the movie, we saw he also has butterfly mugs and models in other parts of his home. Later, when we see the outside of the house, there are also butterfly decorations on the windchine, mailbox, and on the siding. In some circles,

the butterfly life cycle symbolizes the resurrection of Jesus, which is fitting, giving the role that Nat had in staging this miracle with Wix. Julian Grep on Reddit also speculates that this could tie Nat to the villain of the Sherlock Holmes story, The Hound of the Baskervilles, where the villain is an entomologist who collects butterflies. Another possibility is that it could be a reference to Silence of the Lamps, in which the moths are a symbol for the serial killer Buffalo Bill, who also has quite the secret hideout in his basement. Also, after the first Knives-Out movie, Ryan Johnson said in an interview that Apple does not allow bad guys in movies to use their products, but Dr. Nat, one of the murderers, does have an iPhone. Clearly, Ryan Johnson wanted to play with the audience's expectations

after that interview went viral. Blanc stops Judd from turning himself in and turns on his car. This is Skimble Shanks, the Railway Cat from the Musical Cats. Blanc is well-established as a musical lover. In the first Knives Out movie, he was listening to Losing My Mind from Sondheim's Follies. Not going left. And in Glass Onion, he was playing Among Us with Sondheim himself. Sorry, Blanc, you're thrown out of the airlock. It's a no-brainer. Cats might be a bit of a step down, but he's in a stressful situation, so we'll cut him some slack. When Blanc and Jud arrive at the murder scene at Dr. Natt's house, we see that Martha has staged wicks in Nats' bodies and a dark echo of baptism.

Judd insists that he must confess to the crimes that he believes he's committed, saying, I have to do it of my own free will or won't mean anything. As Judd tries to confess to the flock and Geraldine, Blanc interrupts rather dramatically. I'm sorry. He's really on an Andrew Lloyd-Weber kick. Blanc has trouble getting everyone's attention until he climbs the pulpit. and shouts at them all. And behold the wickedness and shame of the guilty, laid bare before you all.

He uses the symbolic capital of the church in order to gain authority in this space, and it works instantly. Everyone is placed just as they were on the day of Wix's murder, with Blanc taking the place of Wix himself. And now it's time for the classic Benoit Blanc parlor room scene, a staple of every one of the classic mysteries that Ryan Johnson is pulling influences from. But this one, as we'll soon see, goes a little differently. But before we get to that, let's do a quick rundown of the mystery itself. Martha put Dr. Nat's drugs in Wix's flask, tranquilizing him as soon as he drank it. She and Nat also had not one, but two wolfheads from the devil bar. One was thrown into the church by Judd, which Martha

found, and the other was presumably taken from the bar beforehand. Martha sewed one wolf to the back of Wilkes's robes with some remote-controlled blood capsules, which Nat activated when Wix collapsed. Then, when Nat urged Judd to step away from the body, Martha distracted everyone so Nat could do some sleight of hand and actually stab wicks with the second wolf's head attached to a knife. He also palmed the first wolf's head that was sewn to the robe. The wolf is a biblical symbol for deceivers who harm the flock. The two wolf's heads also represented this entire time. There has been not one killer, a but too. Dr. Nat was supposed to remove the drug flask, but Judd got to it first. The flask was later stolen from his room, likely by Martha to hide the evidence of the crime.

Before Blanc can reveal Martha's involvement to any of the flock, a holy light shines through the window. As we've mentioned previously, this is Blanc's own Damascus moment when he says, I cannot solve this case. He doesn't mean literally, he's already solved it. He realizes that the right thing to do is to not do what he's always done, reveal the mystery and ablaze of glory. Instead, he needs to give grace to the wicked and allow her to confess herself. This also coincides with the very moment that he sees her touch her lips.

I knew when I saw her lips, it was already too late. And therefore, the moment that he realizes that she has already taken the poison and is, about to die. This lack of immediate resolution is frustrating both for the audience who's been waiting for the answer and for the flock. But Blanc has learned a little bit from Father Judd. He's willing to accept the anger directed at him in order to do a good deed for someone else, even somebody who might not deserve it. Grace for my enemy. Martha reveals she saw Prentice swallow the gem that was the whole of his wealth, his Eve's apple. This killed him but kept it away from his daughter. Grace knew the wealth

was hidden somewhere and so she tore the church apart and died looking for it. Martha, burdened by guilt, finally confessed all of this to Wix's. But instead of acting in a priestly way, Wix decided to take the gym for himself and burn the church in its flock behind him. Martha idolized Prentice, who died to keep the evil of wealth away from the world. When she realized that Wix was going to abandon Christ and seek his own greed, she decided that he had to die. She also wanted to save the church by raising Wix up as a resurrected saint, as Blanc pointed out earlier. I had to look at the myth that was being constructed. Sam made a breakaway coffin so that they could hide Wix's body and disguise Sam as Wix, to perfectly stage the resurrection for the cameras

that Sam himself had installed earlier. We even see the breakaway side of the coffin when Blanc investigates the tomb earlier in the movie. Dr. Nat and Sam should have been able to run away and destroy the jewel and Wix's real body. Cameras would show Sam encountering Wix, who would then disappear back into heaven. A miracle. However, Nat gave him to greed himself. The corrupting influence of Eves Apple was too strong. He killed Sam and tried to kill Martha just to keep the jewel. Martha, however, saw through it. Unknown to Dr. Nat, she already knew that he'd killed Sam. She swapped their cups when he wasn't looking,

and so Nat drank the poison that he'd intended for her. What in the world can that be? What? Where? After confessing, Martha says, I have topped it all off with a real doozy. She is referring to taking her own life, which is a mortal sin in the Catholic Church as life is a gift from God. As she dies, Judd encourages Martha to see the truth in the matter of Grace and Prentice.

Rather than the harlot horror she's always been known to be, Grace was a woman who was kept trapped by her father in shame, who just wanted a way out of her miserable life surrounded by judgment. In the end, even Martha realizes this. Martha finally accepts Judd as the true holy man that he's been all along. You're really good at this. Judd grants her absolution as she dies, freeing her from her burdens. Martha lets her hatred go, and in doing so, lets Eve's apple go. She says earlier,

Christ himself could resist temptation. And so it's fitting that in the end, the gym goes to, to the most Christ-like figure in the movie, Father Judd, who is able to resist its temptations. This jewel could also represent the apple of discord from Greek mythology. This was a golden apple that was gifted at a wedding by Eris, the goddess of discord, and which caused a conflict between the goddesses, Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite, the goddesses of marriage, warfare, and love. These three goddesses could be represented by the three murders.

Hera, as Dr. Nat, who committed the murders to try to salvage his marriage, Athena as Monsignor Wix, who saw himself as a warrior of the church, and Aphrodite as Sam, who died for the sake of his love for Martha. As Judd narrates the ending, we hear a cello rendition of simple gifts, a hymn about the merits of a simple life. Jud is somebody who sees these merits, which is why he chose to not use the gym for personal gain, but to instead be the simple priest that he always wanted to be.

Judd welcomes his first churchgoers as the church reopens, and we see that he's redecorated the church with banners of the dove of peace and flowers. There is a stark visual difference between the bright, warm light of Judd's church and the harsh, austere atmosphere of wickses. And of course, he's restored the crucifix with Eve's apple now protected from the temptation of man. Metaphorically, Jesus has taken the sin of this church into himself. And Judd also gets the last laugh on sigh when he tells him, Your real inheritance is in Christ. Well, guys, that's all the Easter eggs and hidden symbolism we found in Wake Up Dead Man. Huge shout out to Harriet Lingle Inright who wrote this video. She did a fantastic

job. Her links are below. And a huge thank you to our lead editor, Randolph Numbrado, for all of his observations and his links are below. What did you think of the movie. Do you have any more questions? Let us know down in the comments or you can at me on Twitter, Blue Sky Threads, or are free to join Discord server. And if it's your first time here, please subscribe, smash that bell for alerts. For Screen Crush, I'm Ryan Erie.