The Knives Out franchise threads an incredible needle. It’s widely popular, but still feels somehow niche enough that each fan—myself included—thinks it was designed in a lab to appeal to them specifically. Turns out, there’s a healthy market for a country-fried Hercule Poirot parachuting into stacked-cast murder mysteries, whether the setting is a deceptively cozy New England family of vipers, or a try-hard billionaire’s island mansion full of cowardly hangers-on. We keep coming back to see this soulful oddball of a dandy befriend the only pure-hearted one in the bunch and work with them to solve 1-3 wrongful deaths.

I say all this to say: As far as Benoit Blanc is concerned, I’m a sure thing. I walked into the Alamo Drafthouse expecting to love Wake Up, Dead Man, as I had loved the two before it. But I didn’t expect to cry, or to anoint this third entry as my favourite so far.

Wake Up, Dead Man concerns an old Josh (Brolin) and a young Josh (O’Connor) locked in an ideological battle. Brolin’s Monsignor Jefferson Wicks preaches the worst kind of old-time religion, all hate, fear-mongering, and false promises to keep his dwindling flock in line. O’Connor’s Father Jud Duplenticy preaches a faith grounded in forgiveness and love, as he has felt the transformative power of his god’s forgiveness for his own wrongs. Mons. Wicks’s devotees are terrified of him, but resist Father Jud as the threat to their status quo that he can’t help but be. So when the Monsignor dies mid-sermon from an apparent backstabbing, mere days after a parishioner caught Father Jud vowing to “cut [Wicks] out like a cancer,” the good priest finds himself the prime suspect with few defenders.

Luckily for him, and for those of us who love this drama queen detective, Benoit Blanc arrives to solve the impossible case. And once Blanc arrives, the movie hits the gleefully frenetic pace we’ve come to expect from his capers.

Until, suddenly, the pace stops. Blanc and Jud are hot on the trail of a vital clue, and call up the exact person you don’t want to be on the phone with when the stakes are high and time is running out. Louise (Bridget Everett) is unhurried, chatty, and prone to interrupting with seemingly irrelevant details. You can see gentle steam seeping out of Jud’s ears as he strains to stay patient. Then Louise asks if she can ask him something.

Finally, she heaves a deep sigh, and asks, “…will you pray for me?” Jud pauses, his mood shifting. “Yeah, of course. Can I ask what for?” As Louise shares her story about her dying mother and the fight they had, Jud glances at the clue that had just had him and Blanc so worked up. Then Louise breaks down weeping, saying “I’m feeling pretty alone right now.” And Father Jud turns away from Blanc, away from their clue, away from his own urgent life.

“I’m so sorry, Louise. You’re not alone. I’m right here. I’m here.”

At a certain point in their conversation, I stopped breathing and started crying instead. For one thing, Bridget Everett is an absolute knockout actor. That woman has maybe 45 seconds of visible screen time; otherwise, she’s creating an entire world for us with her voice alone. She makes you want to strangle her with a phone cord, and then hug her forever, inside of two minutes. Incredible.

And for another thing, O’Connor embodies Father Jud’s love and empathy so beautifully that I felt as though he were telling me that I’m not alone, and that he’s right here for me. That’s quite a feat to pull off with a church-hurt ex-Catholic like me.

The original Knives Out had a similar moment. Ana de Armas’s nurse character, Marta, discovers a colleague at death’s door after being poisoned. Though Marta hears this woman hissing “you did this! You won’t get away with this!” she pulls out her emergency kit and sets about saving the woman’s life. Proving her own innocence matters less to her than the human life in front of her.1

Father Jud’s act of selflessness hit me harder, though, in part because the stakes seem lower. Louise won’t die if Jud brushes her off, or scolds her for fighting with her mother. (It probably wouldn’t be the first time a religious figure did that to her—she mentions going to one of the monsignor’s masses and being put off by his nasty sermon.) But even if she doesn’t die, she’ll feel alone and unloved. Jud would be responsible for a broken connection. He’d have failed to literally practice what he preaches.

It also hit me harder because, as of this writing, I’ve never been poisoned.

But I have felt desperately alone, and embarrassed to ask for help. I’ve felt the despair of being judged when I needed to be forgiven, and I’ve also felt the joy of love and community when I needed it most. I never got that joy from my faith tradition, though. I’m glad Bridget and Father Jud did.

The rest of the movie continues in that scene’s hopeful shadow. Father Jud has realized that he can never care more about his own troubles than those of his flock, and is willing to bear whatever consequences come with that commitment. Benoit Blanc, in turn, puts aside his avowed agnosticism. His mission now is not only to prove Father Jud’s innocence, but to enable Jud’s ability to minister unto as many people as possible. The transformative power of forgiveness redounds unto everyone who experiences it—including me.

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