To understand the ending of Knives Out, it's important to first understand each character in the film's sprawling cast, and how they're all connected to one another. At the top of the family tree is Harlan's wizened mother, Greatana Wanetta (K Callan), who doesn't say much, but sees a lot. Then there's Harlan, and his two surviving children, Linda (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Walt (Michael Shannon). Walt ostensibly runs Harlan's publishing house (although in reality Harlan is still the one pulling the strings), while Linda is a "self-made" businesswoman who built her business from the ground up (with a handy million-dollar start-up loan from her father, of course). Then there's Joni (Toni Collette), an Instagram influencer whose husband, Harlan's son, died 15 years earlier, and has been living off of Harlan's generosity ever since.
Linda is married to Richard (Don Johnson), and they have an adult son, Hugh (Chris Evans), although the family calls him by his middle name, Ransom. Walt is married to Donna (Riki Lindhome), and they have a teenage son, Jacob (Jaeden Martell). And Joni has a college-aged daughter, Meg (Katherine Langford), from her marriage to Harlan's son.
Also in the Thrombey family's orbit are Harlan's housekeeper, Fran (Edi Patterson), and his personal nurse, Marta Cabera (Ana de Armas), who throughout her years of employment, also became his close friend and confidante. Although the Thrombeys often say they consider Marta "part of the family" (a claim that's constantly undermined by their inability to remember what country she's from), the only one she's really close to, other than Harlan, is Meg.
