Get Out
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Jordan Peele made an unlikely turn from comedy to horror with this surprise hit that pushed all the right buttons. It’s a suspenseful, timely, well-made, and absolutely chilling story of a black man who goes to meet his white girlfriend’s family for the first time.
For this episode, once again we are joined by regular guest, Jordyn, to discuss the social and racial overtones and undertones as any good English major can.
Get Out (2017)
Episode 111, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast
Craig: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Craig.
Todd: And I’m Todd.
Craig: And Todd, we have a special guest, Jordan. Jordan is with us this week. She is on her winter break from school, and, we’ve been trying to get her back on the podcast for while now, and, we finally were able to hook up. This movie, I I guess, Jordan, you didn’t technically pick this movie, but this is one of the ones that you requested we do, so I figured it would be suiting for, us to do it when you were on the show. Why why this movie? What the movie we’re doing is 2000 seventeen’s Get Out, by the way.
Jordan: I watched it a couple weeks ago. In my sociology class, we had to do, like, a film review and then analyze it, like, sociologically. So I was just bored at work one night, and I was like, oh, like, now is a good time to do this. So I watched so I was just like, I’ll pick any movie. I’m like, I haven’t seen Get Out in a while. So I watched it at work, and I was, like, looking at it from, like, a sociological lens. And, originally, when I watched it, I didn’t think it was that scary. Like, there were some, like, jump scares, but then, like, in the grand scheme of horror, it’s not exactly, you know, saw or hostile or anything like that. Right.
Clip: And but then I
Jordan: was analyzing it sociologically. I’m like, oh, like, this is actually kind of scary. Like Yeah. If you really think about it. And so I was like, you know, like, Todd and Craig should review this, and I’m really glad you guys asked me to review it with you.
Craig: Well, we’re glad you’re here. It’s interesting that you say that you were asked to watch it for a class because I was just reading trivia about it, and apparently that’s a big thing now. You know, there are entire courses being set, or being, taught, on this movie and the issues that it addresses, which are primarily, racism and white privilege and, cultural appropriation and all kinds of things of that nature. And interestingly enough, I read that Jordan Peele, who is the writer and director of the movie, who’s really, you know, been around in Hollywood for a long time, but has been known for his comedic work. He was inspired to write this during the first during Obama’s first term when a lot of people were saying that, racism was dead, and it wasn’t it was a thing of the past. And, obviously, he didn’t believe that to be true, and so he was inspired to write this movie. But he was afraid that it wouldn’t be well received because people would not take it seriously because they they didn’t still see racism as being an issue in America. And so, it wasn’t until, late in Obama’s second term when things just started to go to the shithouse, that, that, this movie became very much appropriate again, and it was just timely in its release. And, that’s why it did very well. I mean, it was one of the highest grossing, films of 2017. It was filmed on a $5,000,000 budget. In the USA, it made 175,000,000 and worldwide, so far, it’s made 250,000,000. So this is a hugely successful horror movie, and, you know, I think rightfully so. You had seen it before. I had seen it before. Todd, this was your first time seeing it, wasn’t it?
Todd: Yeah. It was. It was and and that’s just because I live in China. These guys we’re pretty limited in the fare that we get here in the theaters. It’s usually latest Hollywood blockbuster that’s generally very safe, you know? And even those, get edited a little bit for the the market over here. So, like, I didn’t even go see a alien, the latest alien movie, which I heard isn’t that great anyway. It came to the theater here, and, I didn’t even go see it because I heard that there are a couple scenes that were edited out, and the alien was trimmed, and I don’t know. They they tried to cut the violence out of a little bit, I guess. But, anyway, tangent. The yeah. No. I didn’t get to see Get Out. So, this was my first time, and I don’t know. I’m pretty jealous both you, and Jordan seem to have a pretty cool work environment where you guys are just sitting around watching movies all day.
Craig: Not all day, Todd.
Todd: Oh, no. I’m sorry. Half the day. Maybe at least 2 hours.
Jordan: Yeah. Craig, I remember a lot of movies in your class, so don’t. Hey.
Craig: Come on. I’m not even telling my secrets. Throw me under the bus. Dang. I’m interested to see, what both of you thought of it, but I’m particularly interested to hear what Todd thought of it because when I saw it the first time, I thought it was really good. I saw it in the theater and, you know, it was really tense and I was really kind of on the edge of my seat, And, watching it again today, I still really enjoyed it, but most of that tension was gone because I knew what was going to happen. Yeah. So its rewatch worthiness was kinda low for me. But, originally, I I was a huge fan.
Todd: Yeah. I can see that. I I have to say that, you know, Jordan, you said it wasn’t that scary. For me, it was terrifying. I was on the edge of my seat Todd. And I don’t know if I was just in the mood. It was late at night. But I think what really got to me about it is I could, obviously, not personally relate, but this is such, a domestic kind of horror film. And I’ve always felt that those are the scariest. Yeah. It it reminded me a lot of funny games in in the way that it made me feel, you know, and and and for, I think, for the same reasons. It’s this very domestic situation we could all find ourselves in. It’s things that normally happen to about everybody at some point or another, and it starts to get creepy in the way that you hope these situations will never get creepy. And this as soon as you see it starting to get creepy and you know you’re watching a horror movie, you’re like, oh my gosh, and you’re just shouting the title of the film at the at the film. Get out, dude.
Craig: Get out.
Jordan: Right?
Todd: But but it starts very innocuously with, you know, his visit and the comments that people are making, are very typical. And I’m sure we’ll get into this, but they’re very typical comments that, are made every day that you sort of cringe at, but you know that the reason you’re cringing is because there’s something sinister beneath the surface here. And I think what’s terrifying about it is it brings up the possibility that there’s more than just casual racism underneath these things. And I’m sure Sure. You know, that’s exactly what he was going for. But to me, just because it was so everyday, not from my personal experience, but I know for a lot of people’s experience, I have been in situations where people are treated in the way that he’s treated. That, that it just it just I I I spent the whole time trying to figure out what the heck was going on and and that in itself, just the unknown, was really
Craig: spooky. Yeah. I think so Todd. And you say, you know, it’s experiences like we’ve all had, those kinds of uncomfortable experiences, meeting a partner’s parent for the first time, those kinds of things. I can only imagine, I can’t speak from experience, but I can only imagine that people of color would probably appreciate this movie even more. Because they probably have found themselves in uncomfortable situations that are based on, you know, racial tension and maybe seemingly harmless casual racism. But, you know, as we all know, no racism is is harmless. And, I think that, that’s that’s kind of what he’s trying to explore here through horror, but also through some comedy too, which, I appreciated.
Todd: Which I really appreciated because Yeah. I wanted those scenes to come. Like, when it would come up, I I got a break. I mean, I literally this is one of those horror movies where I really appreciated the comic relief because I really needed the break from the tension.
Craig: And the comic relief
Jordan: was all Rod. And Rod is such a genius character. And I remember watching this for the first time, with my aunt and uncle. And my aunt really is not into scary movies, and my uncle is just kind of, like, neutral about them. But, like, I would look over and they would just be crying during Rod’s scenes because they were it was so funny.
Craig: They are hilarious. Rod is the best friend of our main character who’s named Chris. Chris is played by a guy who I’ve never heard of before, Daniel Kaluuya. And Rod is played by a man named Lil Rel Howery. And he really is just really funny. And, Jordan Peele, the director, the writer director, said that he wanted to include character of Rod because he wanted, somebody likable and and somebody relatable, and and to give the viewers a little bit of respite from the tension. And I, yeah, I mean he’s one of my favorite parts of the movie. And he just kind of pops in and out. But it’s cleverly paced so that, you know, he’s not popping in all the time with quirky remarks. It’s just, you know, every once in a while, Chris will give him a call on the phone and they’ll have funny conversations. But it’s a good balance, I think.
Todd: It is. And it really, toes a line, I think. I was worried that the character of Rod, would would almost delegitimize the movie in a way. That he would be so off the wall goofy that after a little while, I’d be feeling like I was watching another Key and Peele sketch. And I think that it just hit that edge without going overboard Todd be funny without seeming so, you know, over the top unrealistic, parody.
Craig: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the story really is pretty simple, but to establish the tone, there’s this opening scene, where you’ve got a black guy walking down the street at night, in what seems to be like a nice suburban neighborhood, and he’s looking, it seems like he’s lost. Like he’s not really sure where he’s going. Like he’s got a destination in mind, but he can’t find it. And all of a sudden very ominously this little white car, drives by and makes a u-turn in the road and starts following him. And, he at first kind of tries to ignore it, but the car doesn’t go away. So he turns around and starts walking the other way. But when he looks back over his shoulder, the car is parked and the door is open. And then all of a sudden he’s ambushed from behind by a figure in dark, and this guy, we assume, is wearing a helmet, like a a knight’s helmet, and, he, attacks this black man and throws him into the back, of this stark white car. You know, there’s lots of, lots of color imagery, going on in the movie, as well there should be. And then we get the, title sequence, and then we meet we meet our main characters.
Jordan: And during can I just say, like, during that scene when the guy that we later figure out is Andre Hayworth, when he gets kidnapped, the car the song that’s playing is Run Rabbit Run? Uh-huh. How sinister is that? Yeah. Like, I didn’t pay attention to that until, like, the second time I saw the movie. I’m like, oh, like, that’s really creepy.
Craig: Yeah. There’s really good use of music in the whole movie.
Todd: And also, it’s a situation get another one of those situations. I don’t care what color you are. You can relate to this. Right? How many times
Clip: have
Todd: you walked down a neighborhood and got this feeling that this that there’s a car that might be following you? Yeah. And turn around, and then if that car turns around too, you know, it’s like, oh my gosh, I’m totally screwed. That is the start of, of many suburban nightmares.
Clip: Sure.
Todd: And that got me in the beginning. I was like, oh, this poor guy.
Craig: Yeah. He said that he was inspired, that scene was inspired by Halloween and how it was just kind of taking what we usually consider as being a really safe place like, you know, a white suburban neighborhood and just showing that, you know, there’s potentially peril around every corner. And it does a good job of establishing that suspense. I mean, this is a really suspenseful movie. But then we get introduced to our main characters. Like I said, Chris is the young, good looking African American man. Strangely enough, Jordan Peele had Eddie Murphy in mind for this role.
Clip: What?
Craig: Originally. What?
Clip: You’ve got to be kidding me.
Craig: He wrote it with Eddie Murphy in mind. In fact, the whole movie was inspired, in part by, one of Eddie Murphy’s stand up routines where he was talking about horror movies and he didn’t understand why stupid white people didn’t just immediately leave when things started going bad in like haunted house movies. Yeah.
Jordan: That’s funny because now it’s called Get Out.
Clip: Right. Right. He said that he told
Craig: or no. I think this is from Murphy’s stand up. He said, If me and my wife ever go house hunting and we walk in and a ghost whispers to me to get out, I’m getting out. You’re not gonna have to tell me twice. But anyway, we meet Chris and, we see he’s got this really nice apartment and he’s got these big photo prints hanging all over and we find out that he’s a photographer. And he’s got a girlfriend, a beautiful girlfriend, Rose, played by Allison Williams from Girls and various other things. And what’s happening is that they are going to her family’s house to introduce him to her parents for the first time.
Clip: Do they know I’m do they know I’m black? No.
Jordan: Should they?
Clip: It seems like it’s something you might wanna, you know, mention. Mom and dad, my, my my black boyfriend will be coming up this weekend, and I
Jordan: just don’t want you to be shocked
Clip: that he’s a black man from black. So I was the first black guy you ever dated. Yeah. So what? Yeah. So it’s his uncharted territory for him. You know, I don’t wanna get chased off the lawn with a shotgun. You’re not going to. First of all, my dad would have voted for Obama a third time if he could have. Like, the love is so real.
Craig: You get the sense that she’s kind of this doughy eyed idealist who really believes that, oh, you know, that’s not anything we need to discuss. We’re progressive.
Jordan: That scene was such a red flag for me, though, because it’s revealed later that they’ve been together, like, 4 months.
Clip: Uh-huh. So if
Jordan: you’ve been with someone 4 months, usually, they’re on Facebook with you and, like, your parents kinda know who they are. And so if your partner has, like, no Facebook presence with you or anything like that, then, obviously, like, it’s 2016. Like, something’s up. You know? Yeah.
Clip: Yeah. Yeah.
Jordan: Is that not weird? Like, if I were Chris, I’d be like, Rose, like, you’re weird. Like, I’ll be like ashamed of me. Like, what is wrong? So shouldn’t that be a red flag? Or, I mean, I guess, like, going into a relationship, you don’t expect that you’re gonna be, like, kidnapped by your partner’s family. So I
Clip: would, like
Todd: It depends, though.
Jordan: I would think it would be weird.
Craig: You know that’s funny because I hadn’t thought about that at all, but it actually makes a lot of sense in the long run. When they, are driving to her parents house, they hit a deer and it, you know, it beats up the front of their car and like he’s concerned because he can hear the deer still alive in the woods, and he shows compassion and like wants to go and look at it. And this kind of sets up some themes Todd. There’s a hit and run theme, you know, the the fact that he shows compassion for this injured animal and she doesn’t, all of this adds up in the end. But when the cops show up, they call the cops I guess, and the cops show up and they take her information, and then they ask, the cop asks for his ID. And Rose flips out and is like, you don’t need to see his ID, he wasn’t driving. And the cops like, well you know technically we have the right. And she’s like, well that’s bullshit. Now both times that I watched this I thought she’s doing, you know, she’s sticking up for him. You know, here she is this equal justice warrior or whatever. But I was reading stuff and, one of the spoilers that I read said that she wasn’t sticking up for him at all. She was avoiding a paper trail. If his name, if his name had been, listed in the report, then it would have been evident that he was with her at that time and she doesn’t want him, she doesn’t want people to know that because of what they plan to do. And so the whole Facebook thing, that makes sense. It would make sense that she, he wouldn’t have any presence on her social media, because that would cause red flags.
Todd: She would have a presence on his. I mean, she couldn’t avoid that, could she? I don’t know.
Craig: I don’t know. You would think not. Yeah. I don’t know. I mean, ultimately, it’s all kind of implausible, but it’s a good story anyway. Yeah. So then they get to the house and it’s always, it’s not like I’ve done it a whole bunch of times, I’ve been with the same person for 20 years, but it’s awkward when you meet the parents for the first time. And it is this time too.
Todd: You know, he he kinda takes a shortcut here though. He deals with this this the very first meeting in a very interesting way. In that they pull up to the house and they drive by, and there’s a groundskeeper. And I just had to laugh at the, like, the horror trope of the groundskeeper who slowly turns toward the cars and goes to the house. But, you know, they pulls up, and as they get out of the car and they go onto the porch, it actually the camera pulls away considerably. And so when we see them meet each other, what we’re mostly doing is hearing them and not seeing their expressions. And, it’s a very normal seeming meeting, but the way that the camera pulls out and this this house kind of imposes over, you know, the scene, it it really gives you a very detached feeling from the very beginning. I thought it was an interesting technique, I’ve never really seen this before. You would think because this seems to be the crux of the film, right, that this meeting of between him and the parents at the very beginning when he when they open the door and he walks up, would be a scene. You know? Mhmm. But it’s treated as just background in a way. Like, well, we gotta we gotta plow through this to get to inside the house. I thought that was a really interesting choice.
Craig: Well, they’re they’re nice to him, but it’s in that okay. Well, so first of all, the parents are played. The dad’s name is Dean, and he’s played by Bradley Whitford. I love Bradley Whitford. He’s been doing movies since the eighties. He’s a really, really funny guy, but he can be he can be kind of a a Todd presence as well. And then the mom’s name is Missy, played by Catherine Keener, also a fantastic actress. You know, it’s almost surprising that he was able to get such strong people in his directorial debut, but great casting. And they’re welcoming, you know, they get, they kind of force him into hugs and, but it’s awkward. You know, it’s probably how my dad would be if I brought home a black guy. You know, like the dad kinda starts, like, jive talking a little bit. Yeah.
Clip: And there was that conversation about the deer. Well, you know what
Jordan: I say?
Clip: Deal. No. I don’t mean to get on my high horse, but I’m telling you, I do not like the deer. I’m sick of it. They’re taking over. They’re like rats. They’re destroying the ecosystem. I see a dead deer on the side of the road. I think to myself, that’s a start. I don’t even understand that. I’m just saying. You know what? I am grateful for what you’ve done today. I don’t like We got that.
Jordan: Like, I’m an English major, so, like, I analyze everything now because I just have to.
Clip: Right.
Jordan: And so I was analyzing that. I’m like, what if, like, that is, like, a metaphor for black people? So I thought the deer conversation was this metaphor of how, like, they’re taking a couple of black people at a time and may, like, turning them, like, not necessarily white, but, like, a common talking point is, like, why can’t black people just act normal? And why can’t they just act right? As in, like, act white. So they’re, you know, just taking a couple and then, you know, eventually they’ll take on all of them or something like that.
Craig: Oh, absolutely. And, you know, black men were often referred to as bucks. Buck in words. So, yeah. I think that it, it definitely is intentional. And yeah, I mean that’s just it. You can tell almost from the beginning that there’s something sinister going on, but it really kept me on the edge of my seat because though I knew something bad was happening, I didn’t really understand what it was. You know like there’s there’s these weird things going on where like so the the at this house, they have 2 servants. They have Walter who is the groundskeeper, black man, and they have Georgiana who is like the housekeeper, and she’s of course a black woman. And they just act strangely. They they kind of act like black people were portrayed in movies in the thirties, you know, like Gone With the Wind, Mammy type stuff.
Jordan: I think, like, part of the reason why you find it weird and, like, you know, like, there’s something sinister going on, but, like, you can’t, like, pinpoint it is because we all 3 of us are white. So, like, we’re watching it through a white lens. And so, you know, we see, like, this casual racism. It’s like, oh, like, okay. Like, it’s weird, but they don’t mean anything by it.
Craig: Right.
Jordan: And so, you know, Jordan Peele went at it with this with the lens of, like, a black person where casual racism, you know, we may not think anything of it, but, you know, it actually is, like, more sinister than just, like, off the cuff remarks.
Todd: Yeah. There’s always Absolutely. There’s something behind it. You know? There’s there’s something deep in your psyche that’s out of behind these remarks, right, when they come out. And and it’s interesting. I mean, there’s there’s a whole laundry list of them. And and later, there’s a party at this house where, other guests come. It’s it’s, like, for their grandfather or something.
Jordan: Her grandfather, like, every year had had the party, and so then after he died
Todd: Oh, they continued Todd
Jordan: died quotations. They Right. Continued to have the party.
Todd: And it’s all white people at this party, but we get kind of oh, it’s almost a montage for a little while of remarks being made at him that you’re just cringing at, but are, again, more remarks that are made all the time
Craig: in my opinion. Yeah. Like, yeah. Like, do you see it as an advantage or a disadvantage to be a person of color in today’s world? Like, you know, you’re asking this one black guy surrounded by all these white, old white people, like so tell us what it’s like to be black. Like, man. It’s rough. But even, and there’s way more creepy stuff going on. I wanna come back to that party. But the other huge red flag for me was the very first time that Chris and Rose and Missy and Dean all sit down together. Dean observes that Chris is fidgety.
Clip: You smoke, Chris? You jonesing a little bit over? I’m quitting. Dad, this is why I don’t bring people to the house anymore. That’s okay. We’re not judging. It’s a nasty habit though. You should have Missy take care
Todd: of that for you. How?
Clip: Hypnosis. She developed a method, and I’m telling you, it works like a charm.
Craig: That Todd me was such a huge red flag. No, lady. You’re not gonna hypnotize me. I literally met you like 5 minutes ago. No, it’s not gonna happen. But she does anyway. And that’s the other thing, like, now I’m not gonna pretend to be an expert on hypnotism, but one of the, you know, one of the things that I do know about it, because I have read some stuff about it, is that it’s entirely completely unethical to hypnotize somebody against their will or without their knowledge.
Clip: I
Jordan: mean this isn’t the most ethical situation anyway.
Craig: Of course, of course. But it speaks to her character that she would do this, which she does because he goes out for a cigarette and he sees some weird things like, the groundskeeper comes running at him full speed and then right as he gets to him, he turns off and veers off and runs away. Just weird, crazy stuff. But then he goes in and she sits him down and she starts asking him all these personal questions. You know, he’s like, You’re not gonna hypnotize me or something. Basically what she gets out of him is that he thinks of hypnotism very much in the way that most of us do. You know, the pendulum and you’re getting very sleepy and she kind of teases him about that. But then she also very casually says, sometimes we do use visual cues Todd audio cues or something along those lines. Meanwhile, she’s very methodically stirring her tea. And, as she continues to ask him questions, you can just tell that he’s falling into hypnosis. And eventually, he is fully hypnotized and she is in control of him, and it’s scary.
Todd: Yeah. It’s really scary how that could happen, you know, whether or not it’s real or not. It’s an moment when you notice suddenly that the tea is being stirred in this very methodical, repetitive way, and that audio comes in very slowly. Then we get a shot of the tea being stirred, and you’re like, Oh my gosh, this is her cue for him that she’s creating, and this is what’s what’s slipping him under the spell. Again, another moment where this I I don’t know. You know, it’s presented anyway in a way that this could conceivably happen in a normal everyday circumstance in a place that’s supposed to be safe. Right?
Clip: Right.
Todd: Right. In in a living room.
Craig: Yeah. I mean, she lulls him into kind like, she gets into his subconscious by talking about his mom. And his mom had died and he doesn’t have a father, which is also ideal for them because he’s not really connected to people. But as it turns out, his mother was killed in a hit and run and she gets him talking about that and talking about, and I think that she plays into his feelings of guilt because he was home. He was a child, but he was home and he was expecting her, and when she didn’t come home he didn’t do anything. He didn’t go out and look for her or anything like that, and she really kind of drives that home. Like you didn’t do anything, you did nothing. And so then he’s fully into hypnosis and, she says, Now sink into the floor. And he does. Like his consciousness falls into like this nether region where he’s just kind of floating in space. And it’s really cool imagery because he’s just in this vast emptiness, but you can see like a cutout or a box up above him what he would be seeing through his eyes. And he’s just floating there and she says, You’re now in the sunken place. At which point, I think that he jolts up in bed, as though this had all been a dream. And at least for a minute, he thinks it might have been, but it becomes very clear. In fact, they don’t really go out of their way to hide the fact that he has been hypnotized, and he’s not smoking anymore.
Todd: Yeah. And now isn’t it just for a moment, let’s stop and think about how hypnosis is usually treated in films. Right? It’s usually very cheesy, very corny, and it has the ability it’s risky to use something like that in a movie like this because I think we’re naturally a little skeptical about the power, and I think that the way that he filmed it to give you the feeling and the impression from the point of view of the hypnotized. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that before.
Craig: I I I don’t think I have either, but it’s haunting.
Todd: It’s very haunting, and it was and it really pulls you in. I mean, almost literally pulled me in as well. I I felt that, this was really skillfully done the way that it drops him out of that dream through the floor, and suddenly he’s falling. Everything’s a little slow motion, and then what he’s seeing through his eyes is from a distance. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And and like a like a little movie playing in front of him, which right away sets up how we are going to be thinking about the other hypnotized people in this movie and what their reality must be like every single day.
Craig: Yes. And Jordan Peele said that he, came up with this concept of the sunken place because he feels that many people of color or minorities or whatever often find themselves in that position where they’re aware and of of what’s going on. They see the things that are going on around them, but they feel powerless to affect any change, or to do anything about it. And as a metaphor, gosh, that’s pretty pretty darn on the nose.
Todd: Yeah. It even reminded me a little bit of the serpent and the rainbow, and I got I was really interested in this at one point when I was studying African American religions in in school, and I was, studying voodoo. This concept of the you know, we’ve talked about this before, but the concept of the zombie has its roots in Haitian folklore, but also Haitian religion. And the fact that there really are these cases of zombieism, and it’s really nothing more than tied to your belief in the fact that you can be a zombie is so strong that you literally become 1. You know? You you don’t die. You basically awaken, and you allow somebody else to have complete control over you because you believe that they’ve made you into a zombie. And so these people too would be in their sunken place, and I feel like that’s really interesting considering that that also, you know, we’re talking about a movie that deals with race, a different culture, and the black experience in America that there are some little nods to that as well, using hypnosis in this way to turn these people in the household into these effectively like Haitian voodoo zombies who can just go around and be servants for people, but not willingly.
Craig: Yeah. And it’s it’s really creepy, and it gets even creepier when we get to that party that you had talked about. You know, all these people show up. They’re all old, rich, white people arriving in black cars and wearing black clothes. I think there’s something to be said there.
Jordan: I found that so odd. Like, they all just showed up at once. Like, I thought it was a little cheesy.
Todd: It was weird. Sinister.
Jordan: Before that, though, Chris went out and talked to the groundskeeper.
Todd: Right.
Jordan: And that scene is probably, like, one of my favorite scenes in the whole movie, because it’s so odd just to see him talk like that.
Clip: ‘Sup, man? Working your good out here, Nothing I don’t want to be doing. Yeah. I didn’t get to meet you, actually, up close. I’m Chris. I know who you are. She is lovely, isn’t she? Rose? Here she is. 1 of a kind, top of the line, a real doggone keeper. Right?
Jordan: Then he was like, well, I’m gonna go back to minding my own business now. And that makes me laugh so hard because it’s so petty.
Craig: Yeah. Like like, I’m going to go back to minding my own business. Maybe you should follow my lead. Yeah.
Clip: Yeah. Yeah.
Craig: It’s good. And he’s acting weird, and Georgiana acts weird too. They’re just it’s just weird.
Clip: They
Craig: they’re just bizarre.
Todd: He can’t hurt his finger. Situation. Right? They’re just Absolutely. Like robots steering. They’re speaking in the ways that not just and I thought initially when they were doing this, it it seemed like he’s trying to relate to them on an African American level and kind of relax and kinda kinda bro it up, you know, in a way with them. But they are absolutely speaking what we would consider, you know, they are like white. Right? Totally. And so they’re they’re speaking with this this kind of diction and these words that at first I’m thinking, okay, they’re code switching, you know, which is a very common thing. I have a number of black friends, and I noticed that they act differently around me. You know, they speak differently around me than when they speak around their black friends. It’s a linguistic phenomenon. We all do it at some level. We all speak differently, with our friends and code switch. And the fact that he wasn’t code switching, I thought, oh, that was interesting. I wasn’t sure what it meant, but it becomes clearer in retrospect. Right? When I
Jordan: was watching it the second time, I was just, like, thinking to myself, like, white people don’t talk like that. Like, white people don’t don’t act like that in a way. Like, white people, like, don’t act like that, but at the same time, like, they totally do.
Craig: Well, yeah. I mean, and it’s not just stereotypically white, but it’s also just kind of old fashioned, like,
Todd: which
Craig: ends up making sense. Yes. But like at one point, he realize he keeps realizing that his cell phone is unplugged. Like he keeps plugging it in, and then the next time he goes back to it, it’s unplugged. And at some point, he confronts Rose, and he says, Georgiana’s doing this. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because she likes me. He all the time thinks people are like down to jump his bones or something, but Well well,
Todd: in that case though, he said, no, he said maybe she’s mad that you’re with me. That’s a thing.
Craig: Right. Right.
Todd: So I don’t think it was that she liked him. I think it was that, it’s kind of a thing that, African American women can be ticked off what an African American guy is with a white girl.
Craig: Right. But, when he doesn’t confront Georgiana about it, but she comes and apologizes. It seems like she’s been sent to apologize. But he says something like, I didn’t mean to snitch, and she doesn’t get it. And he’s like, I didn’t mean to rat you out and she still doesn’t get it and she’s like, oh you mean tattletale? And he’s like, okay, yeah. Yeah. So it’s just Todd, you know, they’re just not acting right, you can just tell. And then there’s this party where it’s so uncomfortable, at first it doesn’t seem particularly unrealistic. It’s almost like, oh look, our daughter’s dating a Black guy, let’s go around and show everybody how cool we are with this. Which sadly happens, and then all of the friends are like, oh yeah, we’re totally down with black people, you know? But it becomes very apparent that he’s cattle, you know? Like, they’re parading him around in front of these people.
Clip: Oh, look. It’s the greens. Gordon and Emily, this is Chris. Chris, this is Gordon and Emily Green. Chris, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, Chris. Nice to meet you indeed. Oh, that’s quite a grip. Thank you. You too, man. You, you ever play golf? Once. A few years ago. I wasn’t very good. Gordon was a professional golfer for years. Oh, you kidding? Well, I can’t quite swing the hips like I used to though. But, I do know Tiger. Oh, that’s great. Super.
Jordan: Gordon loves Tiger.
Clip: Oh, best I’ve ever seen ever. Hands down. So, Chris, let let’s see your form. Tereskin has been in favor for the past, what, couple of 100 of years, but now the pendulum is swung back. Black is in fashion.
Craig: 1 old woman walks up to him and, like, starts feeling him up, like, feeling his arms and chest.
Jordan: Ask Rose if it’s true that like black men are better in bed. Right. That was like so uncomfortable.
Craig: They’re sizing him up and you feel weird and awkward about it the first time you see it. The second time knowing what’s going on, it’s so sinister and so gross. Like they are, they’re literally treating this man as a piece of meat. I mean, there’s there’s no other way to put it.
Todd: Which totally happens. And I mean, I I I’ve been in situations where my I’m I’m embarrassed for my friends because these kinds of things are happening to them, but to see it all piled on at one at one point in a dinner in a dinner party, I can totally believe that this would happen even when people are just coming to a party and going home and there’s nothing sinister.
Craig: Overtly. Yeah. Exactly.
Todd: So it really does it’s skillful. I mean, Jordan, you were talking about the sociological implications of this. I mean, this this thing is dripping with it.
Jordan: Oh, yes. Go ahead, Jordan. Going on with the cattle metaphor later on at the end of the party, they have an auction. It’s like a cattle auction or a slave auction.
Clip: Mhmm. And Yeah.
Craig: And it’s it’s really creepy. It’s silent, and they’re just flashing these bingo cards, but
Jordan: I mean Bradley Whitford is, like, punching his, like the only noise you hear is when, like, Bradley Whitford will, like, punch his palm, like, Todd sit like signal, like, moving up in price.
Craig: Uh-huh. Yeah. It’s gross. And like that was just It’s so gross. And and that all happens while they’re away. Chris and Rose take a walk away because something, something else creepy happens at the party. Chris is excited because in the crowd he spots 1 black guy and he sees him from behind and based on the way that he, he can see that he’s black obviously, but he’s, he’s looking at the back of him and he walks up to him and he says something like, Nice to see an old brother here or something. He thinks it’s an old man. His posturing makes him look like, and what he’s wearing makes him look like an old man. But he turns around and he’s this young guy, like really young. And, so Chris tries to talk to him, but again it’s that same thing with Georgiana and, Walter where he’s just not acting right. Like he’s acting like an old person, and it should and then his wife shows up and his wife’s an old white lady and like they talk to each other like an old couple. It’s just weird. And at this point, I thought somehow they’re brainwashing these people. My thought was they’re they’re using hypnosis to brainwash these people to do whatever they want to do. Which is exactly the conclusion that Rod jumps to the very first time that he hears about anything going wrong.
Clip: Yeah. Like, you know that white people like to kidnap people and turn
Jordan: them into sex slaves. Right?
Clip: So funny. Sex slaves, I told you.
Craig: Oh, it’s so funny. But, at that point, I’m kind of thinking, I think Rod’s right.
Clip: You know,
Craig: I think that’s what they’re doing. Yeah.
Jordan: Well, that particular one, considering that he has a wife that’s 30 years his senior.
Craig: Yeah.
Clip: Absolutely. And then he goes
Jordan: on to say, we haven’t left the bedroom in months.
Clip: Uh-huh. Ew. Gross. Yeah.
Craig: Okay. So then I feel like we deal with the whole unplugging the phone thing or something. And then they come back out and all these white folks are standing around and that’s when somebody asks, you know, what’s it like to be black in America? And, Chris spots the other black guy who he had talked to before, and he says, maybe you can help me out with this. And the guy’s like, oh, I don’t know. You know, I don’t get out very much anymore. And, secretly, or at least he’s trying to do it secretly, Chris is lining up his cell phone to take a picture of this guy, and he does the same thing that I’ve done so many times and forgets to turn off the flash when you’re trying to take a sneaky pic. And, all these sneaky pics
Todd: you try to take, Craig?
Craig: Don’t go there. Time. Take pictures
Todd: of people, forget to take out the Flash.
Craig: I totally do.
Todd: We learn more about you every week, Craig.
Craig: Yeah. I know. Can’t can’t
Clip: can’t keep anything from you. But anyway, so
Craig: the Flash goes off and this man, I don’t remember his name or if he had one, but he kind of freaks out. And you kind of see a change in his eyes and a change in his visage. And he runs up to Chris and screams at him, get out. And he’s, he grabs him and starts shaking him. And he’s like, get out of here. Run. Run away. And of course, they hurry that man away inside. And the next thing we see is him coming out of Missy’s office with her and she’s like, Oh, he’s better now. He’s got a touch of the epilepsy and the flash, caused a seizure, but he’s all better now. And, he’s back. This guy is back to acting the way he was before and they leave. And that’s when Chris says, or no, excuse me, Rose says, We’re gonna take a walk. And they go off, and take a walk together. And, and Chris wants to go. He’s like, I wanna get out of here. And she’s like, And just leave me here. And he’s like, Well that’s up to you. But then he says, You know, I love you. If you wanna stay, I’m gonna stay here with you. But she’s like, no, it’s fine. We can go. And and another thing, the reason the suspense was so high for me is because at this point, you can it’s so obvious. There’s no question in your mind that there’s something shady going on with the parents. But you wonder if Rose is in on it. Yeah. Because she really seems like a loving, doting girlfriend. I mean, she’s sweet and nice, and it really seems like they have a real connection.
Todd: At this point, though, I I wrote down the girl is in on it because Well,
Craig: she would have to be. It clicked with me
Todd: that she would have to be. There’s no way couldn’t be, and and that’s the point in which it did click with me. As soon as I that possibility entered my head, I noticed a little bit about this conversation and how she was slightly a little manipulative here in giving into him at just the right moments and making suggestions at just the right moments. It’s very it became it was Calculated. Yeah. It was very calculated. It seemed and then I thought, oh my god. She’s done this before. That was the second thought that that gave into my head at that moment because I she felt she seemed so practiced at it.
Craig: Well and if that’s the case, she’s really good at it. She is.
Clip: She’s amazingly good at it.
Craig: She had she had his him fooled. She had me fooled. I I guess that’s, you know good job, Allison Williams. You did a good job. Eventually, of course, we do find out that she’s in on it, and that’s coming up very soon. But, and then her entire demeanor changes.
Jordan: Oh, yeah. And she honestly, like, turns out to be the worst character. And, like, she’s so cold and calculated. And going in, I didn’t really like her because I I’m a huge fan of Girls, and she played Marnie in Girls, and Marnie is like the worst character. So it was just like, I had a bias, but my bias was confirmed.
Craig: Yeah, she’s, she, once it’s revealed that she’s in on it, which again is coming up very soon, her entire character changes. And, Jordan Peele coached her and said, I want you to think of this as 2 completely different characters. I want Rose to be truly a loving, supportive girlfriend and then when it switches, I want you to think of yourself as Roro, and she’s a totally different girl, and she is cold and and calculated, and and, I thought she it was great. It was a great shift in character.
Clip: It was. Yeah.
Todd: And it kind of plays into everyone’s fear in a way, but maybe even more so, you know, in this particular situation of an interracial couple and this tension that’s gonna naturally be there and the fears that he’s gonna naturally have about his acceptance into this family, that somebody’s putting on 2 faces. You know? They’re gonna be one way in front of you, but then behind their back with their kind, right, or their family. You know, it’s they’re only 4 months in, you know, that they’re treating or or speaking about you differently or they’re kind of a different person and you don’t know this yet. Again, it plays into that kind of fear as well.
Jordan: Sure. Absolutely. Good observation, Todd.
Craig: Don’t flatter him.
Clip: Oh, you keep
Todd: going, Jordan. We’re
Clip: gonna hit everyone.
Craig: Well, things from this point happen very quickly. Chris sends Rod the picture that he took, of the guy, and Rod calls him back immediately.
Clip: That’s Craig. Drake. Andre Hayworth. You used to kick it with Veronica? Veronica from what? Teresa’s sister that worked at the movie theater on 8th. Yeah. Yes. That is him. Is him. But wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. This is so crazy. Yo. He’s different. No shit. Why is he dressed like that? It’s not dad. It’s everything. He came to the party with a white woman like 30 years old now. Sex slave. Oh, shit. Chris, you gotta get the fuck up out of there, man. You’re in some eye wash shit situation. Leave motherfucker.
Craig: And and at at this point, Chris kind of thinks that might be the case. So he tells Rose, We’ve got to get out of here. He doesn’t explain why. So we gotta get out of here. And she’s like, Okay, I’ll go get my bag. And while she’s doing that, conveniently there’s this little cubby in her room that’s open. And for unknown reasons, he decides he needs Todd investigate
Clip: it and he goes over there and he looks
Craig: in, and he pulls out this red box. You’re not going to find something good in there. Find somebody’s secret red box,
Clip: you just maybe leave it. But
Craig: but in this case, it’s a good thing that he opened it because she had told him that he was the first black guy she had ever dated. And he finds in this box these pictures and at first they seem very normal just you know pictures of her with her friends. But then he comes to a series of pictures of her with a whole series of black guys. And the last one
Jordan: One with, Georgina.
Craig: Yeah. With Georgiana looking very modern and fun. And so he knows something’s up, but but he she comes back and and he’s like, let’s go. And they run downstairs
Jordan: and That’s seen though, like, if you’re seeing that, how do you not know something’s up? Like, how do you still wanna get in the car with her? Like True. Seriously get out.
Clip: But but
Todd: the problem is is he can’t drive. Remember earlier with the cop, he didn’t have a license. He
Jordan: didn’t have his license, didn’t he?
Craig: No. It was a state ID. It wasn’t the license.
Todd: Yeah. So he and she’s got the keys to the car. So she needs the keys and he you know, even with the keys, he’s not gonna be very helpful in this situation.
Craig: True. So they go downstairs, and everybody’s left except the family is still there, and they’re all standing around kind of ominously. And they’re kinda like, what are you doing? Where are you going? And he’s trying
Clip: to get
Jordan: up against the door with a
Craig: lacrosse lacrosse stick. Yeah. Stick. Yeah. He’s he’s been he was creepy from the beginning. He he keeps asking her. He’s like, come on. Where are the keys? Where are the keys? Meanwhile, Bradley Whitford goes off into some weird monologue about how we’re all humans, but we’re also gods. Like, really didn’t even understand what he was talking about. That was a
Todd: that scene was all a bit contrived right there along with, you know, getting the the the box, finding the box at just the right moment
Jordan: to, not hide. Yeah.
Craig: And so, finally, he says, Rose, where are the keys? And she pulls them out, and she’s like, you know, I can’t let you leave. And so that’s when, you know, everything’s out in the open except for why they’re doing this. He bolts, he bolts like he’s just gonna take off, and the mom just clinks her tea glass, and he just falls flat. Yep. Like she just drops him by clinking the tea glass. And when he wakes up, he’s strapped to this chair in a game room that we’ve never seen before. And there’s this old, like, 19 fifties console TV in front of him. And shortly after he wakes up, it comes on, and it’s like it it looks like a commercial for, like, a drug or something. And I guess ultimately that’s kind of what it is. It’s kind of welcome to what we’re going to do to you.
Jordan: Yeah. Yeah. Like, very obviously a medical commercial.
Craig: Right. But it’s the it’s the grandpa, the supposedly dead grandpa, and he goes around and he’s like, you know, we’ve been trying to develop this, system for years. It’s the Cortana process and finally we’ve perfected it and now you get to be a part of it. And this stuff didn’t make it into the movie but Jordan Peele actually had a backstory for this whole group, not just this family but the whole group of people, the party goers. They’re like from this ancient group of knights and it was the knights who were requesting for the fountain, or not the fountain of youth, excuse me, the holy Craig. And these generations have continued to pursue immortality and now they’ve finally done it and this is how they’re doing it. And, what? Well,
Jordan: I need to include that because that’s dumb.
Craig: It’s it’s a little out of scope. Yeah.
Clip: That’s what I’m waiting
Craig: for. But so he sees that, and and we see that Bradley Whitford and the wife and the kids, although they’re little kids, are in the video. So obviously they’ve been a part of this for years years years. Once that video goes off, a video of the teacup, comes back up and it clinks, and he passes back out. There’s
Jordan: a video with the grandpa though. You can kind of, like, see that they’re doing it, like, for, like, racist motives. Like, it’s like they’re not overtly racist, but, like, during the party when they’re feeling them up and, like, treating them like cattle, like, it’s kind of like, okay, like, that’s odd. But then in the video, the grandpa’s like, well, you’ve enjoyed, like, such physical advantages. And that kind of I feel I felt like that went back to when, in the beginning, Dean was talking about how his dad lost to go to the Olympics, against Jesse Owens. And so, like, maybe his entire life, he just thought black people were stronger than he was. And so that’s why they do this to black people, even though the one guy that was going to go into Chris’s body was like, I it’s not because you’re black. I just want eyesight.
Craig: Right. Well, it’s it’s I mean, I think it’s a pretty obvious commentary on, cultural appropriation. You know, these these people, they don’t like black people
Todd: As they are.
Craig: As they are, but they’re in other ways envious. They’re envious of their physique, you know, they’re envious of their Coolness. Athletic ability. Yeah, their coolness.
Todd: They say that.
Craig: Sadly, you know, that’s part of the real world where often black people are denied privileges and advantages, but white people are more than happy to appropriate their music and their clothing and style and all those things.
Todd: Cheer for them on a sports
Craig: team. Yeah. Right. Right. So then the next thing is he had met a guy at the party that we didn’t talk about who, is blind. He’s an art dealer. He used to be an artist himself. He’s familiar with Chris’s work, and he says that he admires it. And he’s the one who won him in the auction. He pops up on the screen, and and they can converse because there’s a intercom. An intercom, right? And, he says this is part of your prep. First was, you know, the hypnosis, Now this is like mental prep. And basically what he explains is that they do brain tran partial brain transplant.
Clip: White black people. Who knows? People wanna change. Some people wanna be stronger, faster, cooler. Black is in fashion. But don’t please don’t lump me into that. You know? I could give a shit what what color you are. You know? What I want is deeper. I want your eye, man. I want those things you see through.
Craig: And what he says, which to me is the most horrifying component of all of this, is that because part of your brain remains, you’ll always be there, but you’ll be inside. You’ll be in the observance.
Jordan: In the sunken place.
Craig: Right. I I’ll be driving the car, and you’ll just be a passenger, and there’s nothing you’ll be able to do about it.
Clip: So And
Craig: that Todd me is the most nightmarish part of the whole thing. If you’re gonna do this to me, just frickin’ kill me. Yeah.
Jordan: Yeah. Exactly.
Craig: Don’t imprison me in my body and my mind while I to watch you go around acting a fool in my body. I’m glad you guys get so much, amusement at my expense. It’s fine.
Todd: That’s great.
Clip: What am I thinking of?
Todd: I’m thinking of y’all gonna make me act a fool up in here.
Clip: Up in here. Oh, god. Y’all gonna make me lose my cool
Craig: It’s it’s always the highlight of the episode when Todd sings. I swear to god.
Clip: Yeah. Like speaking of cultural appropriation and, like, John, you know what? Right.
Jordan: Here we have Todd rapping. You say
Clip: actin’ all. Very poor.
Craig: Oh, come on. I’m I’m just cool like that. Yeah. Here in Midwestern Missouri, you know. So then, and I, when I say things happen really fast from this point on, I mean it. Like it’s boom boom boom boom boom. This time when he hears that message, he notices he’s been scratching at the arm of the Craig, and he notices the filling coming out of it. And I did not put this together at all. I read this, but he saves himself by picking cotton. Right? So we see we see the white blind guy getting prepped for surgery, and it’s pretty graphic and gross. Like, the dad is cutting off his scalp, and then he saws through his his skull. And so Jeremy, the gross son, goes in to get Craig, and Chris is still knocked out, or at least so we think, and, he, unstraps him, and then when he’s prepping the IV, Chris stands up behind him and hits him in the back of the head 3 times with a Bati ball, that would have killed him. Let’s just get that out of the way right now. In my notes, I write, and so Chris kills Jeremy. But Jeremy pops up again later, which absolutely makes no sense because he would have been dead.
Jordan: All this all this is going on, like, Rod is going to the police and no one believes him. They’re loud. And that all seems hilarious. He calls Rose and she like, you see her face while she’s talking, and her face is completely blank and just, like, dead looking, but her voice has so much emotion. And she’s like, oh, my gosh. Like, I’m so worried about him. Like, he just left, and he took a cab and all this. And Rod knows she’s lying, but he can’t get her on a recorder.
Craig: Yeah. Because she flips the script on him and makes it seem like he’s predatory, like he’s going after her or something. Yeah. So the dad, Bradley Whitford, realizes that Jeremy’s not coming back with Craig. So he goes out into the hall to look for him, at which point Craig attacks him with a mounted buck head. Great irony there. You know this guy that hates deer and wants them eradicated, he gets killed with this deer head. So Chris, runs upstairs and
Jordan: Not after Bradley Whitford, like, crawls into the operating room and knocks over a candle that shouldn’t be in an operating room because there’s lights everywhere. What’s up? Like, that was too convenient. Like, I get that you’re trying to make it sinister, but why?
Todd: Why are there candles? Yes. That’s a very good point.
Clip: Well, you need the
Craig: light. And the fire doesn’t really play any role. It’s not like they’re battling it out in the flames or whatever. I think it was just like, if he’s going out, he’s burning it to the ground. You know, like we’re not just gonna leave this for them to keep doing it. Even though it was an accident, I think that was kind of what, you know, the whole legacy is burning. But he goes upstairs and, Georgina sees him, and she runs and takes off.
Jordan: He goes, like, from the kitchen into the mom’s study. On the table is a glass of tea. And so then, they both eye the tea, and they run for it at the same time. But then Chris sweeps it off of the table, and it breaks. So then Katherine he and Katherine Keener kinda, like, walk around each other a little bit, like, you know, 2 lions getting ready to brawl. And so then she goes at him with a letter opener and stabs him through the hand, but then he turns it around and stabs her in the eye. And then he tries to leave the house, and Jeremy pops up again somehow. Like, this guy has, like, bionic levels of stamina, apparently. Oh, Lord Hades. Just been bludgeoned. Chris tries to leave the house, but then he it gets in a choke hold by Jeremy, and so he can’t leave the house. And then, so he opens the door, Jeremy kicks it shut, he goes through the door again, and Jeremy kicks it shut again. And this kind of, reflects back to the conversation they had at the dinner table on the night that Chris got there, and Jeremy’s being super weird. And he starts talking about MMA and how, like, Chris would be so good at jujitsu and stuff like that because of his genetic makeup. And he’s talking about jujitsu and how it’s all, like, mental. It’s not physical. And you always have to be 3 steps ahead. And so then, on Chris’s 3rd try to open the door, he knows Jeremy’s gonna go to kick it again, and he does, but then he stabs Jeremy in the leg, and then curb stomps him to death.
Craig: Yeah. Which, and I’m I’m sitting there like, yes. Just stomp that guy, he’s horrible. So he runs out and he gets in the car. Meanwhile, Rose is just sitting upstairs listening to the Dirty Dancing soundtrack on her headphones, eating 1 Froot Loop at a time, scouting for other black guys on the Internet, which is obvious.
Jordan: Is that what that was? She was looking up the n double a c’s or not the n double a c p, n c double a.
Clip: Yeah. I always picked them up.
Jordan: In that shot, if you look behind her, all of the photos with her and her, like, victims are framed and hung up on the wall.
Craig: I know. It’s super spooky. She’s a psycho.
Clip: Well, it’s like a
Todd: it’s like a stunted child. You know? She’s she’s like, never left that child that we see in the video, that was playing on the TV. Right? She’s eating these Froot Loops.
Jordan: Yeah. She’s sitting crisscross applesauce.
Clip: Yeah. It’s
Jordan: And she looks like a child today would be, like, playing with her iPad.
Craig: Yeah. Absolutely.
Jordan: Like, separating the Froot Loops from the milk thing. I watched an interview with Jordan Peele, and he was reading Reddit theories about the movie. And so one of them said that she’s separating the whites from the coloreds, and so then Jordan Peele was like, no. Actually, it’s just to show how, like, creepy and calculated and cold she is. But still, like, that, like
Clip: Yeah. Color of cereal. Yeah. It’s a good
Craig: theory whether it’s true or not.
Clip: It fits. Yeah. Yeah.
Craig: Chris runs outside and he’s got the car keys and he jumps in, Jeremy’s white car that was the abducting car from the beginning. And he, takes off and Georgiana jumps in front of the car. And again, here it’s that hit and run thing again. You know, he he can’t leave her. You know, he was so sad that his mother died cold and alone. And so, and he remembers a time when he and Georgiana had been talking and a single tear had dropped from her eye, and she, he knows that she’s in there somewhere. And because of that, he feels compassion for her. And so he puts her in the car, and they start driving away.
Jordan: Not to get out of the car,
Clip: and not
Jordan: to do it.
Craig: Rose comes out on the car with a rifle and and starts shooting at them.
Jordan: Which is, like, really reflective of what she said at the beginning of the film because she was talking to him about how her parents aren’t gonna freak out that he’s black and, like, chase him out of the house with a with a gun and then she’s chasing him out of the house with a gun.
Craig: Of course. Yeah.
Todd: Yeah. That’s true.
Craig: And Georgiana wakes up, and, we see now that the reason that all of these characters had had hats and specific hairstyles was because they’ve got these big scars from their brain transplants.
Clip: Yeah.
Craig: But she wakes up and she freaks out, and she’s like, you destroyed my house. You destroyed my family. And and she starts beating on him, and so he crashes into a tree, and she’s dead and out of commission. When he comes back to consciousness, seemingly very quickly, he gets out and roses right behind him shooting at him. He takes off running and then here comes grandpa, the big black groundskeeper comes running by and she just says, Get him grandpa! And, Grandpa takes him down and it looks like it’s the end for Chris, but then he reaches into his pocket and he pulls out his camera and he flashes it in grandpa’s eyes, and we see that change like we had seen before. And it it’s good acting or good direction because you can see an immediate change of character.
Jordan: In the same interview with Jordan Peele, he was talking about how in that scene when grandpa catches him, he was gonna, like, get him to the ground, and then the grandpa would be like, like, I finally got you, Jesse. And
Clip: then, like, that’s no way. But then
Jordan: Jordan feels like that’s a little much.
Todd: You know, it just hit me of the foreshadowing of of the earlier conversation with the dad when the dad said, you you probably think it’s really weird. I I get it. It’s really weird that I have these black servants.
Clip: We hired Georgina and Walter to help care for my parents. When they died, I just I I I couldn’t bear to let them go.
Todd: Sure enough, all these years, they’ve continued to, quote unquote take care of them.
Craig: Yep. Yep. It falls together really nicely. I mean It really does. Is it plausible? No. But it’s fun, and it’s it’s it’s a well crafted story. But anyway, so, grandpa changes at least momentarily, and he turns to Rose and he’s like, Let me do it. And so she hands him the rifle, but he turns it on her and shoots her in the abdomen and then he puts the barrel under his chin and kills himself. Rose, meanwhile, is still alive and she’s crawling towards the rifle, but Chris gets to it first and throws it away from her. First, she starts trying to talk nice to him like, I love you. You know, like she’s acting again, which he would have to be really, really stupid to fall for that at this point. Yeah. No kidding. He starts he’s he’s choking her like he’s gonna kill her, but again, I think it’s just his compassion won’t allow him to do that, and so he eases up. And, she smiles like, I got you or whatever. And then the cop car shows up, and these red and blue lights are flashing. And I the my first thought in the theater was, Oh, no. This is not gonna look good for him. The house is
Todd: burning down. All the evidence is gonna be gone.
Craig: It’s gonna be her word against his, and we see how our justice department works. And that’s, I I thought things were not gonna go well. But who steps out of the car? Rod. TSA. TSA. So they get in the car together and Rod just says, I mean I told you not to go into that house. And they basically drive away and leave her there to die. But then
Jordan: Chris is like, how did you find me? He’s like, I’m TSA. We handle shit. And then they drive off.
Craig: So funny. They filmed an alternate ending where in fact it was the real cops who showed up. Chris wasn’t shot, but he was taken to jail, and Rod could not give them any hard evidence, to help Chris’s case, and it was just implied that he would probably spend the rest of his life in jail. But Peele said that, in the climate when the movie was released, he felt like the audience deserved a happier ending than that. And so that’s why they went with the ending that they went with. And I really like the ending. I’m glad that, you know, he went through a lot of stuff, but he came out of it. Hopefully, things will be okay. Overall, I think it’s a really well made movie, especially now again, like I said, it’s he’s been working in the industry for a long time. But for this being his directorial debut, you know, Oscars and stuff.
Clip: I, I know that
Craig: it was nominated for like, you know, Oscars and stuff. I I know that it was nominated for, like, best musical or comedy at the Golden Globes or something like that, which, yeah. I have no idea.
Todd: This is not a comedy.
Craig: Yeah. They definitely classified it as a comedy. And I guess maybe they were afraid they wouldn’t be able to
Jordan: get it. America would classify, like, the trials and tribulations that, like, black people face as, like, comedic.
Clip: Well, see, I I don’t even really I know what
Craig: you’re saying, and I agree with you, but I I think that ultimately that’s a decision that the filmmakers make, how they wanna submit it. And my guess would be that they thought they didn’t have a slim chance in hell of getting a best picture Todd, So maybe they thought they would go for something that they might have a better chance. I don’t know.
Todd: Well, certainly not as a horror movie. I mean, how often do horror movies get serious consideration at the Oscars for anything?
Craig: Hardly ever.
Todd: The one thing he did do strategically was put some serious Microsoft product placement in this film.
Clip: Yeah. That’s funny.
Todd: Oh my god. Who who goes and bings things?
Clip: Yeah. Everybody in this movie
Todd: is whipping out their Surface tablet, binging things that they wanna ask questions about. Like, really? Come on.
Craig: That’s fine. I didn’t even notice. That’s hilarious.
Jordan: All in all, I thought it was really Todd. But I’m, like, both satisfied and dissatisfied with the ending. I’m satisfied, because, like, it is a happy ending, and we end with Todd, and he’s just, like, this is handled. And, like, it’s very funny, and it, like, ends on, like, a lighter note. But at the same time, there’s so many loose strings. Like, what happened to Andre Hayworth? Aren’t you guys gonna go save him? You know, how many people have they done this to? Is there ever gonna be justice? You know, obviously, if people show up to a house where people are dead in the driveway, and the house is completely burned down, like, there’s gonna be questions. So I it just leaves so many unanswered questions that that’s why I feel a little bit dissatisfied.
Todd: Get out Todd Sure. That’s fair.
Craig: Well, he’s thinking about a sequel. Now I kinda feel like this is one of those movies that you should really just kinda let it alone, you know? Yeah.
Jordan: It should definitely be a stand alone.
Craig: But you never know. He’s a smart guy. And if he comes up with a good story, I would certainly give it a chance. You know, this was a good movie.
Todd: I mean, this order still exists. Right? All those people who are at that party went away. Maybe there’s somebody else in there who can do the operation Todd, or maybe they have the knowledge, you know, somewhere else. Surely, they wouldn’t be so stupid as to, you know, centralize all the knowledge and the head of 1 guy and all of the materials they need to do it in one location in case something happens. You know? Yeah.
Jordan: Yeah.
Craig: Sure. Overall, I mean, I think
Clip: it was a pretty strong effort,
Craig: and, it was fun talking to you guys about it.
Todd: Oh, it was. I loved this movie. I’m so glad I finally got to see it.
Craig: Todd. I’m glad. Alright. Well, thank you for listening to another episode of 2 Guys in a Chainsaw. If you like this episode, let us know. If you, have any other theories that we didn’t talk about or things that you wanted to point out that maybe we missed, you can fill us in on something. Please feel free to leave comments on our Facebook page. You can find us there on Facebook, or you can find us on Stitcher, Itunes, Google Play. Pretty much anywhere you can find your favorite podcast, you can find us there. Until next time, I’m Craig.
Jordan: I’m Todd. I’m Jordan. We’re Two Guys and a Chainsaw