Warning! This article contains spoilers for Glass Onion.Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery features some big twists, with one concerning Janelle Monáe's character Andi Brand being central to the movie's overall plot. Glass Onion continues on from its predecessor in plenty of ways, with Daniel Craig's Benoit Blanc thrust into another murder mystery amid an eccentric crew of characters. Like the first Knives Out mystery, Glass Onion's twists and turns keep audiences guessing throughout, though one surprise revealed in the sequel changes the outlook of the entire movie.
Exactly halfway through Glass Onion, it's revealed that Andi is in fact Helen, Andi's twin sister, and that Andi had actually been found dead days prior. This twist makes the movie's first half entirely different, with repeat viewings likely making it clear that what was thought to be Andi was Helen all along. The reason for the twist was to keep audiences guessing in regard to Glass Onion's cast, characters, and plot. At first, one might think that Benoit Blanc's role in the sequel is to uncover the murderer of Duke Cody. However, with Andi's death being revealed after the fact and Helen being included so that she can help Blanc find Andi's murderer, the movie's big twist changes everything.
Why Miles Killed Andi & What His Alpha Plan Was
Eventually, Benoit Blanc and Helen Brand deduce that Miles Bron was responsible for the death of Andi and later Duke. However, it is Miles's murder of Andi that kickstarts Glass Onion's story and fuels his motivation for killing Duke, begging into question why he killed his former business partner. It is in light of Andi and Miles's past partnership that the basis for her murder comes. Andi and Miles co-founded Alpha Industries together before Miles ousted Andi from the company after the latter refused to endorse the former's request to release Klear, a volatile Hydrogen-based alternative fuel source.
Miles (ably performed by former Hulk actor Edward Norton) did this by forging a napkin that Andi previously wrote her founding ideas for Alpha Industries on, and coercing his and Andi's friend's into discrediting her through using his wealth to boost their respective careers. However, Andi later found the original napkin with her own writing and ideas on it, which she threatened Miles and the others with. Miles then murdered Andi so that she would not leak the information and regain ownership of the company. Miles did this as he intended to become much richer through the usage of Klear, despite the substance not being proven safe for domestic use.
Clues To Glass Onion's Helen-Is-Andi Twist
The biggest twist in the Knives Out sequel actually had plenty of clues throughout the first half of the movie that are hidden in plain sight, alluding to the true meaning of Glass Onion's title. The first establishes how much Andi and Miles don't get along after their fallout. When Andi turns up at the getaway, this is actually a clue that it is really Helen, as Andi would not have attended would she had been alive. Also, Helen, posing as Andi, does not engage in conversation with anyone on the boat ride to Miles's island, which is later revealed to have been on advice from Benoit Blanc.
In the first half of Glass Onion, "Andi" does not actually speak all that much outside of the outbreak she has toward the other characters. This is another clue, as the movie later reveals that Helen was unintentionally drunk at the time. This is also hinted at before the reveal when "Andi" is shown going back to her room, stumbling and tripping along the way due to inebriation. Also, in the scene before the big Glass Onion twist is explained, she and Blanc have a conversation that is not heard. This is a hint as well, as this conversation is later revealed thanks to the movie's nonlinear storytelling.
Why Helen Had To Be The One To Take Down Miles
At the end of Glass Onion, Helen is the one who finally takes down Miles after Blanc exposes his murders, which has both thematic and logical reasons. In of the latter, Miles makes it so that all of Blanc's evidence both literally and figuratively burns up meaning he cannot be prosecuted. Because of this, Blanc hands Helen a sample of Klear, which she uses to explode the Glass Onion and ruin Miles's reputation. This also works on a thematic level as Helen finally gets revenge for the death of her sister.
Not only is Helen taking Miles down for murdering her sister, but she's avenging Andi's ousting from the company. In one fell swoop, Helen exposes Miles's treachery, destroys the titular Glass Onion, reveals Klear to be insanely dangerous, and destroys the Mona Lisa, which Miles borrowed from the Louvre during COVID. All of this ruins his reputation, which brings justice to Andi being wrongfully pushed out of Alpha Industries.
Andi's Twin Sister Reveal Is Glass Onion's Best Twist
In a movie full of twists and turns, the one concerning Andi and Helen just happens to be Glass Onion's best. The main reason for this is that it differentiates the sequel from other murder mysteries, something that the first Knives Out also did extremely well. While a lot of the twists that involved the murder of Duke were well foreshadowed and proved how tight the script of Glass Onion is, they all still fit under the umbrella of murder mystery tropes. With the twist revealing Andi to be Helen, though, the movie differentiates itself through writer-director Rian Johnson's best trait: subversion.
Andi being revealed as Helen pulls the rug out from under the feet of both the audience and the characters in the movie. Through this, the twist also massively recontextualizes the first half of Glass Onion and tells a fantastic nonlinear story. This makes it so that the movie would be even better on re-watch so that audiences can deduce the clues to the big twist themselves. All of this just proves why the Knives Out franchise works so well, something that was continued with Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery and hopefully will not stop with the next installment, Knives Out 3.
