Wake Up Dead Man: Holy Sh*t

I will tell you now, before I get too deep into the word count, that this film will be controversial. It's Rian's most direct hit at the corrupting influence of greed in the series so far - if you've been paying attention, all of Rian's whodunnit work has been doing this, because that's the genre convention - Knives Out and PokerFace as series don't shy away from their progressive politics in the least .

However, this film is the most direct hit - and it's going to anger both sides of the spectrum. Progressives may call this """"Religious Propaganda"""" if they choose to be obtuse and uncharitable, and Right Wingers will holler because they've been hit. All in all, this is a film about the cost of greed - just like every Knives Out film and whodunnit before it – and if people start complaining now, it only means they have aesthetic issues with it, and I have no time for people whose politics ignores context and prefers to be concerned with aesthetics. Aesthetics rarely save lives.

I'm gonna be honest, gang - I expected something much darker. This film had been so darkly overhyped that I was sure Rian had gone off the deep end into something truly terrifying. I should have known he'd never betray me - there are moments of shock and scare, just like always - but the Knives Out series is not a Horror or Thriller series - it's whodunnits. It's whodunnits all the way down. Delicious, mind-bending, gorgeous mysteries with ornate walls and heartfelt, kind, gooey, complicated humans at the centre.

Technically, yes, you'll see the ending coming from the beginning, but it's Rian's job to have you deliciously doubting yourself at every turn, corner, facet. There's a particularly brilliant twist where you think you've misunderstood a character completely, and then you realise that Benoit and this character are having a completely separate conversation about something super innocent. Oh, the joy, oh the unadulterated joy of a Rian Johnson script. I'm sorry, I'm gushing - and I'm not going to stop.

Some are trying to hit us with the hot take that Rian must abandon this series, abandon this character and end it on a trilogy - they're trying to end my joy, reader. They want Rian to stop making sequels, and go back to making original films. Blasphemy! Of the highest order! Rian has managed to create a franchise of entirely original films - that's the joy of the mystery series! Agatha Christie didn't build some tawdry "Franchise" - she merely had a form, and could break and bend it at will.

And bend it Rian does - in so many ways, this is a film about how our greeds are funnelled through our political alignments in this moment in history, and how we must look after the worst and most guilty among us, as they're the most in need of our compassion. Compassion means nothing if it's not applied to the "worst" among us - and vengeance is not godly, nor moral.

I would follow Rian Johnson off a cliff. OFF A CLIFF!