The Glass Onion Continues One of Knives Out's Weirdest References

While The Glass Onion is a stand-alone sequel to Knock Out, the film actually continues one of its predecessor's most bizarre pop culture references.

Warning: This post contains spoilers for Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

The Glass Onion: Knockout Mystery is a stand-alone sequel to 2018 murder mystery flick Knockout, but it actually continues one of the weirdest references from its predecessor. While the two films are part of the same franchise, from a story standpoint they have almost nothing in common other than the protagonist, Detective Benoit Blanc (played by Daniel Craig). The series' writer-director Rian Johnson has managed to sneak all sorts of hidden references and Easter eggs into his films, and The Glass Onion is no exception when it comes to bizarre callbacks.

Glass Onion follows Detective Benoit Blanc as he is invited to a mysterious island owned by Miles Brown (Edward Norton), a wealthy tech mogul who rose to the top through lies and deceit. During his stay at the island's titular Glass Onion Manor, Blank's first priority is solving Miles' murder mystery party puzzles, though the festivities are quickly overshadowed when an actual murder occurs among the guests . Due to the wealth and fame of many of the suspects in Glass Onion, there are several celebrity cameos in the sequel, one of which is where the bizarre Knives Out callback comes in Play.

Glass Onion Features Another Reference To Gravity's Rainbow

Benoit Blanc and Helen (Janelle Monáe) are in Miles' private gym near the end of The Glass Onion: Tennis Star Serena Williams on a large digital screen in the background. While what initially appeared to be a video of the athlete simply reading a book, it turned out to be live, with Williams asking the pair if they wanted to work out. The book she was reading before the reveal was Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon. While this may seem odd, this isn't the first time the series has mentioned the novel, as Benoit Blanc actually made a joke of it in Into the Wild.

In the original film, Benoit Blanc says "I'm looking forward to the end of Gravity's Rainbow" when talking to Ana de Armas' Wilderness character Marta. Blank later admitted that he hadn't actually read the book, he just liked the title, joking that "nobody" had read the notoriously difficult novel. While this one-off line was never mentioned again in Operation Wild, the Serena Williams scene in The Glass Onion went on to reference the rainbow in Gravity all these years later, as proof that Bran G wrong gag. it's also a book Rian Johnson, writer and director of the Knives Out series, told SFGATE he loves it.

Why Glass Onion Makes So Few References To Knives Out

Despite being a sequel, The Glass Onion: Mystery of Knock Out has surprisingly little reference to the first film. While that might seem odd to viewers who love wilderness action, making these films stand-alone installments fits perfectly with Rian Johnson's mission for the series. The Knives Out franchise is a meta love letter to classic murder mysteries, with the films putting a twist on many of the genre's most common tropes. Like Agatha Christie did with her Hercule Poirot novels, Johnson wants the Wild Things series to be written only by Benoit Blanc. Connected stand-alone stories, and Glass Onion: The Mystery of the Glass Onion proves that this unorthodox strategy works.