Wake Up Dead Man Ending Explained: When a priest is murdered under mysterious circumstances, Benoir Blanc is called in to investigate. However, he finds a whodunit that leaves him completely shocked.
Wake Up Dead Man Movie Cast
Daniel Craig, Josh O’Connor, Glenn Close, Josh Brolin, Mila Kunis, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott, Cailee Spaeny, Daryl McCormack
Wake Up Dead Man Netflix Writer and Director
Rian Johnson
Original Title
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
The film, the third instalment of the Knives Out franchise, has a runtime of 146 minutes.
Wake Up Dead Man Ending Explained
The mystery of this whodunit surrounds the murder of Jefferson Wicks, a charismatic yet divisive priest who leads a rural parish in upstate New York. His teaching style doesn’t invoke faith from the higher-ups, as he is rude, angry and rigid and arouses distrust among parishioners. Reverend Jud Duplenticy is assigned to the parish, and he instantly takes a dislike to the way he runs the church.
However, things take a head when, during Good Friday service, Wicks is found dead in a small closet with a knife fashioned like a devil-head ornament lodged in his back. The crime is baffling since it was a closed and locked closet, and the crime took place in front of several different people. It seems impossible, and so Benoit Blanc is brought in to shed some light on the matter.
Who killed Wicks?
Towards the end of the runtime, Blanc figures out what had actually happened to Wicks and to the groundskeeper, Samson. As it turns out, this started with Wicks’s grandfather hiding away a priceless jewel in his mausoleum that only Martha knew the location of. She had kept this secret hidden from everyone, fearing that people would fall into temptation, but accidentally let it slip to Wicks.
Blinded by greed, he tried to get the stone for himself, and Martha had to step in to stop him. Well, that and the fact that he threatened to expose everyone. She took the help of Dr Nat and Samson to create a mystery surrounding Wicks’s death – an impossible end that can only be explained as god’s work and one that will restore people’s faith in the church. She had also planned for Wicks to come back from the dead with Samson and Nat’s help, getting rid of Wicks’s body in Nat’s basement.
How did the seemingly perfect murder plan go wrong?
What Martha didn’t take into account was the fact that Nat would also give in to temptation, resulting in him killing Samson and trying to murder Martha to get the stone. Thankfully, Martha already realised what was happening and turned his poisoning scheme on him and killed him instead.
Are the guilty party caught?
With Samson and Nat dead, Martha decides to confess to her crimes, but in a shocking twist, it is revealed that she, too, took the poison that killed Nat, giving everyone the solution and getting the peace that she desperately wanted before dying.
What happens in the end?
In the end, Jud takes the diamond from Martha and hides it in plain sight so that no one else can use it to their advantage. In the end, justice is served, but the closure feels uneasy and heartbreaking as it highlights how everyone is after getting a share of what might not belong to them.
What are your thoughts on Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery? Let us know in the comments below!
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