Ramble: Jenny's Favorite and Least Favorite Plot Twists of All Time
Added 2024-06-01 08:39:41 +0000 UTCAlternate upload for those having difficulty watching on youtube! Working to resolve copyright issues there but y'all can watch this in the meantime
Comments
I know this video's from a long time ago and it doesn't matter anymore, but I wanted to leave an alternate take on the ending of The Mist, because I really like that ending as a reader of cosmic horror :) The theme of the story is how we cope with the irrational, right? We have all these examples: Brent, the skeptic who absolutely refuses to acknowledge the possibility of the supernatural; Mrs. Carmody, the zealot who's certain this is all God's plan; and David, who is smarter, more rational, and better under stress than anyone else, and accepts the strangeness of the situation and tries to deal with it as logically as he can - a classic "thinker" archetype. Throughout the story we see David chide other people's coping mechanisms as irrational (which they are) and dangerous (which they are). (In the novella we see that he also has an irrational and dangerous coping mechanism - he's weirdly horny the whole time, which is helping him vent his stress. Thanks Stephen) We're encouraged to think of the protagonist's view as the only valid one. As things get worse everyone else's coping mechanisms fall apart, seemingly proving him right. Brent leaves, presumably to be killed, because he refuses to believe there are monsters. Mrs. Carmody is ready to kill anyone and everyone. So it seems like David and "team rational"" have no rational choice but to leave. Finally, out of gas, David makes one more calm, considered, rational choice. But this time the folly of it is instantly revealed. His rationality, his intelligence, was every bit as worthless as Brent's blinders or Mrs. Carmody's zeal. We're made to understand that in the face of the unnatural and the horrific, there's no right answer, no matter how sane it may seem in the moment. Then you can think back on all his other choices and realize that they were probably wrong, too - maybe he could have made it home if they'd run right away. Maybe they should have left with Brent, or fought Mrs. Carmody. All he ever did was rational, so everything he did might have been wrong. Being insane might have been better, or worse, or the same. That's a classic theme in cosmic horror and I think it's really well done in The Mist if you're into that kind of thing.
Ceth Reitsch
2025-09-25 04:26:01 +0000 UTC"What if it was Earth the whole time?" "Not that...but something like that."
The Alienated Librarian
2025-09-02 04:09:28 +0000 UTCOk I had never even heard of the Rober Pattenson/Princess Belle 9/11 movie and the way my jaw dropped when you brought up the world trade center lmao like what a genuinely crazy twist
Rae Abigail
2025-06-08 18:07:25 +0000 UTCJust saw on YouTube/WDW Pro that the former Galactic Cruiser building is now being converted into office space for Imaginering.
Renaud
2025-02-01 17:32:06 +0000 UTCThe best Twilight Zone twist is when she's on Earth that's too hot because it's getting closer to the sun and then the twist is that she's actually on Earth that's too COLD because it's getting FARTHER from the sun and also she has a fever. 7 year old me was flabbergasted.
Katie Martin
2025-01-12 03:37:17 +0000 UTCThe director of Transcendence was the cinematographer of early Nolan movies (Memento, Dark Knight Trilogy, Inception) so I think you are on the money about him being influenced by Nolan! I don’t think he did any other movies.
Lior
2024-12-12 00:22:19 +0000 UTCThe Prestige has a great twist.
Glue
2024-12-01 03:27:02 +0000 UTCI've seen so many people insist that the end of The Mist is actually great and poignant and perfect that I was starting to think maybe I was crazy so thank you for the vindication.
Sarah Anderson
2024-11-12 01:36:19 +0000 UTCI loved that but thought the resolution of her becoming a ghost and teaming up with Billy was pretty weak in comparison to that reveal.
James Stuart
2024-11-12 00:44:11 +0000 UTCI dont know if anyone watched Agatha All along, but I have a new least favorite twist. The Twist that Agatha made up the ballad in order to be a serial killer and billy created the witches road with his magic. I think this twist is dumb because I liked the witches road and the song, I added the song to all of my playlists, then we got to the last two episodes and now when I listen to the song I am reminded of the montage of agatha tricking and murdering countless women for power, (in a way that goes unpunished and unaddressed through the narrative)
ryan rieffel
2024-11-11 13:30:08 +0000 UTCThere is a lot to unpack
XQCLMAO
2024-08-05 07:05:40 +0000 UTCIt’s been a long long time since I watched or read V for Vendetta but in the comic I’m pretty sure Valerie’s journal entries weren’t just real, they were either what kept V going when V was in a similar prison/torture situation, or (depending on your reading) they were actually written *by V*, back before they were V. Either way it’s a really fucked up thing to do to Evey, but I think the fucked-up-ed-ness is meant to be the point (in my recollection anyway. Now I wanna read the comic again.) Also, thanks Jenny for saving me from ever having to watch Transcendence, it sounds awful!
some kind of gay cryptid
2024-07-28 17:45:02 +0000 UTCI think she was talking about the Twilight Zone episode To Serve Man, since that was in the Twilight Zone section, and the two twists got conflated a little. I could be wrong but that was how I read it.
Ellie
2024-07-13 19:30:38 +0000 UTCOh Jenny, Soylent Green had nothing to do with aliens. This was a future Earth with a massive food shortage. The Soylent Corporation made these little food cracker things of various colors for the masses. When a new color was promoted, Green, it was discovered by our hero that they were recycling dead people to be made into the Green variety.
Donald Derp
2024-07-05 18:31:22 +0000 UTCFirst time I experienced this was DeathNote
Krista Frauenfelder
2024-06-24 01:40:12 +0000 UTCSo true about the Mist. Sad endings and themes that serve to say nothing but life sucks sometimes are beyond pointless and condescending.
Pystoria
2024-06-22 02:11:27 +0000 UTCAnd it's done so well in The Others. I love that movie.
Meaghan Duncan
2024-06-17 14:40:04 +0000 UTCI’m sure it has been observed here but the twist in goosebumps here sounds identical to that of the film The Others and also a High Jackman film whose name escapes me.
Tom Burka
2024-06-17 05:29:12 +0000 UTCI’m a little surprised to see how many people are saying that the characters at the end of The Mist are being punished for making the “right” decision/making rational decisions. They committed mass suicide?? maybe the real moral of the story is to never give up hope. did you ever think of that (/joking) (mostly)
Ransack0894
2024-06-16 23:39:45 +0000 UTCI had read the novella The Mist in the early 90s and was psyched to see the movie. At the end of the novella the small band of still-rational survivors are driving through the mist and see a truly colossal mist monster, the ground shaking as it walks. The future is very uncertain as the story fades. The movie ending is shockingly different and I agree with Jenny that it’s a very poor twist. It doesn’t serve the storytelling at all — it seems in fact to undermine it. “If you keep your head in a disaster, you’ll make horrifying miscalculations.” Well, ok I guess. Sign me up for Team Crazy Lady? In my opinion the real reason it was done was to inject “powerful drama, gravitas” — it was a bit tawdry of Darabont to do that.
Khurasan Miniatures
2024-06-16 15:44:13 +0000 UTCI thought the twist to "The Mist" was that the evil woman who wanted to sacrifice his kid to make the mist go away was right. When he kills his kid, the mist goes away. This makes the twist less random, but doesn't change the miserableness of the twist.
Robert Whelan
2024-06-15 21:54:21 +0000 UTCYou just lost it.
Natalie Arnold
2024-06-15 02:33:06 +0000 UTCWhat about “The Game”???
Rachel
2024-06-13 18:41:50 +0000 UTCJenny! You gotta watch Lost.
nate
2024-06-13 18:06:01 +0000 UTCRoger Ebert used the term 'Idiot Plot', it's useful, it means 'a plot that would resolve itself in five minutes if the characters would stop behaving like idiots'. Writers have what might be an interesting premise but they can't figure out a way to make the obligatory Syd Field outline happen, so they just withhold information from the main characters, or the audience, that any idiot would have discovered fairly quickly, which allows them to drag it out with something that feels like suspense, and/or what seems like a big twist near the end. Then you think about it later and it's just annoying.
Kavi Montanaro
2024-06-09 15:08:33 +0000 UTCIt's really odd, I've seen Transcendence, but we were well into the plot synopsis before I remembered that I had. Then I was trying like hell to remember any of it before being reminded. Could not. I remembered the big facility with all the solar panels, but not why it was there. The whole film just went in one ear and out the other.
Kavi Montanaro
2024-06-09 15:02:48 +0000 UTC
