Gather ‘round Knives Out fans! The inimitable Detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) is finally back to solve what just might be his most mysterious murder yet.
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery — which premiered on Netflix on Dec. 12 — is the third installment of Rian Johnson’s Knives Out series, and it follows Blanc as he sets up camp at a small church in upstate New York.
Though Johnson’s previous films respectively saw Blanc solving the death of a famed author and foiling a tech billionaire’s evil plot, this time the smooth-talking detective is tasked with solving the bizarre murder of church leader Msgr. Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin).
Aided by local police chief Geraldine Scott (Mila Kunis) and shunned priest Father Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor), Blanc must untangle a web of lies, deceit and deadly secrets to uncover the real culprit behind Wicks’ murder.
So how does Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery end? Here’s everything to know about the film’s twisted finale.
Warning: Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out spoilers ahead!
How does Msgr. Wicks die in Wake Up Dead Man?
Courtesy of Netflix
While giving an impassioned Good Friday service to a small room of attendees, Msgr. Wicks pauses halfway to take a brief break in a storage closet near the church’s pulpit. As Fr. Jud approaches the platform to continue the service, Wicks suddenly collapses alone offstage, prompting the group to rush to his aid.
They find that the monsignor had seemingly been stabbed in the back by a blade fashioned from a devil head ornament taken from a local bar. Though Blanc and Jud seem stumped by the crime at first, they slowly begin piecing it all together thanks to a trail of clues.
For one, the pair learn that the appropriate construction material to open Wicks’ mausoleum had been ordered a week before his death. They also discover that a remote control interference occurred a few seconds after the monsignor collapsed. And finally, that Jud had hidden a flask the monsignor dropped when dying to protect his reputation.
Who killed Msgr. Wicks and how did they pull it off?
John Wilson/Netflix
Toward the end of Wake Up Dead Man, Blanc deduces that it was actually Dr. Nat Sharp (Jeremy Renner), one of Wicks’ most loyal parishioners, who murdered him through a series of twisted steps.
To begin, Sharp first spiked the monsignor’s flask with a tranquilizer so that he would fall unconscious while taking his break. Then, taking two identical devil head ornaments, Sharp used one to fashion a knife and filled the other with fake blood and sewed it into Wicks’ robes.
When the monsignor fell to the floor, Sharp then used a radio frequency remote control to unleash the fake blood, creating the illusion that the monsignor had collapsed because he was stabbed.
In reality, however, Wicks was only sedated at that point and later killed during a brief distraction created by Sharp’s accomplice, church manager Martha Delacroix (Glenn Close). Falling into hysterics at the sight of her “dead” monsignor, Martha grabbed everyone’s attention for a pivotal few seconds, which Sharp used to switch out the ornaments and stab Wicks.
Why did Martha and Dr. Sharp want to kill Wicks?
Courtesy of Netflix
Though Sharp may have been the one to murder Wicks, it was Martha who concocted the plan to begin with.
At the start of Wake Up Dead Man, Jud challenges Martha to confess her most intimate secret to Wicks to prove that she still trusts him despite his increasingly corrupt leadership of the church.
Taking Jud up on the challenge, Martha enters the church’s confessional. She discloses that she’s secretly known where Wicks’ inheritance from his late grandfather, Reverend Prentice Wicks (James Faulkner), has been located all these years.
Wicks ultimately learns that his inheritance, a diamond named Eve’s Apple, was swallowed by his grandfather and tucked away with his corpse in his mausoleum. Although Martha initially trusts Wicks with this information, she quickly realizes his intent to steal the jewel and flee with it after he discloses his plans to retire and orders mausoleum-opening appliances.
The final nail in the coffin was her realization that Wicks had fathered a son, aspiring politician Cy Draven (Daryl McCormack), illegitimately and was ready to embrace him publicly.
Martha seemingly took all of these events as signs of the monsignor’s deviation from faith and turn to greed, scheming a last-ditch plan to kill him to save the church’s reputation. But killing Wicks was not enough, and Martha believed that she also had to stage his “resurrection” to further restore trust in the church.
Did Msgr. Wicks really come back to life?
John Wilson/Netflix
As later revealed by Martha, it was the church’s groundskeeper, Samson Holt (Thomas Haden Church), who was buried alive in Wicks’ coffin and taken to the mausoleum. Meanwhile, Wicks’ real corpse was in Sharp’s basement, where he was decomposing it in acid.
When the timing was right, Sharp visited the mausoleum at night and sent a message to Samson signaling that he could now leave the tomb. It was then that Wicks’ “resurrection” was captured by a nearby motion camera. Rather than take Samson back to his home as planned, however, Sharp, blinded by greed, kills him instead and takes the diamond for himself.
Realizing what had happened, Martha visits Sharp’s house and feeds him a cup of coffee poisoned with pentobarbital that he had initially made for her. She retrieves the jewel and returns to the church, where she confesses her crimes to Blanc, Jud, and chief Scott before dying from a dose of pentobarbital she had secretly consumed earlier.
How does Wake Up Dead Man end?
Courtesy of Netflix
After being cleared of any wrongdoing, Jud closes Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude and opens it again, renaming it Our Lady of Perpetual Grace a year later.
While most of Wicks’ former parishioners distance themselves from the church, Cy stays close by in an attempt to discover where Eve’s Apple is — an inheritance he now deems for himself.
Although Blanc and Jud maintain that they have no idea where the diamond is, the film’s final shot reveals that the jewel is being kept safe and hidden in a crucifix at the church, echoing the film’s broader theme of pursuing faith for the good of people rather than greed.
