Rian Johnson was initially against big Andi twist

Rian Johnson explains that he was initially against the big Andi twist.

The follow-up to 2019’s Knives Out had a constrained theatrical run but debuted on Netflix in December and received positive reviews from both reviewers and viewers. It follows Detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) as he becomes involved in a probe into computer tycoon Miles Bron (Edward Norton) and his cronies on a remote Greek island.

One of the movie’s main secrets is unveiled after a startling death derails what was intended to be a weekend-long murder investigation game: Miles’ former business colleague Cassandra “Andi” Brand (Janelle Monáe), who everyone was shocked to see in attendance, is actually her identical twin sister, Helen.

In an interview with The Wrap, the showrunner said that he was initially against the Andi twist. He says, “I mean, that’s a challenge. I feel like the first question is, OK, how do you pull this off? And I guess the primary thing was, it can’t just be seeing it from a different angle. It has to be enough of a basic perspective shift that there’s a new tension that’s introduced in the repeat of all the different scenes. This is what led to the idea of twins.”

He further says, “By the process, I was dragged kicking and screaming to identical twins. I didn’t want to do it, it seemed like a horrible trope, and just, ‘Will the audience ever forgive me for this?’ [laughs]. But I think we get away with it because it’s not like a reveal at the end of ‘Aha! It was a twin!’ It’s a complication in the middle that leads to a deepening of the stakes and the story. So I think that’s why we get away with it.”

The showrunner said he overcame this concern because of the placement of this revelation scene and the story of the series changes.