A Knives Out Mystery – The Movie Spoiler

NOTE: This spoiler was submitted by Jeremy

The film starts with Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) reading a letter from Father Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor), a former boxer-turned-preacher. Jud goes back to the start of his story, where he got in trouble for punching out a rude deacon at his former church. While Bishop Langstrom (Jeffrey Wright) thinks Jud was in the right for hitting that guy, he has Jud sent to Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude in Chimney Rock to avoid trouble.

Jud begins his tenure as a preacher under Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin), the much beloved preacher of the church. They start by having Wicks confess to Jud, which just involves Jud having to hear how many times Wicks has masturbated recently. Wicks is helped by his devoted right-hand woman, Martha Delacroix (Glenn Close), who knew Wicks’ grandfather, Prentice (James Faulkner) and is married to the kindly groundskeeper Samson (Thomas Haden Church). Through Martha, Jud learns about Wicks’ mother Grace (Annie Hamilton), referred to as “The Harlot Whore” for her less-than-orthodox lifestyle. When Prentice died, Grace inherited his estate, which left her with absolutely nothing except for a box etched with “Eve’s Apple” containing a Christ figurine. She trashed the church in a rage and attacked a young Martha before dying of a brain aneurysm in front of her father’s tomb.

Jud’s letter mentions how Wicks’ sermons were filled with hate and rage against newcomers, prompting many people to walk out, but only a select few, his “flock”, have stuck around. Jud describes each of the members he deems a suspect – Vera Draven (Kerry Washington) is a lawyer whose father was Wicks’ attorney/drinking buddy. She has had to help raise her illegitimate brother, Cyrus/”Cy” (Daryl McCormick), a wannabe conservative YouTuber. There is also Dr. Nat Sharp (Jeremy Renner), whose wife leaving him caused him to sink into alcoholism. Lee Ross (Andrew Scott) is a well-known sci-fi writer who has wanted to branch out from his regular fanbase (paranoid conspiracy theorists) by writing a book about Wicks. The last member is a young cellist named Simone Vivane (Cailee Spaeny), who had to retire due to chronic pain and joined Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude under the belief that Wicks can cure her pain. Jud attempted to gather the flock for a private session away from Wicks, but they all felt uncomfortable with it, and it made Wicks angry.

Jud eventually confronts Wicks over the way he handles his sermons and how he is manipulating people like Simone for his gain. Wicks responds by hitting Jud and trying to get him to hit him back. Jud simply tells Wicks that he will find a way to get rid of him and “cut him out like a cancer”. The confrontation is recorded by Cy. Later, Jud comes upon Wicks meeting with the flock privately, and Wicks throws a Bible at him to make him leave.

On Good Friday, Wicks is giving his usual sermon before retreating to a room in the pulpit where he re-energizes while Jud takes over. Jud then hears a clattering and thudding sound, and sees Wicks has collapsed. The flock walks over and sees Wicks’ body, with something sticking out of his back. Nat investigates and declares Wicks dead with a knife in his back. Martha immediately accuses Jud of murder.

Chief Geraldine Scott (Mila Kunis) is brought in to investigate. She shows Jud the video of his and Wicks’s confrontation that was uploaded by Cy, making him the prime suspect in Wicks’s murder. Geraldine brings Blanc in after being referred to him by Lieutenant Elliott (from the first movie). After talking to Jud, Blanc agrees to help him solve the murder.

Blanc, Jud, and Geraldine start by investigating the murder weapon, a knife with a devil head that is recognized as coming from a lamp at a bar, but the devil head handle had been painted red, according to the bar owner Nikolai (Noah Segen). At the bar, Jud recognizes that Nat is there, already drunk and accusing him of killing Wicks. The trio also look into the room in the pulpit, and, after Jud talks to Samson about a game that was going on at the same time as the sermon, they conclude that something went off with a remote at the time of Wicks’s death.

Blanc makes Jud write the letter describing everything and everyone, and Blanc confronts Jud with the fact that he left out his knowledge of Wicks being a drinker. At the time of his death, Jud concealed a flask from the flock when they found his body, and he later hid the flask. When Jud tries to find it, it’s gone.

After Wicks’s body is placed alongside Prentice in the crypt, Blanc and Jud go to confront the flock. Cy reveals he recorded their meeting with Wicks during Palm Sunday when Jud walked in on them, but the rest of the flock scrambles to stop the two from seeing the video until they lock themselves in Wicks’s office with Cy. The video reveals that Vera confronted Wicks with the truth about Cy, that Wicks is his biological father and the heir to his estate. Wicks had recently found his grandfather’s $80 million fortune, Eve’s Apple, and he and Cy had been conspiring to work together to get into politics. Additionally, Wicks had torn down everyone in the flock for various reasons – Nat for practicing medicine while drunk, Lee for his atrocious writing, Vera for being “her father’s nightmare”, and he mocks Simone for sinking her savings into the church over thinking Wicks would cure her pain.

Blanc and Jud look into the Eve’s Apple box that Martha had, but nothing in it indicates that it’s worth anything. Jud also looks over the documents for when the forklift to open the crypt would arrive, and the order was made two days before Wicks’s death. He calls the company to find out who made the order and speaks to a representative, Louise (Bridget Everett), who agrees to get the info he needs, but she also tearfully asks Jud to pray for her and her mother, who has a terminal brain tumor and spent their last encounter arguing. Jud agrees.

Jud becomes tired with the case and tells Blanc he wants to get out of it and focus on his ministry since Blanc is so drawn to the murder, as well as the Eve’s Apple mystery. He also tells Blanc about how he had killed a man in the ring during his time as a boxer, and he admits that he hated the man and killed him with hatred. Blanc is then met by Geraldine, who says that it took nine seconds for the flock to see Wicks’s body after Jud was in the room with him, giving him enough time to put the knife in Wicks’s back.

Jud goes to tend to the rectory as it is raining, and he sees what looks like Wicks rising from the tomb, alive. He then attacks a cloaked figure with a lantern. Jud rushes to see what is going on and he gets knocked out. When he comes to, he finds that he is holding a sickle in Samson’s chest, who is now dead. Jud runs for his life, while Blanc and Geraldine come upon the open crypt. Wicks’s body is not there, but Prentice’s long-decayed corpse remains. Martha is praising Wicks’s supposed resurrection until she learns of Samson’s death. She wails at the sight of his body and declares Jud to be the murderer. In the woods, Jud gets a call from Louise, who confirms that Wicks called for the forklift.

Martha calls the flock to witness the “miracle”, while Geraldine reviews security footage outside the crypt. It shows “Wicks” emerging from the crypt and seemingly attacking Samson, followed by Jud sliding down the hill moments later. Blanc catches Jud preparing to turn himself in since he really believes he killed Samson, but Blanc hurries him out so that they can solve the case at last. Upon further inspection of the picture at the bar, where the devil head handle was taken, Blanc and Jud see that a second lamp was missing a head.

Blanc and Jud go to Nat’s house to ask him what happened. They find that a struggle had broken out, and they go to the basement to investigate a foul smell. They find Wicks’s body, very much dead, with his arms burnt off in an acid tub. After draining the tub, Blanc and Jud discover Nat’s dissolved corpse.

Blanc and Geraldine gather the flock in the morning at the church, where Jud is preparing to let himself get arrested. Blanc stops Geraldine from taking him in as he elaborates that Nat was the one who put the knife in Wicks’s back after he had his flask spiked with pentobarbital. The devil head on the back of Wicks’s robes was already sewn in, but Nat took that one out and put the knife in there after he activated a squib to go off after Wicks had passed out. When it comes time for Blanc to solve the whole case, he claims he is ultimately unable to do so, and the congregation leaves.

Geraldine gets ready to arrest Jud for Samson’s murder, until Blanc says that the real killer will reveal themselves. And indeed, the killer walks in to reveal themselves to be…MARTHA! Blanc allows her to confess, as he had figured out it was her earlier. Martha explains that Eve’s Apple is a diamond, and that Grace had originally torn the church apart looking for it, not knowing that Martha had seen Prentice swallow it, which led to his death. The young Martha even mocked Grace for it, which is why she attacked the girl. Martha had accidentally confessed to Wicks instead of Jud about the location of the diamond, which is how Wicks began his plans to spread his hate into politics. Martha used Nat and Samson to help, with Nat doing the deed, and Samson dressing himself up as Wicks to make it seem like he was resurrected. However, Nat got greedy and thought Eve’s Apple was the key to winning his wife back. He killed Samson and had planned to kill Martha when she went to his house after learning of Samson’s death. She figured out he poisoned her coffee with a fatal dose of pentobarbital, but she switched it out and let Nat drink it before dissolving his body. Martha then collapses, as she had taken the rest of the pentobarbital, which is why Blanc let her tell her side. Jud holds Martha in his arms and forgives her for her sins, and he convinces her to finally let go of her hatred for Grace before she dies, letting Eve’s Apple fall out of her hand.

Later on, the surviving characters move on – Vera closes her dad’s law firm and plans to make a new start for herself. Simone returns to playing cello and fights through the pain. Lee writes his book about Wicks, but while it’s successful, it attracts the same weirdo fanbase he was hoping to avoid. Cy is now in the same position as his father and grandmother, left with not a cent from his inheritance. He threatens to sue Blanc and Jud over the whereabouts of the diamond, but they pretend to have no idea what Martha did with it. Blanc and Jud part ways amicably.

One year later, Jud reopens the church and renames it Our Lady of Perpetual Grace. As Jud goes to greet new members, we see that he hid Eve’s Apple inside the chest of a Christ statue.

Benoit Blanc is called upon to a church to investigate the murder of Monsignor Jefferson WIcks, a well-known but corrupt preacher. Father Jud Duplenticy, a former boxer-turned-preist, is named the prime suspect after a confrontation between him and Wicks is recorded. Among the other suspects are Wicks’s right-hand woman Martha Delacroix and her husband Samson; Vera Draven and her illegitimate brother Cy, whose father was Wicks’s attorney; Dr. Nat Sharp, an alcoholic who is desperate to get his wife back; Lee Ross, a sci-fi writer hoping to boost sales with a book based off Wicks; and Simone Vivane, a cellist who had to retire due to chronic pain and is using money under the belief that Wicks will cure her pain. Blanc and Jud work with Chief Geraldine Scott to investigate.

Among the revelations made, Blanc learns that Jud knew that Wicks was an alcoholic and concealed a flask found at the murder scene from the congregation, as well as the fact that Wicks had recently learned that Cy was his illegitimate son, and, after learning the location of a long lost family fortune called “Eve’s Apple”, the two had planned to get into politics after Wicks had cruelly insulted the rest of his followers, giving them all motives. Later, it appears as though Wicks resurrects and rises from his tomb. Samson is killed, and Jud is framed due to being knocked out and waking up in front of his body. Blanc stops Jud from turning himself in.

The two investigate Nat’s home since he was at the scene where the murder weapon was taken from (a devil head handle from a bar). Nat is found dissolved in a tub of acid alongside Wicks’s corpse. Blanc later gathers everyone to deduce that Nat was the one who put the knife in Wicks’s back after poisoning his flask, but he is seemingly unable to solve the rest of the case due to the divine nature of the whole thing. This is just a ploy for the real mastermind to out themselves, and it turns out to be Martha. She accidentally told Wicks where Eve’s Apple, a diamond worth $80 million, is located, which is inside the corpse of Wicks’s grandfather Prentice. Martha conspired with Nat and Samson to kill Wicks and stage his resurrection to throw people off the murder trail by having Samson pretend to be Wicks. Unfortunately, Nat got greedy over the diamond and killed Samson, framed Jud, and then tried to kill Martha but was instead killed by her after she learned what he did to Samson. Martha had already poisoned herself before confessing, which is why Blanc let her confess, and Jud forgives her of her sins before she dies.

Most of the congregation leaves the church to do better for themselves, while Cy is left without a penny from his family fortune. Blanc and Jud part ways while Jud stays behind to run the church. It is also shown that they hid Eve’s Apple inside a Christ statue.