There’s a simple trick, involving phones, that’ll make sure you’re never fooled by a plot twist revealing the ‘villainous’ character again…
If you’re anything like me, you get a kick out of watching thrillers and crime dramas. And you get an extra surge of pleasure when you correctly guess who the villain is before it’s revealed.
For example, I knew that the old man from Squid Game was a bad guy from the first episode; I could just feel it in my bones. Obviously, I was extremely satisfied and smug when the final episode proved me right.
Likewise, when the final episode of Falcon and the Winter Solider revealed that Sharon Carter was the Power Broker, the villainous crime boss who was having super soldier serum developed, I was not surprised because, again, I suspected Sharon in an earlier episode.
While I can’t explain how I knew Oh Il-nam from Squid Game was bad – call it intuition – I can explain how I knew that Sharon was bad. I used the old iPhone trick.
For years, it’s been speculated that Apple doesn’t allow their products – i.e. an iPhone – to be used in films and television by a villainous character. Infamously, many fans of the television series, 24 were able to figure out that a Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU) analyst was actually a mole episodes before it was revealed because he was the only one in the CTU not using a Mac; he used a PC.
Then in 2020, Rian Johnson – the director of Knives Out – told Vanity Fair that this speculation is true. “Apple, they let you use iPhones in movies, but, and this is very pivotal, if you’re ever watching a mystery movie, bad guys cannot have iPhones on camera,” he said.
And if you watch Knives Out closely, you’ll see everyone in the Thrombey family uses an iPhone, except for Chris Evans’ character, who is ultimately revealed as the murderer. Similarly, that’s how I knew Sharon Carter was the Power Broker; an earlier episode of Falcon and the Winter Solider showed her using a phone that wasn’t an iPhone.
And if you think these are just coincidences, there are plenty of examples that prove it to be true. In the Apple TV+ miniseries, Defending Jacob, you’d think that every character would have an iPhone, as the show was produced by Apple. And while yes, most characters are shown using iPhones, one character, a convicted pedophile, is shown using an Android.
Of course, Apple has never confirmed (or denied) the rumours but take it from me, if you enjoy correctly guessing who the villain is in mystery films and thrilling crime shows long before the reveal, pay close attention to what type of phone each character uses. Because nine times out of ten if a character isn’t using an iPhone, they’re (to quote Billie Eilish) “the bad guy. Duh.”
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