Wake Up Dead Man ending explained: Who's the killer and everyone who dies in Knives Out 3
Wake Up Dead Man has Benoit Blanc trying to solve an "impossible crime"
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery pits Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc against an “impossible crime” – so, who dies… and who’s the killer responsible?
Pop culture has no shortage of iconic detectives: Poirot, Jessica Fletcher, Columbo, and Sherlock Holmes, to name a few.
Benoit Blanc, played by Craig in the Knives Out movies, is a new – but no less fantastic – addition to the movie sleuth pantheon.
In Wake Up Dead Man (already one of the best Netflix films ever), writer-director Rian Johnson sends Blanc to Chimney Rock, a quaint, religious town in upstate New York.
***Warning: spoilers from the ending of Wake Up Dead Man ahead***
Wake Up Dead Man ending explained: Who dies?
Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin) dies in Wake Up Dead Man, leading to Reverend Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor) becoming a suspect and the arrival of Benoit Blanc.
Before we can explain who’s responsible for Wicks’ death, it’s important to understand the baffling, seemingly unsolvable circumstances in which he was killed.
After a typically furious Good Friday sermon, he excuses himself to regain his composure in a storage closet. As Jud stands before the congregation, he hears a thud. When he looks to his side, he notices Wicks collapsed on the ground.
As he inspects the body, Nat Sharp (Jenner Renner), the local doctor, asks him not to touch Wicks so he can have a proper look.
He finds a knife stabbed in Wicks’ back… that’s also fashioned with a devil’s head ornament, which Jud stole from a bar and threw through the church window the night before.
Jud quickly becomes a suspect, but as both Blanc and local police chief Geraldine Scott (Mila Kunis) point out, there’s no way he could have committed the murder.
Who killed Jefferson Wicks and why?
Two people are responsible for Jefferson Wicks’ death in Wake Up Dead Man: Martha Delacroix (Glenn Close), Wicks’ assistant in the church, and Nat Sharp.
This is where it gets a bit complicated, but bear with us. Decades before the events of the movie, Wicks’ grandfather Prentice was the priest at Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude. Wicks’ mother, Grace, didn’t care for the church, but she stayed so she could get her dad’s inheritance.
However, when Prentice died, no one could find his fortune.
Martha knew exactly what had happened. Before he died, Prentice swallowed an extremely valuable diamond (known as Eve’s Apple), and he was entombed with it still lodged in his corpse.
Martha considered this one of her darkest secrets (she even hid it from Grace). But, in a bid to prove herself to Jud, she reveals the truth to Wicks.
It quickly becomes clear that Wicks plans to not only retrieve the diamond but also “burn” his loathsome congregation by exposing their secrets and misdeeds. So, Martha teams up with Nat to stop him.
Their plan is pretty elaborate. Martha poisoned Wicks’ hip flask (he was an alcoholic) with a drug that causes him to fall unconscious, and when nobody was looking, Nat stabbed Wicks with a knife with the same ornament Jud had thrown through the window the night before.
Wake Up Dead Man ending: What goes wrong?
Everything goes to plan… until Martha and Nat convince Samson (Thomas Haden Church), the church’s groundskeeper, to pose as Wicks’ corpse so he can retrieve the diamond from Prentice’s tomb.
Initially, they seem to pull it off. Samson climbs out, cracks open Prentice’s coffin, and retrieves the diamond. He then uses the tomb’s Lazarus door (allowing someone to exit from inside with a simple push) to leave.
When the nearby CCTV cameras capture the moment, it appears as if Wicks has risen from the dead, just like Jesus. This was another part of their plan: to restore faith in the church.
In reality, it’s just Samson, who walks out of view into the woods with Nat. The unexpected, muddy arrival of Jud, who had been watching from afar, complicates things.
As Jud runs into the woods, Samson punches him and knocks him out. Jud hallucinates and seemingly murders Wicks, before waking up next to Samson’s body with a scythe in his chest.
However, it wasn’t Jud. Nat realises he could murder Samson and escape with the diamond – and that’s exactly what he does.
Later, Blanc and Jud arrive at Nat’s house and find two dead bodies: Wicks, whose arms are lowered into an acid-filled tub, and the skeletal remains of Nat, who’d been completely submerged in acid.
What happens to Martha at the end of Knives Out 3?
Martha dies in Jud’s arms at the end of Wake Up Dead Man, having confessed to the murder of both Wicks and Nat.
After finding out about Samson’s death, Martha immediately suspects Nat is responsible. She goes to Nat’s house, where they planned to dispose of Wicks’ actual corpse in acid in his basement.
Martha confronts him about Samson, but realises Nat has given her a poisoned cup of coffee. She swaps them when he isn’t looking, and when he collapses, she dumps his body in the tub.
Benoit Blanc gathers everyone in the church, having fully figured out what happened and Martha’s role in the murders. But, as he starts to lay out the big reveal, sunlight shines on him through the church’s stained glass window.
It brings him pause, and Jud asks him, “Damascus?” (More on this, shortly.)
Blanc lies to everyone, insisting that the case is unsolvable. However, when only he, Jud, Geraldine, and Martha remain in the church, he allows Martha to confess in her own words.
Martha admits to everything before falling to the ground. As Blanc already observed, she poisoned herself with the same drug she’d used on Wicks and Nat, and she prays for forgiveness. Jud absolves her of her actions, and she passes away.
Wake Up Dead Man ending: What is Benoit Blanc’s “Damascus” moment?
We need to dive into the Bible to get to grips with Benoit Blanc’s Damascus epiphany in Wake Up Dead Man.
Earlier in the film, Blanc tells Jud he’s a “proud heretic” who believes God is a fiction and worships at the “altar of rational thought”. Yet, he’s clearly (though quietly) touched by Jud’s reverence for religion and his belief in how it helps people.
When Blanc gets his moment to spell out the whole case, he resists the urge to indulge in himself. After the light shines into the dark church, he reveals he was inspired by Jud’s “grace”.
But what does this have to do with Damascus? In the Bible (specifically, Acts 9), Saul – also known as Paul – is blinded by the lights of heaven as he journeys to Damascus.
Jesus reveals himself to him and tells him to go into the city, where Ananias (upon divine instruction) allows Saul to see again. At this moment, he becomes a follower of Jesus.
So, is Benoit Blanc suddenly a devout Christian? Absolutely not. The movie’s invocation of the Damascus parable simply illustrates how Blanc – a detective who relished the “game” of solving murders – was “converted” into someone more mindful and compassionate.
What happens to Jud and Eve’s Apple?
After Martha dies, Eve’s Apple slips out of her hand. Blanc turns a blind eye, allowing Jud to keep the diamond.
A year later, Cy (Daryl McCormack), Wicks’ son, demands that the diamond be given to him, as it’s his inheritance. Jud, Blanc, and Langstrom (Jeffrey Wright), a senior bishop, tell him it’s never been found.
Jud is left in charge of Our Lady of Perpetual Grace and prepares to reopen the church. He asks Blanc if he’ll stay for his first service, but he jokes there’s nothing else he’d rather not do.
As he welcomes in the new parishioners, the camera drifts up to Jud’s handmade crucifix on the wall. Eve’s Apple glistens from inside, hidden away where nobody will find it.
Will there be a Knives Out 4?
Knives Out 4 hasn’t been confirmed, but there will likely be a sequel to Wake Up Dead Man.
Don’t expect anyone apart from Craig to return, though. Each movie is a brand-new mystery with no overlapping cast members, aside from Craig’s detective.
Johnson told The Hollywood Reporter that he feels “energised after making this one”.
“Daniel and I are already starting to formulate… what could the next one be if we do another one? I don’t know why I would stop doing it if we could keep making them,” he added.
The question is, will the series remain on Netflix? With Wake Up Dead Man, Johnson’s Netflix deal has been fulfilled. So, it’ll either get renewed or Johnson will take a sequel elsewhere (and probably request a larger theatrical release).
However, with Netflix’s acquisition of Warner Bros, Johnson may be able to secure a better deal with the streamer.
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