The Case That Changed Benoit Blanc Forever

Analyzing Wake Up Dead Man’s secret weapon

The third installment of the beloved yet not quite mainstream Knives Out franchise, Wake Up Dead Man, came out worldwide on December the 12th of last year to critical acclaim and love. However, many fans of the films rated it the last in the trilogy upon release and still do to this very day. I have often wondered why. After many hours of pondering, I think I finally understand.

Wake Up Dead Man breaks the conventions that the two previous films established, the things we come to expect from a Knives Out entry. In a way, it stops being about the whodunnit of it all, the thing that is at the very core of the franchise.

But, to me, that’s what makes it the fucking best.

Father Jud settles in Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude

The film revolves around Father Jud, played by the wonderful Josh O’Connor, who, after punching a Deacon in the face, is forced to move to a little town called Chimney Rock in Upstate New York. The church is lead by Father– Monsignor, sorry. Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin), a controversial priest whose constant anger at the “Marxist-whorish” state of the world poisons the minds of those who follow him, his flock. Jud comes to realize how much Wicks is ruining the forgotten catholic values he believes in and creates a countermeasure: his own prayer group. This fails, of course, and Wicks finds out, leading to a huge confrontation with Jud. Come Holy Week, the tensions are sky high, and Wicks’s Holy Friday sermon is intense but frantic and nonsensical, at least at the time. He grows tired after shouting for multiple minutes and enters the church backroom to rest.

And then, before you can say Harlot Whore, he’s dead on the ground. And everyone thinks Jud did it.

Jud spends 24 hours being questioned, sleep-deprived, and, most of all, feeling guilt at this simple fact: he is glad Wicks is dead. He begs Jesus to guide him and show him the way. And then, Jud’s saving grace enters: Benoit Blanc, played by everyone’s favorite Gay4Pay actor Daniel Craig.

Benoit Blanc enters the story when Father Jud needs it the most

As opposed to its entertaining and hilarious 2022 predecessor, Glass Onion, Wake Up Dead Man doesn’t spend that much time with Benoit. We see him for the first time after spending almost a whole hour with Jud alone. However, this doesn’t mean he becomes secondary, not at all. Matter of fact, the detective is at his most interesting in this installment.

As Benoit steps in, so does the light. He is the key to proving Jud’s innocence and getting his life back. When the two first meet, they have a deep discussion about religion, faith, and the storytelling that comes with both of those. Benoit has a darker perspective on the matter, and why wouldn’t he? He’s a canonically gay man who implies his very religious mother didn’t agree with his lifestyle when she was alive. Johnson, all throughout the three films, has managed to say a lot about Blanc with so very little, miraculously making him a fully fleshed out character with these tiny details. Somehow, they’re enough.

There’s only a few things we actually know about the detective: he fights for justice and the innocent, his father was a detective just like him, he needs his job just as much as it needs him, he has a lover played by Hugh Grant, and he loves musicals. Truly the perfect man.

With these small details in mind, his monologue to Jud carries an overwhelming, potent weight. There’s passion in his disdain for the church and he has every right to feel that way. Yet this passion is… disarmed minimally by Jud himself, who agrees with his point but offers an insight: What if the storytelling at the center of religion is something that is needed, a craving that satisfies the hunger of the human soul?

And Benoit, whose competence is one of the main traits that make him such a likable character, is rendered speechless. He has no counter-argument. One of the smartest men in the world has nothing to say back. He is hit by Jud’s light and smiles a bit, almost seeming impressed by his wit being returned. This interested me during my first watch, and the feeling deepened the more I watched the film. There was a magnetism to it, but my attraction didn’t have a name. Not yet.

Benoit Blanc meets his match in an unlikely place

As the story progresses, so does the relationship and dynamic between Jud and Benoit. You come to find out that this very Knives Out team-up feels different. Benoit is no longer a mentor like he was with Marta and especially Helen. He is on Jud’s level, he is his equal in every meaning of the word. Daniel and Rian, while they were developing the film, reached this conclusion: the more Jud and Benoit differed in opinion, the better the film would be. And what makes it truly click is that, despite their differences, there’s a mutual respect and even love for each other.

Benoit and Jud play dumb together

Benoit and Jud become so close in such a short period of time that they end up challenging each other on more than one occasion. This friction between them works as well as it does because we haven’t seen it before. That’s what’s so attractive about it. Benoit is a composed man who’s always one step ahead of everyone, and in this film, that also happens to be true. But Jud shines a light on him that makes him lose his composure and question himself.

Wait, what? The great detective isn’t all that great? How is that possible?

Wake Up Dead Man is in a constant conversation with the other two films. It could never be the first or the second because, otherwise, it would lose its meaning altogether. It needed to be the third, but why exactly?

An angry Grace is determined to ransack the church

One of the very first things a screenwriter thinks through in the early stages of developing a script is this: What are you trying to say?

This is what we call the thesis statement, the message for the audience to leave with once the credits roll. In 2022’s The Batman, it’s all about vengeance being a neverending, meaningless road. In 2025’s Superman, it’s about kindness in the face of cruelty. How do these messages stick to the landing as well as they do? They have the protagonist, sure, but the real glue is their relationship with the antagonist, and what the latter represents. It’s a shadow, the hero with a negative filter. Batman chooses to let go of vengeance, while Riddler is consumed by it. Superman pushes through every fight with kindness and love, and Luthor fails because he holds none of said feelings.

“Vengeance won’t change the past, mine or anyone else’s. I have to become more.”

And this is also the case for Jud and his foil, Wicks, who is there to represent the question that the film’s secret weapon answers during the last twenty minutes of its runtime. Jud’s first conversation with Wicks tells you all you need to know about him: he’s envious, he lusts after power, and he’s a jerk-off. All the things Jud is not, and his goodness shines against Wicks’s evil nature.

But what if there’s more than just Wicks who showcases the film’s anti-thesis? What if Jud has another foil who isn’t the killer and the one murdered? One who spends more time with him than any other character in the film?

Jefferson Wicks marks his territory

There’s this incredible sequence that comes right after the gasp-inducing conversation between Jud and Louise. One where Benoit endlessly chases after Jud, who announces that he has chosen to quit trying to find the killer to focus on his true purpose: being a priest. This upsets Blanc, a new thing to the audience. The two engage in a heated debate and, for the first time in the entire franchise, our beloved detective gets called the fuck out.

Very early on in the second act, Benoit talks about the one moment where he takes the stage and unravels his opponent’s web. He calls these moments fun, and he’s not wrong. These takedowns are one of the highlights of the films and people look forward to them. One might even say they’re an iconic aspect of not only the Knives Out films but the mystery genre as a whole.

Enter… Benoit Blanc!

It’s Competency Porn at its finest, an itch-scratcher —

An itch-scratcher? Where have I heard that before? Huh…

Don’t these takedowns remind you of something else? Someone else? Someone in the film who is not a very good person?

Wake Up Dead Man feels so different because it proposes this crazy fucking idea: what if this perfect, clever character you love so much is wrong?

After Jud criticizes his methods, his games, Blanc keeps chasing after him. And, for one moment, it stops being about the murder. Benoit is desperate to understand something he doesn’t know. A thing Jud does. But Jud rejects him, once again challenging him and rendering him speechless. Jud… has an effect on Blanc. Jud inspires him to change. Benoit freaking Blanc is hit with something none of us saw coming: a character arc.

Father Jud does what no one has done so far in the franchise: Call out our beloved detective

Knives Out has character arcs, don’t get me wrong. Marta goes from being helpless and naive to advocating for herself and becoming a fundamental piece that leads to Ransom’s arrest, and the humble Helen goes on a journey that ends in confidence and power. But Mr. Benoit Blanc is there to be gay, smart, and shut everyone up. His character moves alongside the plot, not alongside an arc. Benoit doesn’t change, and there is nothing wrong with that. There are plenty of phenomenal characters who are static, who never truly change but work as a path for other characters to do so. This is distinctly the case for longer works, Sherlock Holmes being an excellent example.

This is the status quo of the Knives Out films. Of course the film that questions it would not be as liked as the previous installments. Blanc showcases layered vulnerability and flaws in this one, and it can feel weird upon first watch. That, I do understand.

But the beauty of this challenge of what was once known to be the truth truly reveals itself in the third act. After the death of Samson (Thomas Haden Church) Jud is convinced he killed him due to a hallucination that ended with him waking up holding the murder weapon which was still attached to Sam’s dead body. Benoit, whose faith in Jud is unbreakable, tries to stop him from confessing to the murder through various methods, including dramatically playing a Phantom of The Opera tune on the church organ. Probably the gayest thing he has ever done.

Benoit’s theatricality scares the shit out of everyone

When this doesn’t work, Benoit stands on Wicks’s old stage and begins his takedown. Or, at least, some of it. He demands silence and to be listened to. He walks the characters through what actually happened with Wicks’s murder. And it’s sexy, and awesome, and you can’t take your eyes off him. But when we get to who killed Nat (Jeremy Renner), Benoit walks off the boat-shaped pedestal, smiling proudly. He is ready to deliver his final blow, to embarrass his opponent.

But that moment never happens.

Let’s go back to Jud and Benoit’s fight sequence once more. Jud mentions that, after his conversation with Louise, he had a Road to Damascus moment. This means, essentially, that he had a moment of profound realization, in his case, being that he “wasted” his time with Benoit when he should have been helping people who need it, like Louise.

The scene is dark and gloomy, which not only represents a kind of ending to the budding relationship between Jud and Benoit, but to showcase a moment of doubt and uncertainty. Not for Jud, who knows what he has to do at the moment. But for Benoit. Jud leaves him quite literally in the dark. When Jud exits, so does the light.

Benoit Blanc is too stunned to speak which is very rare for him

Benoit was, from the very beginning, the light that would guide Jud to victory. But what if it’s also the case the other way around? What if Jud is the light that guides Benoit not only to victory, but to improve? Not as a detective, but as a human being?

It’s obvious to even the casual viewer that light is very important in the film. And this element is played with in the scenes I just mentioned and so many more. It represents faith, hope, and, most importantly, Jud. The true meaning of the values of the Catholic Church, of compassion and the strength of it. It’s sincerity versus cynicism. Grace versus ego. Jud versus his foils.

“Do these stories convince us of a lie? Or do they resonate with something deep inside us that’s profoundly true, that we can’t express any other way except storytelling?”

This very light leads Benoit to have his very own Road to Damascus moment. It’s the light he has been constantly met with since his first encounter with Jud, a light he has been subtly into, as he chases after it in one of the more tense sequences in the film. But now it blinds him to the point of anagnorisis.

And he doesn’t ignore it or run away from it. That would be the action of a lesser character. And this is Benoit freaking Blanc we’re talking about.

Learning from Jud’s motto to, above everything else, be kind and offer grace even to the cruelest people, Benoit willfully makes himself the fool to give grace to the real killer, Martha, played by the excellent Glenn Close. Martha confesses to everything, and, instead of a checkmate moment filled with unnecessary theatricality and self-superiority, Martha reaches her own conclusions, and turns her hatred into grace before dying in Jud’s arms. It’s the domino effect of goodness, one so strong it can even reach the unreachable and precise Benoit Blanc.

Benoit Blanc is hit with a realization

Is this a moment of shame for the character? Absolutely not, and the movie never portrays it that way. We, as human beings, are so afraid of being wrong, of not getting things right. We are stubborn creatures, we shy away from the flaws that makes us who we are. But I’ve come to understand there is strength in knowing when you’ve failed, in recognizing it, and not running away from it. True power comes when you embrace weakness, not when you’re bulletproof and untouchable.

Benoit and Jud share a hug, having changed each other’s lives forever

By challenging Benoit Blanc’s character and his most charismatic qualities, Wake Up Dead Man becomes an unforgettable installment in the beloved series. One that teaches us to give grace to ourselves and those around us, to let go of hatred, to carry on in spite of the pain. To, just like Benoit Blanc, face yourself when you’re wrong, and let your ego die.

As the great detective proved in the film, you will be much better for it.