This ‘Glass Onion’ Easter Egg Foreshadowed That Major Twist
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Spoilers follow for Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.
Glass Onion, Rian Johnson's sequel to his hugely popular whodunnit Knives Out, dropped on Netflix over the holidays, prompting hordes of viewers to play amateur sleuth as Daniel Craig's Benoit Blanc joined a cabal of wealthy vacationers on a private island. Just like its predecessor, Glass Onion is the kind of murder mystery that rewards repeated viewings, as its intricately layered plotting and mid-film reversal cast the first half in a new light. But while fans may not have been able to predict every twist and turn, the script did scatter some small, breadcrumb-like clues.
In fact, everything you need to know about the broad strokes of the plot could be easily deduced if you were paying close enough attention to Janelle Monáe's character Andi.
When Andi first appeared on the marina, it was heavily implied that she would become suspect number one in the event of a murder: she was alienated from her former friends and was nursing a pretty huge grudge against Edward Norton's Miles Bron. But this is a puzzle box of a mystery, and so it was never going to be that straightforward. As the story unfolded, we got the shocking twist that Andi was not who she claimed to be: she was actually Andi's twin sister Helen, who had come to Miles' private island to find out who killed Andi.
What followed was a hugely satisfying charade as we saw Helen impersonate her sister just long enough to uncover the truth. And viewers with a passing knowledge of Greek mythology would have got an even bigger kick out of it. (Nothing in these films is ever an accident, and so the fact that the titular Glass Onion house was situated on a Greek island in the Aegean sea is of note.)
Because both sisters' names were huge clues.
When Monáe is first introduced, we learn that Andi is short for Cassandra. Cassandra was a figure in the Iliad who was cursed by the gods with the ability to predict the future—but none of her visions were ever believed.
Just like her mythical counterpart, Andi is shown to issue dire warnings about Miles' experimental fuel, which she predicts will cause mass destruction, only to be ignored and ultimately forced out of her own company and betrayed by her friends, all of whom stand to benefit from Miles' new venture.
Helen of Troy, meanwhile, is a queen from the same ancient epic, whose marriage to Paris led directly to the start of the Trojan War. Due to her beauty, she is often referred to as "the face that launched a thousand ships." In Glass Onion, Helen finishes what Andi started by proving Miles is a killer, thwarting his plans, and blowing up his house. In other words: she starts (and wins) a war. And as the film ends, the final shot is of Helen's triumphant face, watching the boats from the mainland close in on the island.
Of course, none of this is required to enjoy the movie. But it's another tasty layer to the onion.
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