Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

The villain is so obvious that the title makes a Beatles reference to emphasize it.

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is a 2022 film on Netflix starring Daniel Craig as Detective Benoit Blanc. It is the sequel to Knives Out. Other actors joining the cast include Leslie Odom Jr., Janelle Monae, and Edward Norton.

A group called the Disruptors receive a puzzle box, delivered to their homes in the middle of the 2020 start of the pandemic. Entrepreneur and Alpha founder Mile Bron invites them for a vacation in Greece, where the guests will solve his murder over a fun weekend. The Disruptors include the Connecticut governor Claire Debella, fashion designer/influencer Birdie Jay and her Beleaguered Assistant Peg, Twitch MRA gamer named Duke and his girlfriend Whiskey, Miles's top physicist Dr. Lionel Toussaint, and Alpha co-founder Cassandra Brand. Everyone is surprised that Cassandra, Andi for short, showed up, because Miles recently cut her out of the company in a high-profile case.

Another surprise guest arrives: detective Benoit Blanc. The man hasn't had a case since the pandemic started, and looks forward to the challenge. He tells Miles that he received the same box and invitation, assuming that he is part of the murder mystery game. Miles, nonplussed, informs Benoit that only his friends were invited but extends Benoit a formal request to stay and have fun, since having a real detective should add to the atmosphere. Benoit relates to Miles that he finds mystery invitations suspicious, and will make sure no one dies for real. That promise breaks within a few hours, as one dead body after another piles around the fancy Glass Onion, Miles's vacation home and test subject for a new renewable fuel he calls Klear.

Every Disruptor has skeletons in their closet, it turns out, and reasons to either get rid of Miles or protect him. Andi may hold the answers about who is really in danger, but she has her own secrets to keep.

Tropes used in Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery include:

Actually Pretty Funny: Birdie squeals in delight when learning that Miles planned for her to be the murderer in their mystery game and Benoit casually returns her family diamond. In the meantime, Andi, actually Helen while disguised as her sister, looks amused the whole time especially with Miles being miffed.
An Aesop: Never underestimate the power of a simple solution. Andi, Helen in reality smashes the puzzle box in a mix of pragmatism and catharsis rather than join the Disruptors' group call. The real Andi could have leaked the real napkin to the press or showed her lawyers. While Benoit doesn't dismiss the possibility, he does say that Miles is the least likely suspect because surely no one is that stupid because killing a woman after beating her in a high-profile court case would pin the murder on Miles. Yes, Miles is that stupid.
Badass Gay: It's revealed that Benoit is either gay, pan or bi, being in a partnership with a man named Philip who is cooking when they both receive the puzzle box.
Bare Your Midriff: Whiskey exposes her belly in her primary outfit.
Bittersweet Ending: Eventually, Helen avengers her sister and Benoit uncovers the real criminal of the weekend. To do so, however, she has to destroy the Mona Lisa using Klear after Miles burns the real napkin, the only proof that she and Benoit had that Andi really created Alpha. Everyone nearly dies in the fire, and the Disruptors agree to testify against Miles for killing Andi and Duke. Whiskey is still mourning Duke, however, and the Disruptor careers are in shambles.
Brick Joke: Benoit asks politely if the winner of the murder mystery weekend gets a prize like an iPad. Everyone is surprised by the question, but Miles says that he has an iPad if anyone wins. When Benoit proceeds to solve the mystery in a matter of minutes rather than days, Miles silently and sullenly tosses him an iPad in the privacy of his Glass Onion living room.
Busman's Holiday: Benoit leaps at the opportunity to go on a vacation with a murder mystery game, hoping it will break his pandemic funk. He then fears this trope is in place when learning Miles didn't invite him, warning Miles that he has experience with anonymous invitations. Turns out he and Helen conspired to pull a Bavarian Fire Drill so they could find out who killed Andi, using his presence as a distraction.
Crazy Enough to Work: This is why Benoit proposes that Helen, to find Andi's killer, impersonates her twin sister for the island vacation. Only the killer would know that Andi died in her garage, and everyone else would not suspect that Helen would do such a thing. And it works; when Helen reveals herself after faking her death, only Miles saw through the ruse.
Do Wrong Right: Lionel is baffled that Miles kept the napkin, the proof that Andi formed Alpha. He asked why didn't Miles just burn it. Miles proceeds to do that with his lighter.
Dumb Muscle: Duke is a very stereotypical example: he looks like he took tons of steroids and can't figure out simple puzzles.
Even Evil Has Standards:
- Lionel is visibly regretful when telling Benoit about how Miles cut out Andi from Alpha. That Miles is his boss and blackmailed him to commit perjury and claim that Miles came up with the company and the napkin does not excuse that he stabbed one of his oldest friends in the back to save his job.
- The Disruptors each have morally ambiguous actions, with Birdie having the excuse of being The Ditz and Book Dumb that lead to her racially offensive mistakes. Lionel and Claire are concerned, however, about if Klear is safe given it's derived from hydrogen molecules in seawater, meaning that with improper development the gas form could turn a home into a walking explosion site. In the climax, they look downright horrified after Benoit helps them realize that Miles killed Duke that night, and the real Andi a week earlier. While they aren't willing to lie after Miles burns the napkin, and with it proof that they committed perjury, that participate in smashing his glass statues, with Lionel looking like he's feeling some catharsis. And in the end, when Helen uses the Klear crystal to blow up the Glass Onion, the Disruptors agree to testify against Miles, realizing their careers are sunk anyway by associating with him.
Everyone Has Standards:
- Whiskey actually doesn't like sexing up Miles on Duke's orders and tells Andi while they walk to the pool that she thinks Duke's politics are distasteful.
Every Man Has His Price: The basis of the Disruptors' relationship to Miles. It's revealed that while Birdie is genuinely cordial with him, most of them depend on him for their income. Lionel has the most legitimate excuse as Miles is his boss, and he fully admits to Claire that he is in too deep to seek alternate employment.
Fiction 500: The Mona Lisa is valued to be at least on the range of dozens of billions of euros. Entrepeneur Stéphane Distinguin once even proposed use it to eliminate a good part of France's ridiculously huge national debt by the late 2010s by selling it, maybe to DaVinci's Italy. The concept a billionaire could even rent it out puts his fortune's size beyond any realistic estimate.
Horrible Judge of Character:
- This is what killed Andi and cost her ownership of Alpha. The way that Helen recalls, Andi brought a group of friends together for drinks, and asked them to give Miles a chance because she felt he needed friends. Miles seemed to build their careers and brought Andi's idea of Alpha to life, but the guy is, as Benoit realizes, a "moron" when it comes to anything beyond networking and greedy. He decided to take a chance on an experimental fuel without doing the equations, something Andi did when she advised against it, and cut her out of the company when she threatened to walk, blackmailing their friends so they would commit perjury. When Andi did find the napkin, rather than either make a backup, give it to her lawyers or leak it to social media, she sent an email with a photograph of the napkin within an envelope, to give them one last chance to "Do the right thing". She was found dead shortly after; it comes out that Lionel, per his job, faxed a printout of the email to Miles. Helen rightly calls the group "shitheads" and Benoit suspects any of them could have caused Andi to overdose on sleeping pills and suffocate her in her garage.
- The Disruptors suspect something is up with Andi, but they couldn't tell her apart from her twin sister when Helen was impersonating her. Helen even lampshades that she can do Andi's "Rich Bitch" accent but not all her mannerisms. Claire was the only one who said things were not right, because of how Helen confronted them while hopped on kombucha about not responding to the email.
Hypocritical Humor: Benoit Blanc does make up words in the first movie, like "mistruthing," while pretending to be a bumbling Southern gentleman. One thing that he says clued him in to the real killer's identity was Miles using made-up words like "inbreathiate" and misusing terms like "reclamation". Miles is no genius; he's an idiot. Benoit justifies it in that he pretends to be stupid, but Miles actually is.
Irony: Despite being a Great Detective, Benoit is terrible at mystery games like Among Us and Clue. The reason is that as he explains to Helen, real-life doesn't have one person with a clear-cut motivation and a murder weapon; people are more complicated than that, which makes cases fascinating for him.
Ms. Fanservice: Being played by an attractive, young actress with a primary outfit who exposes both her legs and belly makes Whiskey those.
My God, What Have I Done?: Lionel in the climax has this expression when Benoit spells out that his faxing Miles the email that Andi sent led to Miles murdering Andi. His hand is shaking as he's reading the news on the phone about Andi's death.
No Party Given: Claire Debella is the governor of Connecticut but her party is never given.
Obfuscating Stupidity: Once again, Benoit puts on the veneer of the ignorant Southern gentleman with some pandemic stir-craziness to put the guests at ease. When Miles reveals he didn't invite Benoit, Benoit becomes serious and warns him that some foul play may occur on the island. Turns out Benoit put on this air to ensure attention would be focused on him and not Helen, since she expressed worry that she wouldn't be able to impersonate Andi correctly.
Obviously Evil: Miles' evil organization, who he calls "friends", are called "disruptors". He tries to hide his hand from Benoit by using a metaphor to portray them as rebels, but as Duke's disgusting views and past as snake oil salesman highlight, they're more about spreading chaos in a way benefits Miles than any good.
Occam's Razor: Benoit is outraged to realize that this is the answer to the case. He assumed that the killer would be brilliant in having motive, opportunity, and an alibi as well as the sense to cover their tracks. Miles had only the first two; Whiskey destroys his alibi by revealing he gave her a necklace for her birthday in New York two weeks ago, around the time Andi was murdered, and if Andi hadn't been a black woman, Miles would be the first suspect since they were both subject in a high-profile court case and her last email implicated him. A smart man would have called her bluff and kept lawyering up, but Miles Bron is an idiot who believes his money and the court will protect him. An autopsy of Duke's body would also reveal that he died from his pineapple allergy, and Miles doesn't have one.
Once More, with Clarity: When the Miles and Whiskey's scene is replayed, it is shown Duke was not annoyed at the cheating, but at Miles rejecting Whiskey's advances.
Polar Opposite Twins: Andi and Helen were revealed to be this; one became an entrepreneur and TED speaker, while the other went into teaching elementary school. While Andi was ambitious, she also didn't judge her friends well as shown by the court case. Helen was content with watching her sister succeed, and is very reluctant to take her place on the island until Benoit convinces her that it's the only way they can find out which of the "Shitheads" murdered Andi.
The Reveal: Comes out in the second half of the movie: the real Cassandra Brand died a week before the island getaway. Her sister Helen, an Alabama schoolteacher, found the box in Andi's basement while organizing her things, as well as an email sent to the Disruptors that Andi had found the napkin which proved she came up with the idea for Alpha. Helen realized the napkin was missing, meaning that her sister didn't die by suicide; one of the "shitheads" murdered her. She asked Benoit to go to the island and investigate; he does, on the condition that she come with him posing as Andi. He pulls strings to keep Andi's death out of the news while they're the island and plans to distract the Disruptors while she finds out which of them has the napkin.
Sassy Black Woman:
- A case where this works against Andi; she apparently spent years shedding her native Southern accent to become a TED speaker and entrepreneur, unafraid to show her smarts or courage. During her court case, she spoke out of order when Claire committed perjury on the stand and chose Miles over her, something that may have cost her the suit. On the island, she gets in digs about how everyone is holding onto Miles's "golden titties" and how none of them are self-made. It was actually Helen, and she was speaking while sloshed on kombucha.
- Subverted with Helen in her real guise. While she has her moments of snark, like when she tells Miles at the end that his new energy fuel destroyed the Mona Lisa, she's overall level-headed and calm.
Smarter Than You Look: Duke is not the brightest guy, as shown when his mother figures out the puzzle box before he does and contributes some of the answers without thinking much, but he is a pretty savvy opportunist. Turns out that Whiskey was not cheating on him; he was pimping her out to convince Miles to put him on Alpha News. His habit of setting news alerts meant that he was the first one who realized that Andi had been reported dead, and since Miles nearly ran him over near Andi's house, he logically figured out who must have killed her and subtly threatened Miles.
Swiss Cheese Security: A plot point; the Mona Lisa is behind protective glass in Miles's living room, but Miles reveals an override switch hidden in a figurine that can slide the panels away. He presses it regularly. Helen uses the override to ensure that the Klear explosion destroys the painting and Miles fails to stop her.
Token Good Teammate:
- According to Helen, Andi was this out of the Disruptors: smart, ethical, and highly conscientious unlike smooth-talking Claire, misogynistic Duke, boot-licking Lionel, and opportunistic Miles. That was why she refused to approve Klear, saying that the math and chemistry meant that it was a dangerous experimental fuel. If Alpha backed it, they would be sponsoring a walking moral hazard. Helen blowing up the Glass Onion proved that Andi was right all along and indirectly avenged her.
- While Peg's main job is putting out Birdie's literal and metaphorical fires, she's not a bad person. In fact, most of her screentime is calling out Birdie for how her stupidity makes both of their jobs harder, and confiscating her phones to keep her boss off Twitter. The only morally ambiguous action she has is advising Birdie strongly to not take the fall for the sweatshop allegations, even if Birdie was genuinely guilty of it due to believing that "sweatshops" were the place that sweatpants are made, because Birdie may be able to lie low and build her career but Peg doesn't have that option as a Personal Assistant. She threatens to walk off the job despite the hush money that Miles is offering for Birdie that could allow them to start over, saying she didn't sign up for this. Peg ends up missing The Summation due to Benoit ordering her to radio the police boats ASAP, meaning she actually didn't see Miles do any wrong and giving her a reason to not want to testify against him.
- Whiskey is the seemingly ditzy Disruptor associate who doesn't have a malicious bone in her body. Manipulative yes, but not evil. She has a civil conversation with Andi, expressing her sympathy about how the Disruptors stabbed her in the back during the court case. Helen takes heart and advises her to leave Duke. While she isn't willing to lie to implicate Miles, she is the first to join in Helen on smashing Miles's glass ornaments, as well as the one to initiate testifying against him.
Villainous Breakdown: Miles has one after Helen uses the Klear crystal to blow up the Glass Onion, and the Mona Lisa with it. He stamps on the ground petulantly while calling Helen a baby and a child. She stuns him into silence by pointing out that Klear just blew up the most famous painting in the world.
Villain Has A Point:
- Duke is dumb and a jerk, but he makes one legit point to Andi when she demands the truth at the dinner party about why the Disruptors all stabbed her in the back; they all are dependent on Miles and he admits it, but Andi showed that not playing Miles's game means that she lost out on that tether. She couldn't have expected them to forget that Miles is essentially holding their income hostage.
- Miles may be an idiot but he makes some legit points in the climax: without the napkin, there is no proof that Andi founded the company or that he murdered her and no one actually saw the original napkin before he burned it. They'd have to lie to implicate him, and the Disruptors are too scared of losing their careers to do that. Benoit and Helen even admit as such, with Benoit helping Helen find another way to ensure Miles faces justice.
Villain with Good Publicity: Miles is not only one but his primary purpose as leader of the disruptors is give them the publicity to achieve their dreams so he can attain even more power.
Who Wears Short Shorts: Whiskey's primary outfit during the plot is a pair of white shorts.
Xtreme Kool Letterz: Miles' supposedly clean fuel has a k instead of a c on the name apparently solely because of this trope.
Your Cheating Heart: While checking on Duke, Benoit himself watches Whiskey and Miles getting intimate, and Duke watching it and getting obviously pretty annoyed. He turns his eyes away in disgust.