That twisty ‘Glass Onion’ ending, explained
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Warning: the following contains spoilers for Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.
It’s official: Glass Onion, Rian Johnson’s follow-up to Knives Out, is one killer whodunnit. Johnson guides us through an entire labyrinth’s worth of twists and turns before bringing us to a strong, satisfying conclusion.
But before we unveil the ending, let’s revisit the premise. Tech billionaire Miles Bron (Edward Norton) invites his closest friends to his private island for a murder mystery party. His friends include Congresswoman Claire Debella (Kathryn Hahn), brilliant scientist Lionel Toussaint (Leslie Odom Jr.), former model Birdie Jay (Kate Hudson), her assistant Peg (Jessica Henwick), right-wing streamer Duke Cody (Dave Bautista), and his girlfriend Whiskey (Madelyn Cline). Also along for the ride are world-class detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), and Miles’s ex-business partner Cassandra “Andi” Brand (Janelle Monáe). Everybody on the island (minus Benoit) has a reason to want Miles dead, and with tensions higher than ever, it’s only a matter of time before we witness a shocking murder.
Like the titular glass onion, this mystery has layers. But also like the titular onion, this mystery is fairly transparent about its culprit. We just have to make our way past all the distraction to see the murderer for who they truly are. Let’s put on our best Southern drawls in honor of Benoit Blanc and break it down.
Who dies in Glass Onion? 
Miles may have invited his friends to his island to solve his murder, but he is not our victim. No, that honor goes to Duke, who collapses and dies after mistakenly drinking out of Miles’s glass instead of his own. Miles panics, claiming someone is attempting to poison him. Then, to make matters worse, all the lights go out. In the ensuing panic, someone shoots Andi, bringing our body count up to two.
Except Andi isn’t even Andi — she’s Helen, Andi’s identical twin sister in disguise. Not only that, Helen isn’t dead. The bullet lodged itself in one of Andi’s journals that she was carrying around, allowing her to survive the murder attempt.
Our body count remains at two though, because Andi is really dead — she died before the invitations to Miles’s island were sent out. This whole time, Benoit and Helen have been trying to solve her murder, but Duke’s death is an added complication. A donut hole within another donut hole, if you will.
How did Andi die in Glass Onion? 
Authorities believed Andi died by suicide. However, after going through Andi’s journals and e-mails, Helen has a hunch her sister was murdered by one of Miles’s inner circle.
Andi and Miles were business partners at tech company Alpha, but when Miles wanted to launch a volatile new energy source named Klear without any testing, Andi walked. In the ensuing lawsuit, Miles shut her out of Alpha completely, claiming he had come up with the main idea of Alpha. His evidence? A cocktail napkin he wrote his plans on. However, it was originally Andi who detailed her ideas on a cocktail napkin from the Glass Onion bar, where the “Disruptors” gang would all hang out. Unfortunately, she couldn’t find the napkin in time for the trial — because honestly, who keeps track of years-old napkins? — giving Miles an opportunity to fake his own. He got their friends to perjure themselves on his behalf, with the promise of bankrolling ventures like political campaigns or sweatpants companies.
Cut to the aftermath of the trial. Andi finds her original cocktail napkin and sends an e-mail to Claire, Lionel, Birdie, and Duke to inform them of her discovery. Helen suspects that one of these four drugged her, stole her cocktail napkin, and staged Andi’s suicide, because if Andi exposed Miles, they would all go down too.
So, who killed Andi? 
In a twist, none of Helen’s original four suspects killed Andi. Instead, the culprit was none other than Miles, who learned of Andi’s e-mail via a fax from Lionel.
As Benoit points out, it’s almost too obvious, but it makes the most sense: Who stands to lose more from Miles being exposed than Miles himself? Like the glass onion, the truth was always hiding transparently in plain sight.
Wait, so then who killed Duke? 
Believe it or not, also Miles! Everyone who received Andi’s e-mail rushed to find her, but only Duke saw Miles speeding away from the scene of the crime in his iconic Baby Blue car. Throughout his stay on the island, Duke kept hinting that he saw Miles leaving Andi’s — the word “pancake” does a lot of heavy lifting here — and trying to leverage Miles for a spot on Alpha News. When the news of Andi’s death breaks online, Duke points it out to Miles in secret and forces his hand.
Does Miles concoct an elaborate poison in order to dispatch of Duke? Not exactly. He just takes advantage of Duke’s pineapple allergy, foreshadowed in the scene where all the guests receive a potential COVID cure before arriving on the island. Miles gives Duke his own glass, containing a tropical cocktail with hints of — you guessed it — pineapple juice. Then, all he has to do is convince everyone that Duke simply made a mistake in picking up Miles’s glass, shut off the lights, and shoot Helen (who he believes to be Andi) with the pistol he stole from Duke. In short, Miles has to gaslight, gatekeep, and girlboss his way out of this.
Benoit is obviously upset about the multiple murders, but hilariously, he’s almost more enraged by the fact that Miles’s guilt was hiding in plain sight. He all but handed Miles the idea of the lights going out and someone getting shot. And to top it all off, pineapple juice being used as a murder weapon? Ridiculous! But that’s Miles for you — a tech billionaire idiot who’s never had an original idea in his life.
Does Miles face justice for Andi and Duke’s murders? 
There’s truly a moment where it looks like Miles is going to get away with his crimes. Helen finds Andi’s cocktail napkin, but Miles burns it to a crisp. Then, all the island guests say they don’t remember seeing any evidence of his murder of Duke. Of course, they side with the richest person in the room… even though he’s an admitted murderer.
But Helen won’t back down until Miles pays for what he did to Andi. She wrecks his elaborate glass statues in a majorly cathartic scene, then sets his house on fire. Keep in mind, Miles boasted that his entire house was powered by the hydrogen fuel Klear. When that comes in contact with fire, we get an explosion that Claire aptly describes in one word: “Hindenburg.”
In the ensuing blast, Helen shuts off the security system protecting the Mona Lisa that Miles has on loan from the Louvre during lockdown. Yes, the actual Mona Lisa. The world’s most famous painting goes up in Klear-powered flames, ensuring in a deliciously roundabout way that Miles will get what he’s always wanted: to be remembered in the same breath as the Mona Lisa. How’s that immortality looking for you now, Miles?
Seeing the carnage and Miles’s absolute meltdown, his so-called “friends” turn on him one by one and agree that they all saw him burn the napkin and switch Duke’s drink. As police boats descend on the island, Benoit enjoys a smoke with house guest Derol (Noah Segan), and Andi prepares to go home knowing she’s avenged her sister.
So there you have it: Glass Onion features a double murder mystery involving pineapple juice, a red envelope, two deaths, an explosion, and the Mona Lisa. It’s the kind of twisty chaos you could only get from a whodunnit involving our favorite Southern detective. Here’s hoping Benoit Blanc and Helen get a good rest after returning from Greece. After peeling back the layers of this wild mystery, it’s the least they deserve.
Glass Onion is streaming on Netflix Dec. 23.