Rian Johnson's deliciously twisted whodunnit Knives Out is finally… well, out.
Even if you paid close attention all throughout the hilarious caper, you may be left with
some questions.
We're here to lay out everything you need to know about the ending, and what really
happened to Harlan Thrombey.
To understand the ending of Knives Out, it's important to first understand each character
in the film's sprawling cast, and how they're all connected to one another.
At the top of the family tree is Harlan's wizened mother, Greatana Wanetta, who doesn't
say much, but sees a lot.
Then there's Harlan, and his two surviving children, Linda and Walt.
Walt ostensibly runs Harlan's publishing house, while Linda is a "self-made" businesswoman
who built her business from the ground up.
"I'm Walt Thrombey.
And if that name sounds familiar, it's probably because you know my dad."
In reality, Harlan is still the one pulling the strings at the publishing house, and Linda
got her start with a handy million-dollar start-up loan from her father — of course.
Beyond them, there's Joni, an Instagram influencer whose husband, Harlan's son, died 15 years
earlier.
She's been living off of Harlan's generosity ever since.
Linda is married to Richard, and they have an adult son, Hugh, although the family calls
him by his middle name, Ransom.
Walt is married to Donna, and they have a teenage son, Jacob.
And Joni has a college-aged daughter, Meg, from her marriage to Harlan's son.
Also in the Thrombey family's orbit are Harlan's housekeeper, Fran, and his personal nurse,
Marta Cabera, who also became his close friend and confidante.
Although the Thrombeys often say they consider Marta "part of the family" — a claim that's
constantly undermined by their inability to remember what country she's from — the only
one she's really close to, other than Harlan, is Meg.
Harlan's housekeeper Fran discovers him dead on the couch in his study, covered in blood
from a knife wound to the neck, apparently self-inflicted.
His family had all come into town for his 85th birthday party the night before, and
they wind up sticking around for the funeral, will reading, and police investigation.
Although Lieutenant Elliott, the investigator assigned to the case, believes Harlan clearly
killed himself, he still covers his bases by questioning everyone.
Conversely, renowned private investigator Benoit Blanc suspects foul play right from
the get-go.
"I suspect foul play.
I have eliminated no suspects."
Technically, Blanc turns out to be only partially right.
No one killed Harlan Thrombey; he really did do the deed himself by slitting his own throat.
But the actual circumstances surrounding his death were far more complicated than that.
Early on, we get Marta's version of the events that led to Harlan's death, which caused her
to believe that she killed him.
After Harlan's birthday party, Marta accompanied him up to his study, where they played their
nightly round of the board game Go — which Marta always won — and she gave him his
evening medication.
Occasionally, Marta would follow up his daily meds with three milligrams of morphine, which
Harlan referred to as "the good stuff," to help with the pain he'd been suffering since
a recent surgery.
Since it was Harlan's birthday, Marta thought he'd earned a dose of "the good stuff" to
help him sleep, but when she went to pick up the vial of morphine, she realized the
bottles had been switched.
She had already given Harlan 100 milligrams — a lethal dose.
Marta searched for the antagonist that would counteract the overdose, but it was missing.
She tried to call 911, but Harlan stopped her, knowing the ambulance wouldn't arrive
in time, and not wanting Marta to face scrutiny that would lead to her undocumented mother
being deported.
Instead, before the morphine kicked in, Harlan walked Marta through an elaborate plan to
keep her above suspicion.
While Marta's version of events was the truth, it wasn't the whole truth.
It turned out that Harlan's grandson, Ransom, had switched out the morphine with Harlan's
other meds earlier in the evening, intending for Marta to administer the overdose of morphine
while thinking it was his regular medication.
However, Ransom failed to take into account Marta's professional expertise and familiarity
with Harlan's evening routine, not to mention Harlan's own tendency to be a sore loser,
all of which caused his plan to go sideways.
Earlier in the evening, after Marta had set out all of Harlan's medication beside the
Go board, she beat Harlan at the game yet again.
Harlan knew she could beat him nearly every time, yet still was convinced each time they
played that this time, he'd finally win.
When Marta won, Harlan overturned the game board, sending his medication tumbling onto
the floor along with the Go pieces.
When Marta retrieved the vials from the floor, she didn't even look at the labels, instead
relying on her familiarity with what the bottles' contents looked like.
So when she gave Harlan 100 milligrams of the drug in the bottle labeled "morphine,"
she was actually giving him the correct medication — which means that if he'd allowed her to
call the ambulance like she'd wanted, instead of taking matters into his own hands, he would've
been just fine.
After financially supporting his family for years, Harlan had come to the conclusion that
their financial dependence on him wasn't doing any of them any favors.
They'd all all grown accustomed to the indulgent lifestyle that Harlan's wealth afforded them,
and had convinced themselves that they deserved it, even though they'd done nothing to earn
it.
Hoping to motivate them all to go make something of themselves Harlan had decided to cut off
their access to his fortune, instead naming Marta as his sole beneficiary.
When Harlan turns up dead, multiple characters begin referring to something called the "Slayer
Rule" as a way to circumvent Harlan's wishes and allow his family to inherit his estate.
Despite its dramatic name, the slayer rule is actually a real thing, stating that a killer
cannot inherit the property of their victim.
Harlan left his entire estate to Marta, but if the family could prove that she killed
him, it would void his will.
"Did you just Google that?"
"I did just Google that."
What's more, the slayer rule applies to civil law, not criminal law.
This means that Marta wouldn't actually have to be convicted of Harlan's death for the
Thrombeys to gain access to Harlan's money.
All Ransom has to do in order to reclaim his inheritance is amass enough evidence against
Marta to file a wrongful death claim — a much lower bar to clear than having to convince
a jury of her guilt.
The mystery of who hired Blanc simmers throughout Knives Out, and not even Blanc himself knows
who his employer is until the end of the film.
He was hired with nothing more than an envelope full of cash and a newspaper clipping of Harlan's
death, which was enough to pique his interest.
It seems strange that someone would hire a private investigator to dig into Harlan's
death — especially since the only person who seems to know the full circumstances around
Thrombey's death is Marta, who has a vested interest in no one finding out the truth.
"CSI: KFC?"
It turns out that Ransom was the one who sent Blanc the cash and the newspaper clipping,
hoping that he would discover that Marta had given Harlan a lethal dose of morphine, which
would trigger the slayer rule and prevent her from inheriting his estate.
But of course, things don't wind up going according to Ransom's plan.
Ransom was the only family member to learn what Harlan was planning for his estate.
And from his time as Harlan's research assistant, he also knew about the slayer rule, which
led to him hatching his plan.
If he could make a case for Marta having killed Harlan, then she wouldn't be able to inherit,
allowing him to get the money he felt he was owed.
Ransom switched the medications in Marta's medical bag and removed the antidote that
could counteract the morphine, thinking that when Harlan died of an overdose, it would
obviously point to Marta.
But when Harlan slit his throat, Ransom needed someone to make a more thorough investigation,
which is why he hired Blanc.
When he realized that Harlan didn't overdose after all, Ransom changed tactics again, destroying
the autopsy records and endearing himself to Marta so that she'd give him "his share"
of the money.
But then when Fran attempted to blackmail him, Ransom changed his plan yet again, intending
to kill Fran and frame Marta for her death instead of Harlan's.
Since the Thrombeys opted not to invite "the help" to Harlan's funeral, Fran the housekeeper
was still at home when Ransom sneaked into the house to replace the medications he'd
tampered with in Marta's medical bag.
Fran had never liked Ransom, and grew immediately suspicious that he'd done something shady.
She contacted her cousin in the medical examiner's office and got a copy of the toxicology report
from Harlan's autopsy, which she didn't know how to interpret, but assumed it said something
to incriminate Ransom.
Fran made a copy of the report's header, storing the original in the same clock where she hid
her marijuana — the "stash" she sometimes shared with Marta and Meg — and sent it
to Ransom with the note, "I know what you did," along with a meeting time and place,
where she intended to confront him.
Ransom in turn sent the note along to Marta, giving her a slightly later meeting time,
intending for her to show up as Fran died, so that Marta would get arrested for killing
Fran.
When Ransom met Fran, he attacked her and injected her with morphine, leaving her for
dead.
But she's still alive when Marta arrives, and manages to gasp out that the toxicology
report was with her stash, and that "Hugh did this."
Despite confusing this statement for an accusatory "You did this," Marta nevertheless tries to
save Fran by calling 911 and administering CPR.
Fran eventually dies in the hospital, leading to Ransom being arrested for her death.
Blanc can tell from the first instant he meets Marta that she knows more about Harlan's death
than she's letting on, due to a small spatter of blood on her white shoes.
"None of them are murderers."
"We'll find out."
When Marta finally comes clean to Blanc after trying to save Fran, he thinks he has all
the pieces.
But it isn't until he reads the toxicology report that Blanc finally realizes what happened,
and who is to blame.
He realizes the second he looks at it that Harlan hadn't suffered an overdose, that someone
must have intentionally switched Harlan's medications, and based on the events of the
night of Harlan's party, he knows it must have been Ransom.
While his suspicions may not have been enough to get Ransom convicted, it turns out that
Marta tricked Ransom by telling him Fran was alive, prompting Ransom to brag to Blanc that
he'd gotten away with everything.
But unbeknownst to Ransom, Marta was lying, and managed to hold off her regurgitation
reflex just long enough for Trooper Wagner to record Ransom's entire confession.
After spending the entire film in a constant state of panic, Marta is able to rest easy
at the end, knowing that nothing she did led to Harlan's death, and that she helped the
police find the person truly responsible for what happened to him.
Marta's lack of culpability in Harlan's death means that the Thrombey family has no grounds
on which to contest Harlan's will, allowing Marta to claim her entire inheritance, which
consists of the publishing house, the mansion, the rights to all of Harlan's written works,
and $60 million.
We last see her sipping from a mug that says "My House, My Rules, My Coffee," first seen
way back in the opening shot of the film, standing over the rest of the Thrombey family
on the mansion's balcony.
Check out one of our newest videos right here!
Plus, even more Looper videos about your favorite movies are coming soon.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one.