However, there are many cryptic symbols and hidden messages that are easy to miss throughout all of Peele’s works, includingKey& Peelesketches and his most recent projectTheTwilight Zone. Warning: this article contains major spoilers.
Us - “Craw Daddy” Boat
The name of the Wilson’s new boat is a reference to crawdads (turned into a loveable dad-pun), which are also known as crayfish. There’s a species of crayfish that researchers found canclone itself indefinitely due to a mutation.
This is very subtle foreshadowing, hinting at the nature of the “tethered” being clones. Given Peele’s affinity not only for horror and comedy, but for science fiction, it’s likely this is an intentional, nerdy wink.
Key & Peele - Playing a Thug
One of Peele’s favorite subjects to examine is that of identity, which becomes the source of humor in the skit, “Playing a Thug.” Two actors are on a film set, playing a pair of hardened, gun wielding men, acting out a vaguely stereotypical scene about “street life” that Hollywood seems fond of. The white director talks to his actor, praising the upper-crust British man for seeming like a real, hardened criminal, while berating the other actor for not being able to sell “being born and raised on the streets of Brooklyn,” (which, the actor replies, he actually was).
This could be a sly wink towardsThe Wire, which both cast British actor Idris Elba to play a criminal, as well as American actors who grew up in the same circumstances they were portraying. Peele has himself used British actors to portray Americans (Daniel Kaluuya as the protagonist inGet Out) so it’s unlikely he’s saying British actors can’t understand or portray American society. However, he’s definitely playing with the idea of “realness,” and how Hollywood sells authenticity.
The Twilight Zone - The Missing Apostrophe
In“The Comedian,” Kumail Nanjiani’scharacter, Samir, is in fact a comedian. Rather than his audience giving itself up to him, he gives himself up to the audience, allowing them to, in effect, devour his existence. The comedy club is called “Eddies,” and it’s joked that apostrophes are not allowed.
It’s a simple, forgettable detail, but in the context of the plot, it seems to be a metaphor for self-ownership: Eddies has no apostrophe, because he can’t own his own namesake, his own club. In the entertainment industry, you never fully own yourself, instead, your identity partially belongs to your audience (and if you’re not carefully, it can become theirs entirely).
Us - The “Vision Quest” Attraction
The “Native American Vision Quest” attraction is a retro walk-through ride at the boardwalk where Red & Adelaide(Lupita Nyong’o)meet. The mirrors are obvious symbolism for the reflective worlds of the tethered and surface-dwellers, but there’s a more subtle metaphor for the more observant movie-goer. In the “present day” time, when Adelaide is an adult, the ride’s name has changed to the “Merlin’s Vision Quest.”
This represents our attempts to whitewash/erase from memory our historical appropriation/destruction of Native American culture. The “vision quest” may now be more politically correct on the surface, but when you venture inside the ride, it is identical to the old, less culturally sensitive version.
The Twilight Zone - Tracy Morgan Vapes
Also starring in “The Comedian,”Tracy Morgan’scharacter is ominous… and in trueTwilight Zonefashion, there are some cues that direct us to infer he is the devil incarnate. One tip is that anyone who istoocharming in theTwilight Zonedimension is bound to be satan. Tracy Morgan, whose middle name is charm (it’s actually Jamel but who’s counting) plays J.C Wheeler, whose name should already set up a bunch of alarm bells. Is he J.C, Jesus Christ, or a wheeler-and-a-dealer, a demon in the guise of someone holy?
Morgan’s character becomes increasingly sinister as the plot progresses. He vapes backstage as he gives Samir advice. First of all, we love a good vape on camera, but it’s also a symbol of J.C Wheeler’s devilry: he emerges from the smoke, like a still crispy-Lucifer. This is also a nod to the originalTwilight Zoneepisode“Escape Clause,”in which a devil convinces a man to sign his soul over to him. He puffs smoke from a fat cigar, rather than vaping, but what can you expect from 1959?
Us - Police/Handcuffs
The theme of using handcuffs and the police to try and gain the upper hand runs throughout the film. In a flashback, we find out that the protagonist, Adelaide, is a clone who, as a child, strangled her surface-version and dragged her underground. She uses handcuffs to “tether” the original Adelaide to this underground, impoverished world, while she is able to scramble up to the middle class.
When “Red” emerges and seeks vengeance, the first thing Adelaide attempts to do is call the police (to no avail). Red then uses handcuffs to immobilize Adelaide, just as what had been done to her as a child. Finally, Adelaide deals the killing blow to Red, strangling her to death with her own handcuffs. This back-and-forth use of handcuffs is symbolic of the cycle of incarceration being used as a weapon, where those higher on the economic ladder use it to suppress others. But, as the film points out, this method of class warfare is ultimately at everyone’s expense.
Key & Peele - Magical Negro Fight
This scene inKey & Peeleridicules the old cliché of the “magical negro,” the trope that a mystical, old black man can help the white protagonist with his problems. One of the most notable references within the skit: the animated bluebird that shows up on one of the mens’ shoulders is an allusion Disney’sSong of the South,a movie infamous for its clumsy, racist treatment of its black actors.
It features an old, singing black man surrounded by animated birds, whose sole purpose seems to be to help the white protagonists. TheKey & Peelesketch mock this notion ruthlessly, with a fight over who gets to help the white protagonist.
Us - Character Weapons
Nothing inUsis done without intention. The weapons the Wilsons use to fight their clones are highly significant symbols of wealth: Gabe (Winston Duke) uses his boat motor on his double, Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph) uses a golf club, and Jason (Evan Alex)uses a decorative geode. Peele has his characters literally beat people over the head with these symbols, a visceral representation of how wealth can be violently leveraged against the poor.
The notable exception is Adelaide, who uses a humble fire poker to attack her clone - she’s the exception, as she actually came from the “underground” (i.e., poverty). A fire poker is used to stoke a fire, which she (unwittingly) and her counterpart (wittingly) did, through sparking a clone-revolution.
Us - The Glass Floor
During the initial conflict of the tethered family breaking into the Wilson’s home, Red pushes Adelaide’s head into a glass table, cracking the surface. This is significant in a few ways: it’s Adelaide’s carefully groomed identity (reflection) cracking, as we find out by the end of the film, her life is a sham: she isn’t the “real” Adelaide.
This seems to be a commentary on how those who come from poverty always will feel the threat of impostor syndrome, or that their old life will catch up to them. It’s also a playful twist on the “glass ceiling.” Adelaide/Red is breaking the “glass floor,” forcing the middle-class to come face to face with the under-class.
The Twilight Zone - The Photograph
Peele is a man who loves his film references. After Samir meets his tragic end in “The Comedian,” he disappears from the earth - but not entirely. He shows up on large, photographic mural, depicting a multitude of people in black-and-white. Not only does this hint that he shares his fate with many other ambitious performers, but it’s a wink at the ending ofThe Shining.
Jack Torrance turned into a Jack-cicle in the end, but he magically appears in a vintage black-and-white photo of the old wealthy visitors who once inhabited the cursed hotel. Both Samir and Jack Torrance allowed their identities to become gobbled up: Samir, by the unforgiving culture of the entertainment industry, and Jack to the toxicity of colonialist, privileged white men. Or maybe ghosts, it could have been ghosts.
