Knives Outis undoubtedly the franchise with most potential to become a multifilm saga for Netflix and that’s largely thanks to its ability to revive the detective genre, as well as Benoit Blanc’s southern charm. Fortunately,Glass Onionlooks keen to double down on those qualities with the first couple of trailers already teasing a promising mystery plot.
A key element for that is the movie’s very title,Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mysterywhich in itself reads like something Blanc could have written and has already prompted many fans to come up with theories on why Rian Johnson picked that particular Beatles song for this adventure. Blanc is a man of many mysteries, so what could lie beneath thisGlass Onion, besides a liking for the tunes of those four Liverpool men?
RELATED:10 Things You Didn’t Know About Knives Out & Its Upcoming Netflix Sequels
A Beatles-Loving Foghorn Leghorn
The Beatles’ “Glass Onion” is far from the most remarkable song in their self-titled 1968 record, aka theWhite Album, which hardly comes as a surprise for a musical masterpiece that features legendary tracks such as “Blackbird”, “Helter Skelter” or “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”. The song, composed by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, is purposely written so that its lyrics are confusing, as McCartney was somewhat annoyed by fans’ insistence to find hidden meaning within the band’s rhymes.
That’s probably why “Glass Onion” includes scattered references to other Beatles' songs such as “Strawberry Fields” or “I Am the Walrus”, though much to Paul’s dismay, that did not prevent fans from interpreting it as a metaphor for something that is both multilayered yet transparent. PerhapsGlass Onionwill reveal that Blanc isjust one of those die-hard Beatles fanswho happens to use the song as an analogy to crack this case, similar to the donut thesis that he explained to Marta in the first movie.
This is certainly the safe assumption, it’d be something quite on-brand for Blanc, a protagonist that -in Johnson’s own words- was conceived as a sort of blank slate, hence why it was crucial to keep the detective’s aura of mystery inKnives Out. The audience should learn more about Craig’s character in the sequel,with Blanc’s sexuality now being teased, so why not make a casual observation about the film’s location showcase his vast Beatles knowledge.
Sure,Glass Onioncould also be a nod to British slang, where the expression is infrequently used to refer to a monocle or even a type of light bulb, but let’s not forget that it’s Craig who’s from England, not the KFC detective.
It’s All About Aesthetics
Putting aside all possible interpretations of the lyrics penned by Lennon and McCartney, there’s the more on-the-nose reference, that billionaire Miles Bron resides at a private island adorned by massive glass domes. While the structures’ architectural merits may be up for debate, Bron’s proclivity for excess is not —Edward Norton’s character is like a James Bond villainof sorts (private island included), a statement surely motivated bythe impossibility of fully detaching Craig from 007, but nonetheless true.
If theKnives Outsequel is meant to make everything bigger and better, surrounding Blanc with an evenmore eccentricClueensemble than the Thrombey family, then Bron sits at the heart of that as he’s meant to emulate the very real billionaires of today. This entire cast represents the very layers of theGlass Onionmystery, a frail network of so-called friends that Blanc can see through.
Quite possibly, Bron could be the one who’s obsessed with the Beatles’ song and the band, instead of Blanc, with the detective then left to figure out what meaning the man who hired him has attributed to the song.
Lastly, there’s the chance that Johnson was just having a little fun, similar to what the Beatles were going for in naming the movie, after all, the magic behind his original “whodunnit” hit was keeping spectators on their toes, despite the use of Marta’s flashbacks.As the latestKnives Outtrailer suggests, despite his cunning, Blanc is pretty bad at figuring out dumb stuff.
Early screenings forGlass Onion: A Knives Out Mysterycoming from the Toronto International Film Festival, resulted in lavish praise for the film for how it recreates and exceeds the first movie’s appeal. That alone should suggest this mystery is more fascinating than the Trombeys inheritance drama.
If Craig and Johnson are as happy as they say they are to work on theKnives Outfranchise, thenmaybe the glass onion is Benoit Blanc himself. A man with many layers, each one as transparent as they can be for the elusive world-renowned crime solver, yet still needing to be carefully chopped so thatthe public doesn’t grow tired ofKnives Outtoo soon.
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mysteryis scheduled to release in theaters for one week on Jun 08, 2025, before debuting on Netflix on December 23.
