Warning: MAJOR SPOILERS For Us
Jordan Peele's Us concludes with a shocking twist but the numerous clues to the reveal are intricately woven throughout the film. The Oscar-winning filmmaker's follow up to Get Out stars Lupita Nyong'o as Adelaide Wilson and Winston Duke as her husband Gabe. The Wilsons' relaxing family vacation in Santa Cruz is violently interrupted by a home invasion caused by their exact doubles - who seem determined to torment and then kill them.
Us is a scary straight-up horror movie but it also contains deep and complex themes and layers. As the film's terrifying plot unravels, it's revealed that the doppelgangers of the Wilson family - who are also played by the same actors, including Shahadi Wright Joseph as Zora and her double, Umbrae and Evan Alex as Jason and his double, Pluto - are part of the Tethered. These strange people are exact doubles of every single person in the United States, and live in secret tunnels beneath the country. The Tethered are led by Red, Adelaide's doppelganger, and they are attacking the surface to replace their opposites. It's all tied to an incident in Adelaide's past when, as a little girl, she got lost in a hall of mirrors and encountered her Tethered double.
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The biggest twist comes at the end when it's revealed that Adelaide is actually a Tethered herself who switched places with Red. She kidnapped the young Adelaide, trapped her in the Tethered's underground lair, and replaced her on the surface in 1986. Since then, Adelaide has been living her double's life while the original Adelaide was forced to live as a Tethered named Red and was condemned to mimic Adelaide's life above. However, Jordan Peele expertly hid all the clues to this jaw-dropper in plain sight. Here are all the clues that Adelaide was a Tethered all along.
- This Page: All The Clues Leading Up To And Including The Home Invasion
- Page 2: All The Clues After The Wilsons Survive The Home Invasion
The Clues In Adelaide's Fear Of Going Back To Santa Cruz Beach
Adelaide makes it clear to Gabe that she doesn't want to go back to Santa Cruz Beach. At this early point in the film, after the opening flashback to when young Adelaide wandered from her parents at the Boardwalk and got lost in the Shaman's hall of mirrors in 1986, the audience is meant to think Adelaide is reacting to that childhood trauma. But Gabe talks her into going, promising that they will leave before dark and Adelaide relents. There are clues both during the trip to the beach and while they are there.
During the car ride, Gabe plays Luniz's "I Got 5 On It" on the radio. Adelaide tells Jason to "get in rhythm," foretelling the later reveal that the Tethereds are forced to mimic their duplicates above, something Adelaide, as a Tethered herself, is aware of. Some have also speculated that Adelaide snapping distinctively out of rhythm is a clue that something is off about her. Later, during the home invasion, Adelaide instructs Jason to "show [Pluto] one of your tricks," because she knew Pluto would mirror whatever Jason does. As they get to the Santa Cruz Beach, the family car is stopped while an ambulance loads the dead body of a homeless man, whom Adelaide (and the audience) recognizes as the older version of the man carrying a "Jeremiah 11:11" sign in the 1986 flashback. Adelaide knows him not just from underground, but she must have passed his double at the Boardwalk when she is found by her parents after she switched places with Red.
At the beach, the Wilsons meet up with their friends Josh, Kitty, and their twin teenage daughters Becca and Lindsey. Kitty is chatty with Adelaide, who apologizes for not conversing by saying, "I have a hard time talking" - this foreshadows Red's hoarse voice when she appears.
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The Clues In Adelaide's Flashbacks
Adelaide's flashbacks of what happened after she got lost in the hall of mirrors are tricky, since the audience is meant to believe they're the memories of the original Adelaide. We see two flashbacks of Adelaide in the back seat of her parents' car as they argue after she's found. The second flashback is key: Adelaide reacts with wide-eyed wonderment when it starts raining (because she had never seen rain before).
At a child psychologist's office, Adelaide listens to her parents and there's a cut to her at a ballerina studio where her reflection looks back at her in a mirror. The child psychologist encourages Adelaide to draw, sing or dance to tell her story - Adelaide chose to dance and became a talented ballerina (though she says she peaked at 14) - something she knew Red, who is Tethered to her below, would be forced to mimic.
Adelaide's Reflection In The Window Sets Up That She's One Of The Tethered
The first major visual clue Jordan Peele offers is in the scene in Adelaide and Gabe's bedroom when she confesses why she wants to go home. Adelaide tells Gabe about when "she" was lost in the hall of mirrors as a child and saw her doppelganger - though it's really Red's story she's telling. But the key is Adelaide's reflection in the window as she speaks: her eyes are glowing and her face is distorted - just like young Adelaide's face was when turned around and faced her lost double in the hall of mirrors.
"There's A Family In Our Driveway" And How Adelaide Reacts
When Adelaide put Jason to bed and told him "stick with me, I'll keep you safe" (foreshadowing her climactic rescue of him), she sees his drawing of the Jeremiah 11:11 man (who is the Tethered version with bloody hands after he killed his double) starting his link in the Hands Across America chain. Again, Adelaide recognizes it because she had seen Hands Across America before - on young Red's shirt after she kidnapped her.
Jason then enters his parents' bedroom and tells them, "There's a family in our driveway". The family is holding hands just like Hands Across America. When Adelaide sees them, she starts calling the police, but first she says "No no no!" - a noticeable reaction of recognition.
Adelaide Recognizes Red And Her Shackles
When Red and her Tethered family, Abraham, Umbrae, and Pluto, break into the Wilsons' house and confront them in the living room, watching how Red and Adelaide interact is quite revealing. Red opens her arms wide in a welcoming position - a gesture of reunion with Adelaide. And while Gabe, Zora, and Jason are understandably confused about what's happening, Adelaide's reaction is quite different. She yells at Gabe to stop offering them money or his boat.
The biggest clue in this scene is when Red shows Adelaide a pair of shackles and demands that she chain herself to the table, Adelaide again reacts with recognition - naturally, she remembers the shackles. After Red tells the Wilsons the story of the Tethered, Adelaide says, "You want me, right?" but this question is more of a challenge and has deeper layers.
Page 2: All The Clues After The Wilsons Survive The Home Invasion
Dahlia Wouldn't Kill Adelaide
After the Wilsons escaped from their Tethered doppelgangers (and Gabe has killed Abraham), they flee to Josh and Kitty's house, unaware that their whole family has been murdered by their Tethered doubles. Adelaide doesn't hesitate to kill Tex, Josh's double, but the rest of Tex's family pulls her into the house. However, it's curious that Adelaide isn't killed. Instead, Kitty's double Dahlia chains her to Kitty's bed while she roleplays as Kitty.
Dahlia even takes her sisters and rubs the blade on Adelaide's face - but she doesn't cut (instead she slices her own face). This behavior is odd unless it's seen as another clue: Dahlia recognizes Adelaide as a Tethered and also knows to save her for Red, who organized the entire attack.
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"Let's Go To Mexico" - Adelaide Knows The Tethered's Plan
After Gabe kills Tex and Jason and Zora kill Kitty and her twin daughters Io and Nix, the Wilsons take a moment to rest in the Tylers' luxurious home. They watch TV and get news of the attacks happening all over Santa Cruz. While Gabe and the kids try to process what's happening, a distraught Adelaide is several steps ahead of them - because she already understands that the Tethered are rising up from underground and taking over the surface. Adelaide's plan is to "stick to the coast" and "go to Mexico" because she knows the Tethered are a U.S. government experiment and they are only in the United States (just as Red answered the question "Who are you?" with "We're Americans".)
When the Wilsons' take the Tylers' car, Adelaide runs back in the house to get the keys. Jason goes in after her and watches his mom kill one of the Tethered twins who it turns out was still alive and attacked her. This was Jason's first glimpse at Adelaide's true self, though he doesn't understand yet what it means.
Adelaide Knew Exactly How To Get To The Tethered's Underground Lair
After the Wilsons fall for a trap laid by Red and Pluto is tricked by Jason into setting himself on fire, Red kidnaps Jason and disappears. However, Adelaide knows exactly where they went and runs off after them, leaving a confused Gabe and Zora behind. At this point, it becomes clear that Adelaide knows far more than she has let on and that there's more to the story than the audience has been told so far - and the biggest clue is when Adelaide enters what's now Merlin's Hall of Mirrors, and knows exactly where the secret door was leading to the tunnels.
From there, Adelaide moves cautiously, anticipating being attacked around every corner, but she also knows exactly where she's going, right until she finds the escalator that leads down to the Tethered's lair. This is significant because from what the audience was told about young Adelaide's disappearance, she never described anything more than seeing a double of herself in the hall of mirrors, and she didn't claim she went any further down into the complex. Yet Adelaide moves with deliberate purpose into the tunnels because she has actually come home.
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Adelaide Chokes Red Out With The Shackles - And Laughs
The final confrontation between Adelaide and Red and their ballet dance-like fight is filled with revelations and interrupted by flashbacks detailing Red's plan of revenge against Adelaide and the surface. However, the final twist that Red was the original Adelaide was still to come and the final major clue was how Adelaide killed Red: after impaling Red through the torso, Adelaide wrapped the chain of the shackles around her wrists and choked Red out until she died - echoing their first meeting as little girls when Adelaide choked Red out to kidnap her into the tunnels (which caused Red's hoarse voice).
And then, Adelaide laughed - the audience is meant to register this as a laugh of relief that the ordeal was over, but it soon becomes clear that Adelaide laughed because she won and, with Red dead, she got away with her deception. As the film ends with the Wilsons escaping Santa Cruz in an ambulance, Jason sees her mom laughing to herself. He now knows something is wrong with Adelaide because he has seen her true face, and he suspects his mom isn't really one of Us.
