After three years away, eccentric detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) is back to solve another murder in Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery. The well-dressed, heavily Southern-accented crime-solver with a fondness for show tunes gets his trickiest case yet in writer-director Rian Johnson‘s new movie, which finds Blanc investigating a locked-room murder at a small church in a rural New York town. Though it’s a complex case, it gives him the chance to flex his investigative skills in ways viewers haven’t seen before, making for a thrilling new entry in the franchise.
As the lead character, Blanc so far is the only person to appear in every Knives Out movie. However, his backstory and personal life outside his work largely remain a mystery. Johnson has confirmed he’s gay, and 2022’s Glass Onion brought in Hugh Grant to play his partner in a quick cameo. He’s frequently been caught singing or listening to songs from musicals. Beyond that, little else has been revealed about him, save for the occasional reference to one of his past cases. This is by design, as Johnson recently told CinemaBlend, “I feel that Benoit Blanc will always be the detective in these murder mystery movies. And that means I want to learn more about him through him solving these cases.” However, Wake Up Dead Man shares a couple more key details, and they paint a sad picture.
‘Wake Up Dead Man’ Reveals Blanc’s Complicated Relationship With Religion
To solve the murder, Blanc teams up with the church’s newest member, a young priest named Jud (Josh O’Connor). Jud’s presence at the church actually came about due to some violence on his part, but the reverend still believes in the healing power of religion and the goodness of humanity. He’s a true believer, but the opposite is true for Blanc. He first appears in Wake Up Dead Man when he arrives at Jud’s parish, and their first conversation revolves around religion and faith. Considering it takes Blanc a second to realize Jud is referring to God, it’s immediately clear the detective doesn’t have the same unwavering belief as the priest.
After mentioning that his mother was very religious, Blanc launches into a brief monologue about his issues with the Catholic Church. He confesses that while he finds the architecture to be quite nice, he cannot comprehend how it can be used to excuse so many horrible things. Calling it the “empty promise of a child’s fairy tale,” Blanc calls out the Church’s history of perpetuating misogyny and homophobia, as well as its own “shameful acts.” He declares that he wishes to get to the bottom of this twisted kind of belief and “get to a truth I can swallow without choking.”
As a rational man whose job literally lies in facts, it makes sense that Blanc would have a hard time believing in a higher power. However, as his speech makes clear, it goes deeper than him simply not believing in the concept of God. He’s a character who has defended and supported women of color — Knives Out‘s Marta (Ana de Armas) and Glass Onion‘s Helen (Janelle Monáe) — and, as a gay man, has likely experienced discrimination firsthand. He would take the Church’s perceived hypocrisy personally, as an affront to everything he stands for. What’s more, it presents a challenge he can’t ever beat.
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Religion Is the One Mystery Blanc Will Never Solve – and It Haunts Him
Over the course of the three Knives Out movies, Blanc has solved multiple twisty mysteries that would even impress Agatha Christie. His deductive skills are unmatched, and Wake Up Dead Man‘s so-called impossible crime doesn’t even stump him for very long. Nevertheless, there is one mystery he will never get to solve, and that is what lies at the heart of Catholicism. As he says in his speech, he fervently desires to discover some kind of truth about the religion that doesn’t repulse him.
The passion with which he declares it, coupled with the revelation about his mother’s intense beliefs, gives the impression that Blanc grew up ostracized from this community, and perhaps from his own family. He wasn’t close with his mother, though for a moment he almost seems to suggest he was when he was very young. After that, perhaps as Blanc began to realize some things about himself and the world around him, it got “complicated.” He’s been isolated from his family as a result; though Glass Onion showed he’s created his own community of sorts through his partner and the friends he plays games with over Zoom, the movies have yet to show or properly refer to a significant relationship he has with his family.
That the only concrete thing viewers have heard is that he has a complicated relationship with his mother is incredibly sad. In the previous two Knives Out movies, Blanc appeared to be incredibly sure of himself and confident about how he moved through the world. Now, Wake Up Dead Man reveals that, at least occasionally, that’s a front, because he has a history of fraught relationships stemming from his personal beliefs. It puts a little gap in his armor, revealing that he’s been hurt before, and likely keeps part of himself at a distance from other people, even while he’s devoting himself to helping others.
Blanc spends much of Wake Up Dead Man uncomfortable with the discussions of religion. This is a mystery he can’t quite solve, because it’s so much bigger than him and relies on concepts he could never wrap his head around. For all the good he can do, and for all the justice he can serve, this is the one enemy he cannot defeat. It adds a new layer to Blanc’s character, giving the impression of a hurt man striving to fix something — something that once harmed him — he never will.
Johnson’s movie doesn’t reveal much else about the detective, but this one scene speaks volumes. With a little insight about his family and beliefs, the broader picture of who Benoit Blanc is has become clearer. He’s someone with such a strong sense of justice that he can’t abide by any discrimination or cruelty — and try as he might to understand the positivity people find in religion, he can’t quite get there himself. This is, in itself, a form of isolation, made all the sharper by his mother’s devout beliefs. He must start Wake Up Dead Man in an odd place, though by the end, it seems he’s found some peace in it thanks to Jud’s warmth and kindness.
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery is currently streaming on Netflix.
- Release Date
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November 26, 2025
- Runtime
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145 minutes
- Director
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Rian Johnson
