Knives out real killer and ending explained (in detail)

Rian Johnson’s twisty murder mystery Knives Out Has a lot of surprises, and the Knives Out The ending reveals the true tragedy behind the death of famous author Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer). The film stars Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc, a private investigator hired to investigate Harlan’s apparent suicide after a birthday party at his home. In the course of the film, Benoit discovers that every member of Harlan’s family has a motive to kill him – whether it was covering a secret affair or securing a stake in his enormous fortune.

While each of them is guilty of one sin or another, only one of them actually planned to kill Harlan: his grandson, Hugh Ransom Drysdale (Chris Evans). The revelation in the US Knives Out The ending comes from flashbacks and some twists and turns over the final act of the movie. Just as Rian Johnson sets up a twisty murder mystery Knives OutHe does the same in his sequel, Glass Bulb: A Mystery of News OutBut the twist-heavy final act remains the most talked about. Since the final act moves along at a rapid pace, things can get confusing

What actually happens in the knives out end

Ransom is seized and Martha is innocent

In the third act, Martha visits Fran, who knows that Ransom is the murderer and has a photocopy of Harlan’s blood test to prove that he is not innocent. Fran is dying when Martha finds her, and the nurse is obviously set up by the real killer. Afraid that she is causing more deaths, Martha confesses to accidentally injecting Harlan with morphine to blank, and Fran is rushed to the hospital. Marta almost confesses everything to the Thrombey family too, but after seeing the blood test, Blanc realizes that Marta is innocent.

What follows is a classic murder mystery ending, as the already iconic Benoit Blanc expertly deduces everything that happened during the night of Harlan’s death, including Ransom returning to the house, climbing the trellis and switching the medication. After it is all laid out in front of him and Martha lies about France’s survival, Ransom confesses, believing that he is going down due to France’s testimony.

however, It is revealed that Fran has died, but Marta recorded the monologue on her phone. After a failed attempt to kill Marta, Ransom is taken into custody, and Marta takes the keys to the mansion and everything else Harlan owns.

Harlan’s Death In Knives Out Explained

Harlan kills himself to protect Martha

Rian Johnson surprises audiences by showing how Harlan died very early in Knives Out. Harlan is given his nighttime medication by his nurse, Marta (Ana de Armas) when the medication wears off. Marta picks up the vials but after giving Harlan the injections, realizes that she switched the vials and accidentally gave him a lethal dose of morphine. To make matters worse, the antidote is strangely missing from her medicine bag.

Because she will be blamed for his death and her mother could be deported amid the scandal, Harlan gives Martha careful instructions to be seen leaving the house, and return later so that she can go down disguised as Harlan. This would postpone his hour of death to a time after Martha was already gone.

Before the morphine overdose can kill him, Harlan slits his own throat to make his death look like suicide rather than an accident.. However, the end of Knives Out reveals that his death was No accident. It was brought about by the actions of Ransom, who conspired to have Martha accidentally kill his grandfather.

Like the rest of his family, Ransom was cut out of Harlan’s will, which instead left everything to Martha. But if Martha proved to have murdered Harlan, the new will would have been invalidated and the fortune would have been divided between the Thrombey family – Ransom included.

How Harlan Thrombey Died (And Who Killed Him)

Why Ransom is still guilty

The literal answer to the question of What killed Harlan Trombay is that he killed himself, cutting his own throat with a knife. The tragedy of his death is that Harlan did not actually receive a morphine overdose, and there was no need for him to kill himself. Ransom planned to have Martha give Harlan the overdose by switching the labels on the medicine in her bag and then stealing the antidote so that his grandfather’s life could not be saved.

However, when the medication was accidentally knocked out, the two vials were switched again, so Marta actually gave Harlan the correct and safe doses. Throughout the film, Mart is riddled with the guilt of believing she killed Harlan through her carelessness in not checking the labels on the medicine. Instead, not checking the labels is what would have saved his life. Martha knew by the consistency of the liquids which medicine was correct, and she gave him the correct doses on instinct. As Benoit Blanc explains, she got it right despite Ransom’s tampering because Marta is a good nurse.

Although Harlan’s death was technically at his own hands, Ransom is undoubtedly to blame Knives Out ending If he hadn’t switched the labels on the medicine, Marta would never have believed that she had accidentally given Harlan a morphine overdose.And Harlan would never kill himself to cover for her. But even if Ransom was only guilty of attempted murder against Harlan, he seals his fate by killing Fran to try to cover his tracks.

Ransom’s Plan & Fran’s Murder

Ransom’s original plan to kill Harlan was changed

Ransom’s original plan was simple. On the night of Harlan’s death, after storming out over the will change, he returned to the house and climbed up the trellis to avoid being spotted. He changed the labels on the medicine in Martha’s bag and took the antidote for a morphine overdose. He then went back down the trellis but was spotted by Harlan’s mother, Greatnanna Wanetta (K Callan) Ransom, then snuck back into the house during Harlan’s funeral, when he knew it would be empty, to switch everything in the Medicine bag back and avoid suspicion. .

Ransom anonymously hired Benoit to investigate Harlan’s death, believing that Benoit’s detective skills would identify Marta as the killer. This plan failed in three ways. The first was that Fran (Eddie Patterson), the housekeeper, saw Ransom tampering with the medicine bag for the second time and realized that something was up. The second was that Ransom couldn’t possibly predict that the medicine vials would be knocked out and that Martha would mix them all by herself. The third was Harlan’s decision to kill himself to ensure that Martha would not get into trouble.

After Martha “confessed” to Ransom that she killed Harlan, Ransom realized that Harlan’s murder could be discovered when Harlan’s blood tests turned out to be perfectly normal, showing no morphine overdose. The death would be ruled a suicide, Martha would receive Harlan’s fortune, and Ransom would receive nothing. To ensure that the blood test results could not clear Martha’s name, Ransom burned down the laboratory where the tests took place. However, there was another fly in the ointment: Fran

Fran took the medicine bag from the crime scene and sent Ransom a photo of the blood test, revealing that she had her own copy, with the warning “I know what you did”, and instructions to come see her. He sent the note to Martha so that she would believe that she was being threatened with a blood test that showed a morphine overdose. Ransom emailed Martha to come to the meeting yet The originally designated period. He meets Fran first, gives her a fatal morphine overdose and sets Marta to find her.

Why Ransom’s plan failed

Marta’s Genuine Goodness Foiled Ransom

The new plan also went sideways. Fran initially survived the overdose, waking up when Martha found her and told her, “Yu has it“Martha didn’t hear that.”You have that,” after assuming that the blood test showed a morphine overdose and that Fran accuses her of killing Harlan. However, Instead of letting Fran die, Marta called an ambulance to take her to the hospital. She then confessed to Benoit, accepting her fate, and showed him France’s secret stash in the Thrombey mansion, where the copy of the blood test was hidden.

Before Marta could confess to the family, Benoy looked at the blood sample and realized that Marta was innocent. The Knives Out The end then becomes a classic murder mystery accusation scene. Benoit directs every member of the family except Ransom to leave the drawing room and lays out all the clues to Ransom’s completely twisted scheme from start to finish.

Martha receives a call from the hospital and triumphantly tells Ransom that Fran survived and will be able to testify. Believing that he is anyway, Ransom admits his crimes. Marta reveals that she was recording him, Fran actually died of the overdose, and Marta tricks Ransom into confessing.

The real meaning of knives out’s the end

Marta’s triumph over the Thrombey family is a satisfying ending

Despite the grim subject matter and tragic nature of Harlan’s death, the Knives Out The end has an optimistic outlook. Marta escapes being framed for Harlan’s murder and going to prison because, ultimately, she is a good person. She first tried to cover up how Harlan died less to protect herself, and more to protect her family and carry out Harlan’s last instructions.

However, she was wracked with guilt over the cover-up and decided it was too far once someone got hurt. Had Martha Fran been allowed to die and chosen not to confess to Daniel Krag’s Benoit Blanc, Ransom would have gotten away with everything. Martha’s inherent goodness is symbolized by the fact that she cannot tell a lie without vomiting. Her humility is in stark contrast with the spoiled and entitled Trombay family.

Knives Out Takes aim at the idea of ​​privileged white people considering themselves to be “self-made” despite relying on inherited wealth and family connections for their success. Walt (Michael Shannon) runs the family publishing company but was given the job by his father. Harlan’s daughter-in-law Joni (Toni Collette) has been sponge off him for years. Meg (Katherine Langford) is outwardly progressive and feminist and pretends to be a friend to Marta, but with a little nudge is ready to manipulate her.

When the Thrombeys find out that Harlan has left his entire fortune to Martha, they are outraged, feeling that something has been stolen from them. However, Harlan’s wealth was never theirs to begin with. Harlan chose to leave his fortune to Martha because she was kind to him without an agenda, and she had worked hard her whole life for very little reward.

In pitting MRT against the thrombi, the Knives Out Endless challenges the idea of ​​inherited wealth and entitlement. All Marta has to do to avoid these plans is to be what she already is: a good nurse and a good person.

How the end of the knives was obtained

Knives out finds a new way to trick the audience

When it comes to building a satisfying murder mystery movie, the ending and the discovery of the killer is essential. Knives Out is considered one of the best murder mystery movies ever made, which speaks to how effective the ending is. One of the elements that makes a good mystery ending is that it’s something the audience understands after something they didn’t predict.

Modern audiences love to try and solve the mystery themselves and have countless other movies of the genre to draw from to predict the killer. however, Knives Out Brilliantly finds a way to prevent the audience from guessing by seemingly presenting the identity of the killer in the first act of the movie. Redditor Marineman43 admitted that the early Russians worked on them while giving an intriguing new approach to the genre:

The “reveal” of Marta as the killer so early in the movie was intriguing and a cool direction for the genre. Managed to actually misdirect me for a while, as I began to think the rest of the entire movie would be about her subtly sabotaging the investigation to avoid suspicion.

Throwing the audience off the chase for a killer allowed the truth about Ransom to be more of a fun twist. Had Martha not been revealed as the supposed killer early on, Ransom would have been the most likely suspect. However, when he is suddenly revealed to be the real villain of the story, clues suddenly fall into place. This is the kind of movie that audiences can rewatch over and over and find new clues each time.

Watching Benoit Blanc put all the pieces together and discover the truth is a very entertaining moment that helps cement him as one of the best movie detectives. However, the ending also works so well because of the victory it means for Marta, a character who made mistakes but proved throughout the movie that she is a good person.

How the glass bulb mystery compares to the knives out murder

The Benoit Blanc Mysteries continue

The first Knives Out Movie and the Glass bulb Sequel Both have a murder mystery in which everything is not what it seems in the end, but the approach to the mysteries is very different. The humor in both movies is part of that. in Glass bulbThe humor is more over the top, allowing the mystery to appear more simplistic than that of Knives Out. While the audience is busy paying attention to the larger-than-life performances and jokes, they miss the small details.

Both use the juxtaposition of flashbacks with the present moment. The women at the center of these mysteries are both calm and controlled as the truth slowly unravels before them, but the real truth is that none of them are truly calm. Marta finds herself vomiting every time she tries to lie and always afraid that her family will pay for her crime.

Glass bulb Helen as Andi (Janelle Monáe) runs around in a panic trying not to be discovered. She manages to do this until the truth is finally revealed, only then allowing herself to explode. Which leads to a literal explosion, making Glass bulb End much bigger than that of Knives Out.

The mystery and the clues laid out in Glass bulb They are a little more streamlined than the ones in the first Knives Out Movie as well. While Knives Out Had to repeatedly fall back on his own mystery to give the audience all the pieces, this is not the case with Glass bulb. Regardless, both these Knives Out End and the Glass bulb Endings are satisfying conclusions for the main characters and the audience.