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Pete Fenzel, Mark Lee, and Matt Wrather overthink Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, the latest installment in the Benoit Blanc Cinematic Murder Universe. The panelists appreciated the rich, cinematic presentation of the movie, especially compared to most made-for-Netflix movies, but they also took issue with how the film treats Catholicism more as symbolic wallpaper than as a lived, institutional reality. Where are the baptisms? The first communions? The immigrants? Most importantly, why is everyone so concerned about finding a lost diamond when it would’ve been a lot easier to embezzle the Sunday collection money?

Those critiques aside, everyone appreciated the portrayal of Father Jud as an authentic moral center for the story and as a thematic counterbalance to Benoit Blanc’s cold rationalism. It makes for a very different Knives Out movie compared to its predecessors; whether it’s better or worse than those is largely a matter of taste and perspective. But it’s beyond argument that Daniel Craig’s accent remains sublime through them all.

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Further Reading

Episode 916: The Council of Trent? Hello?