Get out ending explained

Get Out is a bizarre movie about the events that happen to a guy named Chris who goes to visit his girlfriend’s parents over a weekend. The film is brought to us by Jordan Peele of the Key and Peele fame. Peele is a funny guy and hence it is a pleasant surprise to watch a thriller coming from him. Daniel Kaluuya and Allison Williams star in the lead roles. The plot is crazy and is unexpected for the most part. Do give it a watch. It’s interesting and yeah, spoilers ahead.
I’m going the usual route of laying the plot out linearly. While this kills the storytelling, it makes for a good explanation.

The Armitage Family. Their Secret.
Here’s the key element of the story. This family, for decades, has been “supplying” African-American bodies for the old and dying white folks in their cult. Yeah, that’s right - supplying. Grandpa Armitage has found a way to use neurosurgery and hypnosis to move the consciousness of one person into another’s body. There is a mention of how grandpa was beaten by Jesse Owens in the qualifying round for the Berlin Olympics in 1936. Jesse was black and this probably began the fascination for the African-American physique for the Armitage family. What is also important here is that even though the Armitage family admire the cliche of the athletically built black people, they do not care for their minds. The family simply consider the African-American people to be a good vessel to be used by another mind - the mind of a white person. The procedure is done in three major steps.

1) The victim is first hypnotized. In this process, the consciousness of the person is sent to the "sunken space". This is represented by the dark void. When the consciousness is sent here, the mind can now take on another person’s consciousness. However, the original consciousness stays in a state of limbo. In darkness, imprisoned. 
2) The victim is explained how the process is going to take effect. This apparently makes it easier for the shift of consciousness to happen.
3) There is a partial brain transplant that needs to happen from the source to the victim’s head. This final step completes the transfer.

Rose’s mom is a hypnotist and her dad is a neurosurgeon. 

Why are people doing this consciousness transplant thing - The Coagula procedure?
Well there are two things here
1) This group of people who want to transplant their consciousness are old/sick and are likely to die in a couple of years. 
2) They also believe in the cliched superiority of the African-American build. More athletic. Also, long and strong. You can notice this when people are constantly commending Chris for being black. They don’t care for black folks, they just want their bodies.

What’s up with Rose?
While Rose is shown to be in a very honest inter-race relationship with Chris, she is just luring him to come to her place. She’s in on the whole thing and intends to “supply” Chris to her people. Also, this is not her first time. She has already done this to many before including the gardener Walter and their house help Georgina.

Who are Walter and Georgina?
Grandpa Armitage has had his consciousness transferred to the black guy who is referred to as Walter. It is later revealed that Rose has lured him into this household. Given that Grandpa Armitage was growing old, he moves into Walter to sustain his life. Similarly, Grandma Armitage has moved into Georgina. Again, it is revealed later that Rose has lured Georgina into this household.

Who is Andre Hayworth and Logan?
Well, the movie opens with Andre. He’s the dude who gets kidnapped by a guy in a mask. The guy in the mask is Rose’s brother (revealed later on). Andre’s taken through the mind wipe process. We see him later on as Logan King who is married to an old white lady. Logan King is presumably her husband whose consciousness has now occupied Andre’s body.

Now that we have the critical questions answered, let’s do a quick run through the plot. Chris thinks he’s in an honest relationship with Rose. She’s someone who’s hunting for suitably built black guys and lures them to her house. Chris, unaware, goes to her house to meet her parents. What initially appears to be a warm family who are not racist, slowly begin to drop hints of racism. Later in the evening, Rose’s brother joins for dinner. He’s more hostile compared to the rest. Rose continues with her act and says how she’s embarrassed. Chris keeps in touch with his friend Rod who is with the TSA.

Chris notices Walter and Georgina who are helpers in the house. He finds them to be a little odd in their behaviour. Given Chris has a smoking habit that he plans on quitting, Rose’s dad suggests hypnotherapy to get rid of the habit. He mentions how Rose’s mom is terrific at it. Chris declines the offer. At this time they also talk about how Chris’ mom had died from a hit and run. They mention about Rose's grandfather's party. This party is actually the grouping to bid for Chris’ body. We’ll get to that in a bit.

Later at night Chris is unable to sleep and heads out for a smoke. Walter runs at him and turns. Walter is doing his night run workout. Looks like Grandpa Armitage is really enjoying his new body. Chris goes back in and enters a conversation with Rose’s mom. She taps into his emotional moment of his mother dying to hypnotize him. This is the scene where he is dropped into the sunken space. She uses the spoon and cup as the physical trigger.

What happened to Chris’ mother?
Well, when he was young, his mother was involved in an accident. Some car hit her and made the run for it. Chris was at home watching TV. He knew that it was getting late and his mother hadn’t returned. But he doesn’t call 911 because he was afraid he’d make his fear a reality. He just continues to watch TV. Eventually, his mom is found dead. But the important thing here is that autopsy shows his mother was not killed instantly. She was lying there in the cold, alive. No one came to help because no one called for help. Because Chris doesn’t dial 911, his mother dies.

Chris wakes up from the sunken space thinking it was a dream. But it wasn’t. The get-together begins. All of the friends begin to show up, in black cars (they really love black). They meet Chris with a certain awkward fascination. The conversations include the following.
- The love for Tiger Woods
- Is “it” better? - this is asked by a lady who’s clearly only interested in how Chris is endowed down below.
- Black is in fashion

Chris notices another black guy. When he goes to say hi, this black guy turns around. It is Andre but introduces himself as Logan and talks all funny. Chris holds out a fist, Logan shakes it. Chris is thrown off. After this, Chris meets a Jim Hudson, a blind art dealer.

Chris notices that his phone has been disconnected and has run out of battery. He suspects Georgina. He tells Rose about it. Later, Georgina shows up to apologize. For a moment her true consciousness surfaces. That is why she’s crying while she’s smiling. Chris tells his friend Rod that he may have been hypnotized as he doesn’t seem to like smoking anymore. Rod suspects something weird to be happening in that house.

What is the relevance of the Flash?
Later, Chris takes a picture of Logan. The flash from the phone makes Andre’s consciousness come forward. Andre realizes what is going to happen to Chris and grabs him and asks him to get out. The rest of the family explain how Logan has had a seizure and is going to be fine. Basically, they push Andre’s consciousness back into the sunken space.

Bingo?
Rose whisks Chris away for a walk. Under the pretext of playing Bingo, the gathering has an auction for Chris. They do this in mute. Jim Hudson wins. How is a blind guy participating in a mute auction is beyond me? Please drop a comment about this. This means he gets to transfer his consciousness into Chris. Jim wants Chris’ ability to see. Chris is a photographer. Jim also wants Chris artistic vision.

Chris shares Logan’s picture with Rod. Rod identifies him to be Andre. Chris freaks out and quickly asks Rose to pack up. He wants to leave. In the store room, Chris finds a box with a whole bunch of photographs. Photographs of Rose with other black folks. This includes Walter and Georgina. As Chris gets to the door, the rest of the Armitage family approaches. The main door is locked and Chris yells for the keys. Rose finally discloses that she is in on the whole thing. Rose’s mom uses the cup and spoon to send Chris to the sunken space. They take him and tie him in the basement.

In the basement, Chris is shown a video of Grandpa Armitage explaining the Coagula procedure. Jim explains how he will be taking over Chris’ body. This is phase 2, basically. Then a cup and spoon appears and knocks Chris back into the sunken space. Meanwhile, Rod is unable to reach Chris and goes to the cops. They laugh at him because his theory of mind control appears silly. Rod calls Chris’ phone and Rose picks up. He realizes Rose is lying about Chris leaving in a cab. He tries to record the conversation but Rose turns the conversation on Rod. She says Rod has always wanted her. Rod hangs up.

Chris uses the cotton from the chair he’s tied to to stuff his ears. This way he will not hear the tea cup and spoon clank. He acts to fall unconscious. Meanwhile, Rose’s dad is preparing for the partial brain transplant. Jim is being prepped for the procedure. Rose’s brother comes to get Chris. Chris attacks him and knocks him bloody unconscious. Then he proceeds to stab and kill Rose’s dad. He encounters Rose’s mom, he kills her too. Rose’s brother is the next to die. Rose is looking for her next black victim. Chris leaves in a car but knocks Georgina by mistake. He remembers how his mother died from a hit and run. So he picks up Georgina and puts her in the car. Georgina’s body is merely a host for Rose’s grandma. She gets up and attacks Chris. The car crashes into a tree. Georgina dies.

Rose follows Chris and tries to shoot him. Walter, whose body is a host for Rose’s grandpa chases and tackles Chris down. Chris remembers the flashlight and pulls his phone out and flashes Walter. This brings Walter’s original consciousness forward. Walter tricks Rose into giving him the gun. Walter shoots Rose and then he puts a bullet into his own head. Walter does this to end his suffering, suffering of living in the sunken space. Chris goes up to a dying Rose. She tries to trick him by claiming she loves him. Chris begins to choke her to death. 

Rose beings to smile. This could either be because her racist feelings that black people are violent come forward. She feels validated as she’s being choked. It could also be because even as she dies, she has a sense of superiority. A superiority that states how the African-American folks are mere vessels.

Chris can’t do it. He stops. This again could be because he’s not a killer. His kills were purely his survival instincts kicking in. Rose is already shot and is dying. Besides, he did love Rose and is unable to kill her. A cop car approaches. Rose calls out to the cops hoping for help. It turns out to be Rod. Rod has traced Chris' phone to his location. They leave Rose to die on the road and they leave. The film ends.

There is a lot of open questions around this. Rod simply says that the situation is handled. Perhaps he has found a way to be an alibi for Chris so that he is kept out of all the murder that has been committed. But with Chris’ prints all over items in the house, it would be very difficult for him to get away scot-free. Then again, there is a lot more shit that will be uncovered if they raid the Armitage household. Eg: Missing Andre will be found to be living as Logan. Other missing black people will be found too. So yeah, this would be one heck of a case for the cops to handle. They were laughing at Rod right? Who’s laughing now!

  

Get out movie hidden messages

One of the most unlikely hit films of 2017 has been Get Out, a low-budget horror movie from a comedian, Jordan Peele (of Key & Peele fame), making his directorial debut in a story with a socially conscious message. That doesn’t exactly scream “box office gold,” but in an era of increasing ideological division amongst Americans, it seems to have struck a chord with those seeking insight on race relations. And boy, have they sought. Like eager English majors dissecting a Kafka novel, fans of the film have dug in deep below the surface to find hidden messages and symbolism (intended or not) that reinforce the story’s overall themes. Peele, who also wrote the movie, has expounded on some of the tidbits hidden in the production, while others have yet to be confirmed. Here are some of the most intriguing nuggets in Get Out that are worth digging up.

15. “Liberal Racism”

On the surface, Get Out is about a young black man named Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) accompanying his white girlfriend, Rose (Allison Williams), on a visit to see her “well-to-do” parents, only to find them involved in some mad scientist-type shenanigans in which aging white people hijack the bodies of black people by having their consciousness transplanted so they can have a newer, younger self. Peele has explained that the premise is actually a metaphor for a subtle form or racism – one that comes from the outwardly more liberal-minded folks who proclaim their love for people of color so much that they objectify them while keeping them at arm’s distance. The villains in the film actually want to become black because they sense they are somehow “cooler” and naturally more physically gifted. This shows us we don’t have to be a robe-wearing, cross-burning bigot to be driven by racial prejudice.

14. Teacup And Spoon

In Get Out, the first step in the “hostile takeover” of Chris’ body is a seasoning stage in which he’s hypnotized by Rose’s mother, Missy (Catherine Keener), so that his consciousness can be suppressed. She does this without him realizing by casually stirring her tea in a teacup. The steady, repetitive sound of the spoon hitting the sides of the cup acting like a swinging pocket watch, puts him into a trance. Peele has said that the teacup is symbolic in that slave masters used to summon house slaves using teacups. It’s one of several references to the legacy of slavery that can be detected in the movie. And the use of a silver spoon can certainly be seen as meaningful, as the term “born with a silver spoon in one’s mouth” is a well-known saying to indicate that someone comes from a wealthy family (like Rose’s and the people the film is satirizing).

13. Title Song

In Get Out, the opening title sequence plays over an ominous song by composer Michael Abels called “Sikiliza Kwa Wahenga.” Fusions explains that the title means “Listen to (Your) Ancestors” in the East African language of Swahili, another reference to slavery and racial identity. Peele stated to GQ Magazine that he wanted the music to be “distinctly black” and with an “absence of hope.” The lyrics reveal even more; after chanting “Brother, brother,” in English, the Swahili lyrics translate as a warning, loosely “Something bad is coming. Run!” It’s an affirmation of the title Get Out and the foreboding sense that something bad is going to happen. According to Peele, it also reflects a tradition of African-American viewership to talk back to movie screens during horror movies, admonishing characters for taking actions that put themselves in danger rather than just getting the heck out of Dodge.

12. Colors

Considering Get Out is a movie about color, it shouldn’t be too much of a stretch to interpret Peele’s use of color in the film. Although he himself has yet to confirm it, it’s been noted that at the party in which Rose’s family friends get to ogle the “merchandise” (i.e., Chris), BuzzFeed points out that most of the guests seem to be wearing some form of red clothing, while Chris is notably clad in a blue shirt. This reinforces his status as an outsider amongst the group, and in this era of political divisiveness, if we want to take it a step further, we could read it as representation of Republican “red states” versus Democratic “blue states.” Chris’ blue shirt is particularly striking when juxtaposed next to Rose’s red-and-white striped shirt, forming a human American flag that could be seen as a personification of American race relations.

11. Childish Gambino

After the Swahili title song during the opening credits, Get Out cuts to scenes from Chris’ life set to the song “Redbone” by rapper-singer Childish Gambino (AKA actor-writer-director, Donald Glover). Peele chose this song in part because of the lyric in the chorus that says “Stay woke,” which is slang for being aware of not only one’s surroundings (in Chris’ case, the intentions of Rose’s creepy family) but also what’s going on in the world (as reflected in the party guests’ fascination with and objectification of his blackness). Additionally, returning to the African-American tradition of desiring characters who don’t run TOWARDS the creepy sound in horror movies, Peele tells Hip Hop DX, “Stay woke” reflects his intention to “make sure that this movie satisfied the black horror movie audience’s need for characters to be smart and do things that intelligent and observant people would do.”

10. The Sunken Place

In Get Out, when Chris is hypnotized, his consciousness is pushed down into what Missy calls “the Sunken Place,” a dark area in his brain where he has no control over himself. Peele has stated that this place is representative of several different things. Peele told USA Today, that first, it reflects “the suspended animation of how we look at race in America,” a nation that grew out of the increasing belief that once Obama was elected President, the nation had overcome racism and had become “post-racial.” He also sees the Sunken Place as embodying the lack of representation of black characters in the horror genre (at least, ones who aren’t immediately killed on screen). Finally, the Sunken Place even has parallels in Peele’s mind to the mass incarceration of African Americans, which has been described as a sort of modern slavery.

9. Voice Of Reason

In Get Out, comedian Lil Rel Howery appears as Chris’ best friend Rod, who serves not only as the film’s comic relief, but also as its voice of reason. Throughout the story, he warns Chris about going on the trip and about what Rose’s family’s intentions are – with surprising accuracy – and he even comes to the rescue at the end. For Peele, he tells Hip Hop DX that this harkens back to the African-American tradition of interacting with movies; for him, Rod is “saying the things that we’re yelling at the screen.” It’s also reflective of the fact that African Americans tend to make up a higher percentage of the audience than of the characters on screen. As he explained to USA Today, “We’re a loyal horror movie audience, but we’re relegated to the dark theater to scream at the protagonist: ‘Get out of the house! Call the cops! Do the smart thing!'”

8. That Asian Guy

In the party scene in Get Out, some might have noticed that amongst the white partygoers is an Asian gentleman named Hiroki Tanaka. Some might not have thought his presence meant anything in particular, but some might argue its significance.
Asian cultural critic, Ranier Maningding stated to Next Shark that it’s reflective of the fact that “While Asians may not play a lead role in white supremacy, our willingness to participate in anti-blackness makes us a supporting character.” He cites University of California Irvine political science professor Claire Jean Kim’s theory of racial triangulation, which suggests that Asian Americans occupy a social status below white Americans but above black Americans. However, as the theory goes, they are still perceived by white Americans to be more “foreign” than African Americans, and thus, some might say they are constantly striving to be accepted by white America as “true Americans.” As evidence of this, in the film, Tanaka asks Chris, “Do you find that being African American has more advantage or disadvantage in the modern world?” He’s trying to decide if it’s worth giving up his perceived social status for a greater perceived citizenship.

7. Abandonment Issues

A recurring theme in Get Out is that of abandonment. Chris suffers from the childhood trauma of his mother’s death, feeling that had he called 911 when she didn’t return home instead of watching TV all night, she could’ve been saved as she lay by the side of the road after being hit by a car. When he hits a deer early in the film, he gets out to check on it because it reminds him of how his mother died. Later, after having his fill of Rose’s creepy family, he decides against leaving her there because he doesn’t want her to feel abandoned. Then, as he’s escaping, when he accidentally hits Georgina with his car, he stops to pick her up, because again he sees the parallels to his mother. At the end of the film, Rod likewise doesn’t give in to abandonment, diligently tracking down Chris and rescuing him. Peele stated to NBC News that this theme represents the need for black people to support one another and to discuss issues affecting them as a whole, such as mass incarceration.

6. Froot Loops And Milk

Near the end of Get Out, Rose is shown sitting in her bedroom clad in a white horse riding (or hunting?) ensemble, blissfully listening to music – “(I Had) The Time of My Life” from Dirty Dancing (which Peele tells the LA Times, that it reflects her “emotionally stunted” mentality) while searching (hunting?) online for her next target and munching on Froot Loops and milk…separately. That is, she eats the cereal dry and takes sips from the milk in a glass. It’s just weird enough that some viewers have read into this as a representation of the racial divide – keeping white separate from colors. Peele has stated to the LA Times this was not the intended message (although he likes the interpretation), but it does interestingly feed into the increasing use of milk as a symbol of white supremacy. Hate groups recently have latched onto the beverage because of its color and because of the high rate of lactose intolerance in certain non-Caucasian races and ethnicities.

5. Cell Phones

In Get Out, Chris discovers an unexpected tool that’s able to break the control of the interloping white consciousness and free the black host’s mind from the Sunken Place: a flash from a cell phone camera. Intended or not, this seems like a reflection of the how incidents of potentially racially motivated police brutality have increasingly been captured on camera in recent years, thanks to the prevalence of this modern technology. In the film, the camera is literally exposing the racism, just as in real life, cameras have repeatedly exposed incidents of racism. Notably, there’s a scene early in the movie in which Chris is harassed by a policeman, and at the end of the movie, when a police car arrives at the scene to find Chris and a bunch of dead bodies, the audience instinctively fears the cop’s actions. Tellingly, Chris immediately puts his hands up in a “don’t shoot” gesture.

4. Cotton Pickin’

As previously mentioned, references to slavery abound in Get Out in order to reinforce the racial element of the movie, and one of the most intriguing examples of this plays a vital role in Chris’ escape near the end. After having been “won” at the secret auction during the party – mirroring the meat market that was slave auctions – he awakens to find his wrists strapped to the arms of a leather chair. He manages to dig his fingers into the stuffing and lower his head to his hands so he can jam the stuffing into his ears to prevent further hypnosis. It’s been pointed out by BuzzFeed that he’s in essence “picking cotton” in order to survive – just as slaves (or sharecroppers, after the end of slavery) did in the Southern United States.

3. Cameo

Did anyone else know that Jordan Peele makes a cameo appearance in Get Out? Well, at least his voice does. Late in the movie, as Rod is growing increasingly worried about Chris, he visits Chris’ apartment to feed his dog. After trying unsuccessfully to reach his friend by phone, he sits down in front of the TV to do some research on his laptop in an effort to figure out what the heck happened to Chris. At the beginning of this scene, we hear the tail-end of a commercial emanating from the TV that states, “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.” That’s Peele, doing his best Morgan Freeman. The phrase serves double duty. First, it’s the long-running slogan of the United Negro College Fund, which provides college scholarships to black students – reaffirming the film’s “stay woke” theme. It’s also a clever pun that’s particularly relevant to Chris’ situation, since his mind is literally up for grabs.

2. Horror References

Apart from all of the references to race and prejudice in Get Out, Peele throws in several nods to classic horror movies as well. Telling Hip Hop DX, his film is a “throwback,” he cites Rosemary’s Baby and The Stepford Wives as major influences to Forbes. In Rosemary’s Baby, the protagonist feels a growing sense of paranoia over the plotting of those around her – including her significant other (mirroring Chris’ increasingly suspicious mind state) – culminating in a party full of upper-crust, older Caucasian guests who view her as a valuable commodity in their twisted plans. Sound familiar? The Stepford Wives, meanwhile, provides a commentary on gender expectations (paralleling Get Out‘s take on racial expectations) by presenting seemingly perfect people who act in unnatural, robotic ways that make the protagonist suspicious (like Rose’s family’s servants). Peele also recognizes the influence of Night of the Living Dead, whose African-American lead lent heavy racial connotations. Additionally, the scene in which Chris is forced to watch a video on TV has shades of similar events in A Clockwork Orange.

1. Optimism

For all the dark scheming and seemingly dismal portrayal of race relations in America, Get Out actually shows a sliver of optimism. It turns out, Peele revealed to a podcast that there were several endings written that were much more bleak, and the one Peele was originally going to go with had the police showing up to find Chris surrounded by dead bodies and arresting him for murder (similar to Night of the Living Dead‘s ending, in which the black hero survives the zombies, only to be killed by the authorities). However, once the highly publicized incidents of African-American deaths at the hands of police began to proliferate and the mainstream public became more aware of the issue, Peele felt that the increasingly “woke” and on-edge nation needed an ending “that gives us a hero, that gives us an escape, that gives us a positive feeling.” Thus, the arresting police officers were changed into TSA agent Rod, whose arrival proves to be a welcome relief not only for Chris, but also for the audience as a whole.

Get out movie explained

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Image via Universal Pictures

Perhaps you didn’t find the reveal to be big, but that’s a deceptive trick from Peele, but the ending is quietly brilliant. As it percolates beneath a louder surface. you might say that it’s in “the sunken place.” He leads you to believe for much of the film’s runtime that the Armitage family (Keener and Bradley Whitford) is brainwashing the black people who work at their estate (played with great oddball detachment by Marcus Henderson and Betty Gabriel) and probably the young black “lover” (Lakeith Stanfield) of one of the Armitage’s much older white friends (Geraldine Singer). But Peele expertly keeps the question of why? in the back of your head without feeling the need to hammer it home explicitly by the end. But he’s peppered in many clues throughout the film’s runtime to give us the answer without having to scream it. In this way, Get Out is a great entertainment with subversive elements just below the surface. Like Keener’s hypnotic method of choice, drop in a teabag and let it steep for a few minutes and the contents will be revealed and (and it’s also a heated swallow).
Before we get to the racially charged Being John Malkovich meets Oldboy plot additions, let’s go back to what we know. We know that Stanfield’s “Andrew Logan King,” a fellow who dresses like Mr. Rogers, wears a straw hat and won’t fist bump, is actually the body of Andre Hayworth a young black man we saw abducted in an affluent neighborhood to open the film. Hayworth has been missing since January 2016. And when Chris takes a photograph of “Andrew Logan King” at the Armitage’s annual party, the flash causes Andrew Logan King’s nose to bleed and Andre Hayworth briefly appears in a rage telling Chris to “get out” of there as soon as he can. Mrs. Armitage takes Andrew into a back room where we assume that he is hypnotized again and then he apologizes for his behavior, blaming a seizure from the camera flash.

Image via Universal Pictures

Previous to the Andrew Logan King encounter, we’ve got to talk about Chris’ first night in the Armitage house. Rose tells Chris—who’s concerned that she hasn’t told her family that he’s black before he came—that although she’s never taken a black man home, her parents are not racist and indeed her father will just be glad to say aloud that he would’ve gladly voted for a third term of Obama. Indeed the patriarch of the family does tell Chris this in a gazebo while he observes his plantation-like estate and boasts that there isn’t another property for miles. Although the Obama line is predictably funny—due to how Obama is always used as a deflection for accusations of racism still existing by people in denial—Peele uses it after setting up two huge pieces of information.
First, while receiving a tour of the house, papa Armitage shows Chris a series of photos of his father, who competed in the 1936 Olympics but came in second to Jesse Owens. Owens won four gold medals in Berlin that year, in all four competitions he was slotted in (the 100m and 200m dash, the 4x100m relay and the long jump), which defiantly defeated Adolf Hitler’s desire for Aryan genetic superiority to be solidified on his own home turf. (For those who want the facts, the runners who came in second to Owens in each dash were indeed American, but both silver medalists, Ralph Metcalfe and Mack Robinson, were also black.) Chris says that his father shouldn’t have felt bad about losing to one of the all-time greatest American athletes. And Armitage responds, “He almost got over it.”
Then, before getting to the gazebo for the required Obama line, Armitage says that it must look strange to have two black servants working for them, but since they took care of his parents he couldn’t stand to let them go because they felt like they were family. The Obama joke follows and in storytelling, it’s perfect, because the rule of three makes you focus on the final bit of information that’s being told and try to remember the other two when you retell it. Ultimately, in rewinding, the previous two bits of information are the most important pieces to the puzzle of why the Armitages are offering a service that allows their friends, at a price, to inhabit the bodies of black men.

Image via Universal

So that brings us to the Oldboy-esque, basement scenario, where Chris is held captive and relayed messages through the television after he discovers a box of photographs that shows Rose with many different black boyfriends (and one notable girlfriend) previous to him. A blind art curator (Stephen Root) informs Chris, via television relay, that he’s won the prize of becoming Chris by out-bidding all the others. The surgical process that the grandfather Armitage (who lost to Owens and never quite got over it) has perfected is that Chris’ being will be suppressed except for the motor functions, and the art curator’s brain will be transplanted to overtake Chris’ consciousness, rendering him completely powerless and paralyzed, yet it seems that there’s just enough of a sliver of the previous owner’s consciousness there that can temporarily come out if the proper stimulus is provoked.
After receiving this information, Chris thinks back to the eugenics-like talk directed at him when he was meeting the Armitage’s friends. For instance, the woman who felt his bicep and commented on how “strong” he was, before asking Rose whether sex was really different with a black man. The fetishized physical traits of the black male physique are further represented by the white couple that say, “black is in fashion!”

That itself is all very subversive and much more sinister than the brainwashing we were originally thinking; white people wanting to become black to experience what they consider to be superior traits. But it’s what’s said and seen that’s not repeated that make it even more unseemly and perverse. For instance, when we learn that the help on the estate are actually Rose’s grandfather and grandmother living as their black servants, it re-contextualizes Walter’s night runs (potentially faster than he was in his own body) and his statement that he isn’t “asked to do anything [he] wouldn’t want to do” while Chris points out that they work him really hard. Rose’s grandfather, who was beaten by a black athlete during the Olympics that were held in Germany at the height of Aryan Nazism, desires to test the limits of his new black body and no longer feel inferior.
Now, it’s not just the perceived superior athletic makeup and sexual virility that makes “black in fashion” in this neighborhood, the key to understanding that is Andre’s missing person. When Chris’ friend Rod (LilRel Howery) discovers that many black men have disappeared near the Armitages estate and goes to the police, the detective (who is also black) brings in her colleagues to laugh at his story. Now, his theory does indeed sound outlandish and ridiculous and Peele does play it for laughs (they’ve got a sex slave den!), but this scene also shows how the police can be given information about multiple black men disappearing in an area and shrug it off due to preconceived notions of young black men dying or going to prison at a much higher rate than the rest of the population.

Image via Universal

This scene, followed by Rose’s Google search for promising NCAA prospects as she “scouts” her next potential body to snatch (which speaks to both physical traits and largely focuses on black athletes who often hail from neighborhoods that are perceived by the police and media to be less safe) gives us the sense that the Armitages abduct young black men because American society has already discarded and arrested so many, they have a higher probability of going undetected. Perhaps that’s why the Armitages started with their parent’s caretakers as their first victims, if they already had two black strangers living with them, it would be easier to excise them from society.
Peele tests the audience’s endurance with two police encounters. The first one, Rose sticks up for Chris when she has an accident but the policeman wants to see Chris’ ID anyway. The audience likely views this scene as unjust and agrees with Chris when he says Rose’s handling of the situation was “hot.” But the second time we see sirens, after Chris has broken away from the compound and is standing over a bloodied Rose with a shotgun nearby, Peele holds onto the flashing red and blue lights long enough to make us feel the awful awareness that this scene that we’d find so comforting in a standard horror movie, is all the sudden chilling because it’s a black man standing over a bloody white woman and we know who the monster of the movie is but we don’t trust the policeman to. (It also plays up the awareness that we never see a black person survive any mainstream horror film.) That it turns out to be Rod in a TSA vehicle (do those exist? And can an agent take them away from the airport undetected?) shows that Peele was setting us up for a gut punch moment and in a way, to put the audience, which no doubt will have a lot of white people and woke people in it, in the shoes of a young black man. Because we’re rooting for him, because we’ve discovered this ridiculously elaborate eugenics experiment with him, we are in his shoes about to confront something completely unjust and it’s devastating. #BlackMindsMatter

Image via Universal

Rose, who is not yet aware that it’s Rod, knows the situation, too and she plays up her poor white woman who’s been attacked by a black man routine with relish (think to the recent open wound that Emmett Till’s accuser admitted to making everything up; he was tortured and shot, she lived on for decades). Although, it’s a little too convenient that Rose has a box of pictures of her with her previous black male victims just sitting on the floor of her closet, Peele and Williams delight in showing her true colors. Ever heard of the subgenre of exploitation films involving Nazi prison guards under the title Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS? Well Get Out is “Rose, the She Wolf in Woke Clothing.”
(Sidebar: Rose’s methodology is perhaps the most imperfect thread in Get Out, raising a few more questions than answers. Such as, how frequently does this auction happen? She has about a dozen selfies with black men who we assume are victims, but she’s only 26 years old and looks the same in all the photographs; the yearly event does seem like a fraudulent line of dialogue, but still, Rose appears to have to many trophies for the romantic timeline.)
However, despite all the revelations that the Armitages and their friends desire to be black for certain societal reasons, Peele isn’t telling us that they’re right to want that. Instead, through Rose’s shenanigans, her insane brother’s (Caleb Landry Jones) dinner table utterance of wanting the “beast” of Chris to emerge through a wrestling match, and the Armitage’s protecting of the family heritage they’ve placed inside black bodies, Peele isn’t showing us that one race is superior to the other. He’s showing us that ideas of racial superiority are learned and passed down in families. It’s not natural. And anyone who says that should get out, right now.
Now if you really wanna get floored, think of how Peele got Chris out of the basement. By panic-scratching at a leather chair, his established reflex to hypnosis, he produced a fluffy cotton-like stuffing. He then placed that stuffing in his ears and was able to silence the further hypnotic attempts and thus was able to beat the man who earlier called him a beast and get back upstairs. Now what does cotton, the substance that freed him, represent to the American experience other than the subjugation, exploitation and terror of slavery? Here that substance is produced by his terror of a new type of enslavement and it saves him. GET OUT!

Get out spoiler

A black guy (It's important to know his race) named Dre (Keith Stanfield) is walking alone at night through a perfectly manicured suburban street. A little sports car pulls up and starts slowly tracking him. Andre gets spooked, says, "fuck this shit", and changes directions to briskly walk back the way he came. When he turns to see what the car did, he sees it’s parked where it was, but the door is open. From out of nowhere, a man in a medieval helmet attacks the black guy and drags his body to the car. Rose (Allison Williams) shows up to her photographer boyfriend Chris’s (Daniel Kaluuya) apartment with pastries and coffee.  They’re getting ready to go away for the weekend to visit her family and he’s concerned that they don’t know she’s dating a black guy. She assures him that, while they will likely say some stupid things, they are incredibly progressive. Her dad would have even voted for Obama a third time if he could have. He makes sure he’s the only black guy Rose has ever dated. She says he is, but is confident that her parents will be totally cool.
On the ride to her parents’ home, Chris goes for a cigarette, but Rose takes it and throws it out the window. Her parents would really frown on her dating a smoker. Chris calls his buddy Rod (LilRel Howery), a TSA agent and reminds him to take care of his dog and not to feed him human food. Rod busts his balls about going to visit the white folk and says it’s a bad idea. He also flirts with Rose a little bit. Chris gets a little jealous and Rose thinks it’s sweet. While they’re deep in conversation and not entirely paying attention to the road, a deer darts out in front of the car and is hit.
They pull over to investigate and call the police. The police show up and ask what they’re doing in the area. Rose tells them that they’re visiting her family. The officer asks to see Chris’s ID, but Rose steps in and says that because he wasn’t driving there’s no need for that. The officer lets them go and Chris tells Rose that was hot.
Chris and Rose arrive at her parents’ home. Her dad, Dean Armitage (Bradley Whitford) is an affable neurosurgeon who, yes, would have voted for Obama a third time if he could have. Her mom, Missy (Catherine Keener) is a strangely cold hypnotherapist. She offers to cure Chris of his nicotine addiction through hypnosis, but he doesn’t feel cool with people tooling around in his head.
The Armitage’s also have two onsite black helpers. There’s Walter (Marcus Henderson) the groundskeeper and Georgina (Betty Gabriel) the maid. Dean acknowledges that it looks bad, two wealthy white people having two helpers who are black, but they were hired to take care of his parents and Dean would have felt bad letting them go. There’s definitely something off about both Walter and Georgina. They have a definite stiff Stepford artificial politeness about them. They also both speak using dated vernacular.
Dean gives Chris a tour of the house and shows him old family photos. His dad was beat out by Jesse Owens to compete in the Olympics in front of Hitler. And while that was sad for his dad, it was still great to have Hitler’s Aryan idealism proven wrong. He taps on the basement door and says it's closed off due to black mold. There is also pictures of Rose’s brother who will be joining them later. He’s a surgeon like his dad, but he went through a rough patch.
The family gets together for afternoon tea. Missy asks about Chris’s parents. His dad left when he was young and his mom was hit by a car when he was eleven. Georgina sort of short circuits while pouring tea and Missy tells her to go lay down and get some rest. The Armitages tell Rose that they’re having their big party tomorrow. She’s surprised and they remind her that it’s the same day every year. Rose’s brother Jeremy (Caleb Landry Jones) arrives. He’s an aggressively dickish rich kid.
That night the family has dinner and a drunk Jeremy starts talking to Chris about MMA fighting. He says that because Chris comes from a hearty stock he’d be a natural. He wants to spar, but Chris says that he has rules about play fighting with drunks. Dean and Missy tell Jeremy that maybe it’s time for him to go to bed.
Chris and Rose retire to their room where she apologizes for her family and they go to sleep. In the middle of the night, Chris gets up and decides to sneak out for a cigarette. While outside he sees something in the distance charging him. It’s Walter! He heads straight for Chris, but makes a sharp turn at the last moment and runs off in another direction. Inside the house, Georgina is staring out a window. It turns out she’s looking at her own reflection, not Chris. She adjusts her hair and Chris decides to head back inside.
Before Chris can make it back to his room, Missy turns on a light and startles him. She tells him that smoking is a bad habit and offers again to help. He sits down and mocks the notion of hypnotism unaware of the fact that she’s slowly hypnotizing him while using her tea spoon as a focus object. She takes him back to when he was 11 on the night his mom died. She didn’t come home from work and he was took scared to do anything about it. He was afraid that if he called the police it would make it real. So he just sat there watching television nervously digging his nails into his bedposts. Present day Chris is doing the same thing, digging his nails into the arms of the chair. She tells him to sink and 11 year old Chris sinks into his bed, while present day Chris sinks into blackness seeing himself and Missy far above. His consciousness has left his body, while his body is still paralyzed in his chair.
He wakes in the morning and checks his phone. Rod has sent Chris a picture of him pretending to give his dog beer. His battery is low, so he plugs it in. Chris tells Rose that he thinks maybe her mom hypnotized him last night. He has vague recollections of the evening.
The Armitage’s wealthy friends start to show up for the big party. It’s mostly older white people who say a lot of inappropriate things to Chris like how he has a good build, because Tiger Woods golfs he must have a good swing too, are black guys better in bed, etc. Chris sneaks off and finds a blind man named Jim Hudson (Stephen Root) who says that all the people at the party are ignorant. He’s an art dealer and Chris is well aware of who he is. Jim says that he’s a fan of Chris’s work. He recognizes the irony of a blind art dealer, but tells him that he has a really good assistant who is great at describing pieces. He envies Chris’s eye. He himself tried photography, but was never very good at it.
Chris goes back to mingling with the guests and discovers another black guy. It’s a young guy about his age. Chris tries to bond with him who is introducded as Logan, the husband of a white woman clearly way older than him, but he too is stiff and unnatural like Walter and Georgina. A sharp eye will notice that this man is Dre from the opening of the movie. There’s something about him that seems familiar to Chris though.
Chris decides to check in with Rod again. When he returns to his phone he finds it unplugged again. He plugs it in and calls Rod to tell him everything that’s been going on. Rod tells him that white people love to have sex slaves and he needs to get out of there. Rose finds Chris and he tells her how weird everything is and that his phone was unplugged again. She tells him he’s just being paranoid because he’s in an uncomfortable situation. He agrees and she leaves. Rod tells Chris to take a picture of the black guy and he’ll see if he remembers him. As Chris is about to leave, he’s blocked by Georgina who apologizes for unplugging his cellular phone. She was dusting the night stand and lifted it up. That’s when it came unplugged and she didn’t want to mess with it further. He says that it’s fine and hopes that he didn’t mean to snitch on her. She doesn’t understand. So he clarifies that he didn’t mean to "rat on her" get her in trouble. "Tattletale?" She responds with showing she understand now. She gets super weird and keeps walking closer to him and lets out a single tear while telling him that the Armitages treat her like family.  She turns and quickly leaves.
Chris goes back outside and tries to discreetly take the familiar black man’s picture with his cell phone, but has forgotten to turn off the flash. As soon as his phone flashes, the man changes. He goes from overly prim and proper to raving. His nose starts bleeding and he jumps at Chris telling him, “Get out! Get the fuck out while you still can!”
Rose is freaked out now too. She asks her dad what happened and he explains that the flash just caused the man to have a seizure. The man comes out and apologies for upsetting everyone and says he must return home. Chris and Rose go for a walk and Chris tells her that he’s sure he recognizes the guy and that something strange is definitely going on. She agrees. That did not seem like a seizure at all. Dean says it's time for sparklers and bingo and ask Chris and Rose to join but Chris would rather go for a walk and Rose joins him.  They talk out by the lake about his mother's death and how he would never abandon her. Chris says that he’d really like to go home now. Rose reluctantly agrees. She says she’ll make up something to tell her parents. 
Back at the house, a strange quiet Bingo game is going on. Dean holds up a number on his fingers and some of the guests hold up cards that show bingos on them already. Slow pan out reveals that Dean is holding an auction with his guests and next to him is a framed picture of Chris. The bingo cards are the paddles and Dean goes up to ten fingers (never verified but assumed to mean 10 million dollars)  Jim Hudson has won the auction. The rest of the guests all go home.
Chris goes back to pack his belongings and gets a call from Rod who tells him that the guy in the picture is a guy they knew who used to work at a movie theater named Dre, but went missing. The phone battery dies. Chris notices the closet door is open. He looks inside and finds a red box filled with photos of Rose posed romantically with many other black guys…not just guys…there are photos of her with both Walter and Georgina who don’t look at all like the robotic versions of themselves we’ve come to know so far. Apparently Chris isn't the first black guy Rose has been with after all!
Rose returns and Chris says that he needs the keys to put their bags in the car. She looks for them in her purse as they make their way out of the house. Uh oh! Jeremy blocks the door. Dean and Missy are there too. Jeremy is ready to attack, but Missy and Dean tell him to calm down. Chris keeps telling Rose to get the keys and she’s looking. Missy and Dean don’t want Chris to leave. Chris yells at Rose to find the keys again and Rose stops looking scared, looks calm and looks up and says very calmly, “You know I can’t give you the keys.” and shows him the keys were in her hand the entire time. She’s in on whatever this is. Jeremy attacks. Dean yells and Missy clinks his tea spoon on her glass causing, Chris to sink back into the dark void again.  As he sinks back into the void he hears Dean tell Jeremy to grab his legs so they can take him to the basement. You see Rose come into view and tell Chris that he was one of her favorites and blows him a kiss.
Rod keeps trying to call Chris, but it keeps going straight to voicemail. He looks up the picture of the guy in the photo and sees that he went missing some time ago, so he goes to the police. He tells a female officer that his boy was kidnapped by white folk to be a sex slave just like the missing guy in the picture. She calls in two more officers to listen to Rod’s story. When he finishes, they all burst out laughing. No one is going to take him seriously.
Chris wakes to find himself tied to a chair in front of a mounted deer head and an old TV. He watches a video made by Dean’s father that talks about immortality and stuff like that. Chris sees that his finger nails have clawed through the leather arm of the chair and exposed the padding.  The teacup and spoon appear on the screen again. TING TING TING and he’s out.
Rod tries Chris’s phone again and Rose answers. She says that Chris left two days ago and is concerned too. He left in a taxi or an Uber maybe. Rod tells her that he went to the police and she seems concerned about this. He starts to realize that something is wrong, so he tries to record the call. When he goes back to talking to her, she tells him she knows that he has the hots for her. He tells her she’s a crazy bitch and hangs up. 
Chris wakes up and Jim Hudson is on the screen. He tells Chris that they’re going to swap brains. The other people at the party were all about being black, but Jim couldn’t give less of a shit about that. What he really wants is to be able to see the world through Chris’s eyes. Dean has perfected the neurosurgery to make this all possible. And Missy hypnotizes the body donors to prep them for the procedure. He’ll continue existing in the dark void, but will be able to continue on as sort of a passenger. The flashing is an unfortunate side effect as they saw earlier at the party. TING TING TING of the teaspoon and Chris is out again.
Dean and Jeremy prep Jim Hudson for a brain transplant. Dean tells Jeremy to go get Chris.  Jeremy goes down the hall, we see now we’re in the basement of the house, and finds Chris unconscious. He takes of his restraints and gets an IV ready. Chris wasn’t unconscious after all. He stuffed the padding from the chair in his ears to block the sound of the tea spoon. He knocks out Jeremy.
Dean starts calling for Jeremy and goes out of the lab area to check on him. Chris rushes him and impales him with the deer antlers from the other room. He knocks over a candle that ignites the blanket covering Jim Hudson too.
Rose has earbuds in and isn’t aware any of this is going on. She is listening to "I've Had the Time of My Life" from Dirty Dancing while looking up NCAA prospects on the internet.  
Chris goes upstairs and finds Missy. She goes for the tea cup and spoon, but Chris beats her to them and smashes them. Instead she attacks him with a knife, but he turns it on her and stabs her. Chris goes for the front door again, but Jeremy has returned and puts him in a choke hold. Chris breaks free and kills Jeremy too. He runs outside and gets in Jeremy’s car. On the passenger seat is the medieval helmet from earlier. He starts down the drive way, but hits Georgina. He can’t just let her lay there like his mom did, so he gets her in the car and continues down the driveway. Rose whispers "Grandma" and runs down the steps of the now burning house with the shotgun. This is when you realize that Georgina has the Grandmother's brain. She wakes up and attacks him. She's yelling that he has destroyed the family while Rose is shooting at the car. In the process her wig falls off and we see she has a scar across her head from a brain transplant too. They crash into a tree and she dies.
Boom! The rearview mirror is blown away. Rose is coming after him with a gun. He begs her to stop, but she's more worried about the condition of her grandma. Georgina was the vessel in which Rose's grandmother's brain is now housed! Rose shoots again and misses Chris. From out of nowhere, Walter runs in an tackles Chris with Rose saying "Get him Grandpa." During the struggle, Chris grabs his phone and takes picture that flashes. Walter gets up (nose bleeding like Dre/Logan earlier) and turns to Rose and says "I'll take care of him". Obviously this is Rose's grandfather's brain in Walter because she hands him the shotgun, but he shoots Rose in the stomach. Then turns it on himself and kills himself.  Chris is slowly getting up hurt from the car crash and the attack from Walter. He sees that Rose is still alive and is trying to get the gun. He moves the gun and crawls over on top of her and begins to choke her.  She starts saying "I love you" while being choked and starts to grin because he is getting too upset to go through with it. Then the police lights appear on the road. Chris gets off of her and puts his hands up.  Rose starts weakly calling out "Help!"  The car door opens and is revealed to be a TSA patrol car.  It's Rod!  Chris gets in the car and Rose finally succumbs to her wounds. After a moment of silence Rod tells him, "Man, I told you not to go in that house."  He asks Rod how did he know where he was.  He tells him because he works for the TS M******* A.  Consider this handled"  They drive off with Rod staring out into the darkness (a reminder of how the camera shot was at the beginning when they were driving to the parents house at the beginning.*