If you want to hear about the secret activity Jill Tuck participated in behind the scenes
and the meaning behind it, then stick around to the end of this video.
Jigsaw, the most notorious anti-hero of the Saw franchise was driven to commit his crimes
based on what he saw as injustices in his past.
Perhaps the one person who was most closely tied to the events that inspired his actions
was his then wife, Jill Tuck-Kramer.
And in today’s lesson we are discussing
why you should never marry an older man for his money because he might turn out to be a serial killer
-- no -- we’re gonna be analysing the character of Jill Tuck, and to do so, we’ve gotta
take it back to the first mention of Jigsaw’s girl.
Jill Tuck-Kramer was a doctor who sought to help drug addicts by running a recovery center
called Homeward Bound Clinic, whose motto, “Cherish Your Life” was adopted from a
phrase created by Jill’s husband, John Kramer.
It’s likely that the two were drawn to each other because of their mutual interest in
helping people improve their lives, but they would ultimately find differing methods of
going about it.
But John loved his wife, so he took her on picnics and recorded her on a video camera
in the park… cause, I guess that’s what you do when you’re in love.
In 1995, Jill becomes pregnant with their first child.
John started to have doubts about the effectiveness of the treatments his wife was administering
to drug addicts at Homeward Bound Clinic.
As he was waiting for her to get done working one evening, he witnessed a fight break out
when one of the patients, a man named Cecil Adams, gets fed up with how long he’s been
standing by in the waiting room.
“**** man!
I’ve been waiting for three ****ing hours!”
"Shut the **** up!"
"You shut up!"
Actual footage of me trying to get on the Hagrid ride.
Jill tries to stop the brawl, but John has to step in when Cecil looks like he’s about to
pull out a knife.
John is able to get him to calm down and put it away.
As the due date of the baby gets closer, John calls Jill into his workshop and shows her
a series of gifts he’s been working on: including a clock built with a 300 year old
mechanism, meant to be symbolic of their long lasting relationship, a crib for the incoming
baby, and a cute version of Billy the Puppet in the form of a children’s toy, which I’m
not sure why this hasn’t become a merchandising phenomenon, LIONSGATE, but I digress.
The entire pregnancy was perfectly planned by John, from the baby’s birth in the Chinese
Year of the Pig, to the name Gideon, which is also the name of the first building John
ever owned: The Gideon Meat Packing Plant.
I wouldn’t personally name my kid after a meat packing plant, but the name may have
been drawn from the Hebrew name Gidon which means hero or judge, both of which John saw
himself as.
One day during an ultrasound, John pulls out the old camcorder and they make a home video
for Gideon.
“Lean inside. There we go.
Here we are.”
“Hey Gideon.”
“Here’s our little happy family.
We love you son, we’re waiting for you.”
Why does that come off as incredibly creepy?
Oh right, because this is the same guy who made video tapes for all the people he tortured
and murdered.
The event that would set that all in motion would soon come, during another evening at
Homeward Bound Clinic.
Jill, who was now seven months pregnant, was finishing up and about to go home when Cecil
appears and claims he forgot his jacket inside.
When she goes to give it to him, he forces his way in and holds her at knifepoint so
he can steal more medications to relieve his fix.
In doing so, he slams the door into her pregnant belly.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!"
John knows something is wrong when he sees Cecil fleeing the building, and goes in to
find his wife collapsed on the floor.
He rushes her to a hospital, but the baby is unable to be saved, which would put a huge
strain on their relationship.
The reason this tore them apart is not just related to emotional trauma, but also their
ideals, which were drifting apart.
Jill believed that her treatment, which included medication and therapy, was the best solution,
but John was becoming convinced that this was not enough.
“All I wanted to do was help them.”
“You can’t help them.
They have to help themselves.”
...especially after seeing Jill’s treatment was ineffective in some patients, such as
Cecil Adams, and another woman named Amanda Young.
Meanwhile, Jill was left alone to cope with the loss, while John fell into a deep depression
and withdrew himself from the marriage.
“He blamed me.
I don’t think he could ever forgive me.”
In what may have been a last ditch effort by Jill to pull John out of this depression,
she shows up to his workshop with his lawyer, Art Blank, who tries to convince John to come
back and return to his work, which involved helping families in need.
"Uhm..
if you're homeless...
...just buy a house."
John is unwilling to cooperate; he forfeits his shares of the company to Jill, who ended
up shutting down the Gideon Meat Packing Plant for unknown reasons.
At some point they got divorced, and between that and the fact that Seinfeld was ending,
she dropped the “Kramer” hyphenation off of her last name, and went back to just being
Jill Tuck.
Sometime around then, Jill’s family abandons a pig farm they owned in the countryside due
to an outbreak of Aujesky’s disease.
After dealing with that, Jill hears that her ex-husband had attempted suicide, so being
the forgiving caregiver that she is, she seeks him out to try to talk with him.
When she goes into the workshop, she finds reconnaissance photos of Cecil, perhaps confirming
her suspicions that John had something to do with his death.
When she found John, she claimed that he was now a different person, seeing the horrors
of what his new work consisted of.
She discovers the truth, that John had turned Cecil into the first victim of his so called
rehabilitation.
Jill doesn’t approve of his methods, causing him to go ballistic and destroy the clock
he had once made for her, the symbol of their long lasting connection was now gone.
“Now you don’t come back.
You do it for yourself if you can’t do it for me.”
“I lost him too.”
The two would separate for several years after that, until John came back to the clinic to
confront his ex on her methods one more time.
After becoming Jigsaw, John would spend a good amount of his time trying to rehabilitate
the ex patients of the Homeward Bound Clinic, the most notable of which was Amanda Young.
After John believed she was clean, following his test of her in 2004, he brought her back
to Homeward Bound as proof to Jill that his rehabilitation methods were working.
Jill had previously dropped Amanda from her list of patients, thinking she was a lost
cause, so she was shocked to see that her ex-husband was able to turn Amanda into an
ex-addict.
At least it appeared that way.
This encounter did not immediately change Jill’s mind about John’s work, but rather,
would become something she would look back on in a few years while contemplating whether
or not to help carry out his legacy.
The couple would have one more meeting that we know of in April of 2006, not long before
the main events of Saw III and IV.
John and his followers were busy setting up the final two games of Jigsaw’s life, one
of which involves him testing a doctor and her husband at Gideon Meat Packing Plant,
which sat abandoned ever since Jill shut it down.
She was still the owner of the building though, and turns up one day to beg John to put an
end to his work as Jigsaw.
He ignores her request, and instead promises her a way out when everything is over with.
Roll it.
“And I have something for you.”
“What’s this for?”
“When the time’s right, you’ll know what to do.”
That would be their final encounter in person.
Shortly before John’s death, the police investigate Jill as a suspected accomplice
after discovering she was in possession of the Billy doll and tricycle used in the videos
left to many of Jigsaw’s victims.
The investigation wrecks havoc on her life -- she ends up being interrogated for… according
to her, 100s of hours.
She also claims many things were taken from her home for the investigation.
On April 28th, Jigsaw is running two games, one of which is a test for Officer Daniel
Rigg.
The FBI Agents, Strahm and Perez are following him, and they arrive at his home, where the
first phase of the test took place.
The walls are covered with photos of Jigsaw’s victims, but there’s one wild card -- Jill
Tuck can also be seen in the photos.
And I love how John took the time to get these candid photos of his ex wife out and about
in town.
I mean, I know they got divorced, but he seriously didn’t have one photo?
He could have printed out her MySpace picture or something!
Kind of weird to secretly take photos of your ex who is way younger than you.
Anyway, this leads Strahm and Perez to confront her at her work and bring her in for even
more questioning.
This time instead of just asking about John, they were also asking about her.
As the end of the games draw near, Strahm gets more desperate for the answers that have
eluded him.
He threatens to pin charges on her and also physically pins her against the wall to intimidate
her.
Jill doesn't have much to tell but she does tell him about her divorce.
This eventually leads Strahm to ask about the location of Gideon Meat Packing Plant,
John's first building where the two games were taking place.
She does not realize that she's sending Strahm into a trap of his own, which is facilitated
by Jigsaw's actual accomplice, Detective Mark Hoffman.
Tuck and Hoffman would establish a sort of rivalry that ramped up after John's death
on the 28th. Hoffman wanted Jill out of the picture so that he could have complete control
over Jigsaw's legacy and make judgements on his own, while Jill was growing disdain for
Hoffman because he was starting to act against John's final wishes by taking over the games
John didn’t have time to carry out in life for selfish reasons in order to increase his
power.
Despite the fact that they couldn’t make their marriage work, Jill still had enough
respect for John to want to see that his final requests are carried out properly, and Hoffman
was getting in the way of that.
Not long after, news of John Kramer's death and identity as Jigsaw went public, and she
finds herself surrounded by news articles claiming to know and understand both sides
of John Kramer, which must have been surreal because the only one to truly know both sides
of him was her.
The media also speculated on her involvement even though she had not actually been involved
up to that point.
She noticed she was being followed, and that didn’t surprise her at first, because of
the initial wave of media attention, but she soon grew paranoid that someone was stalking her.
She meets with John’s executor, the man responsible for paying out John’s will,
who shows her a VHS containing one final message from her late ex husband.
Roll that tape.
“If you’re watching this Jill, I’m long gone from this world.
You are my heart, you always have been.
You always will be.”
Things not to say to your ex for 500.
It’s important to note John’s clothing and hairstyle during this tape, which tells
us that it was recorded just before the main events in Saw III, a game that potentially
could have ended with John being killed or possibly imprisoned for the remainder of his
life.
Even though they were not speaking at the time, John still has Jill’s best interests
at the top of his mind, even as he is busy making preparations for the most complex and
dangerous game he’s ever held.
He goes on to tell her that he blames himself for what happened to Gideon at the Homeward
Bound Clinic, and that he encouraged her work at the time, even when he sensed danger on
the horizon.
This is a bit different than his stance immediately after the miscarriage, where he was upset
that she could not understand how the flaws in her treatment methods led to this.
Had John blamed himself from the beginning, I think it’s entirely possible that Jill
would have reacted more receptively, and perhaps they would not have gotten divorced and things
may have gone much differently.
He leaves her a box and tells her she’ll know what to do with the contents.
That’s when she remembers her final encounter with John, and uses the key he gave her, which
she’s kept on her this entire time, perhaps a sign that she still had kind of a place
in her heart for John even after the divorce and even after learning he’d become a serial
killer -- and I think that small amount of love she had left for him started to influence
her decisions going forward.
She decides not to take the contents out of the box in front of this guy though.
And I don’t blame her.
Look at those eyes.
“What was in the box? What’s in the box?”
The box contained six numbered envelopes, one labeled parcel, and a number of related
materials and instructions including one of Jigsaw’s most iconic traps... but Jill would
wisely wait until she knew she was alone before opening them.
After receiving the box from John, Jill still could not shake the feeling that someone was
stalking her and goes to the FBI headquarters to inform the head of the investigation, but
for some reason he just wouldn’t stop asking for pictures of Spiderman.
"You serious?"
Nah that’s not him.
She tells him she believes that Agent Strahm, the man who interrogated her, is responsible.
She later opens the envelopes and finds they contain profiles on six more victims who are
to be tested in upcoming games.
The first five are players in the trial of William Easton, an insurance mogul who once
rejected John’s request for coverage.
(That’s the main game in Saw 6.)
The sixth envelope contains a profile on Detective Hoffman, who has now become the successor
to Jigsaw.
Hoffman thinks that he and Jill are the only ones left to carry out the rest of John’s
work, but Jill has been given a bit more information than him, which again, is an important illustration
of where John’s trust really lies.
Jill knows that there is one other disciple who has been working behind the scenes for
a long time now and decides to keep this information to herself, because she senses that John did
not fully trust Hoffman.
Eventually, Hoffman shows up at the clinic and demands she forfeit the envelopes to him
so that he can be the one to run the next game.
He wants to work alone from now on so that he can get away with as much foul play as
he wants.
She only hands over envelopes 1-5, completely hiding the existence of a sixth file.
Later, Jill receives a visit from a reporter named Pamela Jenkins who delivers a note found
at Gideon Meat Packing Plant, the main location from Saw III where John was killed.
The note reads: “Amanda - You were with Cecil the night Jill lost Gideon.
You killed their child.
You know it and I know it, so do exactly as I say.
Kill Lynn Denlon or I will tell John what you did.”
Now this gets a little bit confusing, but here's
why it’s a big deal for Jill.
For some time, she been thinking back on her conversation with John and Amanda.
That was the first time that Jill started to maybe believe that John’s method of helping
people -- using the traps and games was superior.
But when Amanda went off the rails and failed her final test by killing Lynn Denlon, an
event that ultimately ended up leading to John’s death, Jill lost faith in his methods.
But this note, if genuine, proves that Amanda was blackmailed, so maybe she really was rehabilitated,
and only killed Lynn Denlon to protect her secret about being with Cecil.
If this note is indeed from Hoffman, then that
also proves he has broken the rules in order to take Amanda out and become the only disciple
of Jigsaw, and if that is the case, he’s dangerous and needs to be stopped.
Jill knows she probably can’t defeat Hoffman on her own, so she plays her trump card and
pays a visit to the disciple that she knows about, but Hoffman does not; Jigsaw’s greatest
asset: Dr. Lawrence Gordon, the winner of the bathroom game two years ago in 2004.
Jill goes to the hospital that Gordon now works at and delivers the parcel into the
slot on his door.
It contains a tape left behind by John, telling Gordon to act immediately if anything should
happen to Jill.
With the peace of mind that she will at least be avenged if she fails, Jill gathers the
last of the materials John had left her in his will, and shows up to the location of
the next game to administer Hoffman’s final test.
She manages to subdue him by running an electric current into the back of his chair and leaving
the note that he had once used to blackmail Amanda on the desk.
Once Hoffman read the note and realized that someone else knew his secret, she activated
the electricity to incapacitate him, strapped him to the chair, and brought out the final
item left to her in the box from John’s will, the reverse bear trap, which was famously
used to test Amanda back in 2004.
Jill was finally about to carry out John’s final wish, but because she wasn’t there
with him during the final years of his life, she never got to hear this important piece
of advice:
“You’re assuming this is going to play out the way you want it.”
“I assume nothing.”
Jill did not anticipate the possibility of Hoffman escaping the trap, and when he does,
she is forced to run for it and hide out until Hoffman leaves the building, taking the reverse
bear trap with him.
Both Mark Hoffman and Jill Tuck go dark for almost a year, and all the while Jill is haunted
by nightmares of Hoffman capturing her and brutally ending her life as revenge for her
messing up his jaw.
Still, she is able to stay hidden for a long time until March of 2007, when she hears about
a new Jigsaw trap taking place in public.
"Hello Brad.
Hello Ryan.
I want to play a game."
With the knowledge that Hoffman is active again, her paranoia gets the better of her
and she goes to the police station seeking protection.
Which is honestly kind of insane because her husband was responsible for the death of like
5 of their cops and… let’s not forget the creation of Hoffman who is like the biggest
psycho ever so… pretty ballsy of Jill to trust the cops at this point, but apparently
she’s got a good feeling about this guy, Matt Gibson from Internal Affairs.
She tells him that Hoffman is Jigsaw’s successor and secret accomplice and offers what she
knows in exchange for protection and immunity.
He puts her in a safehouse, but after Hoffman demonstrates that he knows she's there,
"This was sent here addressed to Jill. Hoffman knows our location"
"Godd*mnit."
...moves her to a high security holding cell for her protection.
None of these precautions, however, are enough to stop Hoffman from getting to her.
He holds the body of an assistant to the window in order to get the guards to open the door,
and takes them out to bring himself face to face with Jill Tuck.
“I’ve been looking for you.”
In a last ditch effort, she stabs him in the neck and runs to hide in the evidence room.
He still finds her though, and in a cruel twist of fate, straps her to the very same
chair where she had left him to die less than one year ago.
Unlike Amanda and Hoffman, Jill is not able to escape from the reverse bear trap, and
meets her demise.
“Game Over.”
However, her backup plan did work, as Lawrence Gordon was quickly able to avenge her, so
she was still able to be a part of the plan to carry out John’s final wish, even in
death.
I think Jill Tuck actually has one of the best character arcs in the series.
When we meet her she’s very convinced that her way of helping people using medication
and traditional therapy is the only way to help these troubled people overcome their
addictions.
John’s philosophy is that going through an immense amount of suffering can help someone
see the light, and although John isn’t intentionally putting her through any suffering, she does
suffer the loss of her unborn son and the loss of her marriage, and this eventually
leads to her realization that John’s judgements, although oftentimes cruel, could be effective,
and she ends up playing a key part in bringing down the series’s most evil villain as a
result.
It’s kind of easy to overlook her character arc, because her story is chopped up and distributed
intermittently throughout Saws 4-7 and rarely becomes the main focus, but hopefully this
Horror History gave you a better idea of why did what she did behind the scenes and
what her character means for the franchise.
SO.
Your homework is to let me know in the comments who I should cover next on Horror History,
and make sure you check out that playlist on the left for more episodes including other
Saw characters.
Remember to subscribe to CZsWorld for new horrors every week, ring that deathbell for
notifications and I’ll see you in the next one.
Assuming we both survive.