Line #4 Fridge/Clue


1	These are Fridge tropes related to the ''TabletopGame/{{Clue}}'' franchise.
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3	!! [[TabletopGame/{{Clue}} The Game]]
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5	[[AC:FridgeLogic]]
6	* The premise involves finding both the murder weapon and the location of the murder, despite several weapons' natures being obvious (it's hard to confuse the cause of death between a stabbing and a hanging, for instance), and the dagger and revolver both causing sufficient mess as to make it difficult to hide where the murder occurred. Nominally explained away by the possibility that potential murderers may not have seen the body, and that the killer may have tidied up a bit. Also BellisariosMaxim.
7	** Its stated on the inside box summary that Mr. Boddy's body was found on the stairs.
8	* The murderer may win the game by showing how they killed Mr. Boddy.
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10	!! [[Film/{{Clue}} The movie]]
11	[[AC: FridgeBrilliance]]
12	* The third ending is supported as the actual ending if it is assumed that Wadsworth/Boddy threw away the key to the door to the lounge where the Motorist was locked in--it is revealed that Colonel Mustard "took the key to the cupboard...and substituted another" while they were huddled at the front door, which neatly explains why they couldn't unlock the lounge door. However, if Miss Scarlet or Mrs. Peacock did the same thing in the other endings, then the same explanation applies there.
13	* On a related note, in the first two endings, Colonel Mustard in a usual moment of ditzy doofiness ends up falling against the wall in the Conservatory and accidentally revealing the secret passage. But in the third ending, where he actually had used it previously (and left the flashlight right there for them to find and use), the whole thing was an audacious act allowing him to "discover" the Motorist with Miss Scarlet and thus throw suspicion off himself. And in the case of the first ending, Miss Scarlet let him do this for the same reason, to throw suspicion off herself. The fact his excuse when leaving Miss Scarlet alone in the Ballroom was so lame, though, suggests he really did kill the Motorist, supporting the third ending as the actual ending.
14	* Mr. Green's lack of interest in Yvette works no matter which ending you watch. In the first two endings, he's gay. In the third, he's happily married and on the clock.
15	* Mr. Green doesn't drink any alcohol like the other guests. This makes the most sense in the ending where he's an undercover FBI agent, so he can't drink on the job.
16	* "Shake, Rattle, and Roll" features prominently in the end credits. "Shake, rattle, and roll..." as in ''dice.''
17	* The original board game actually makes little sense when you think about it; sure they can't tell ''who'' killed Boddy, but why would they have trouble telling ''where'' (the room he was found in would be a good start) or ''with what'' (bullet wounds and strangulation don't look very similar)? The movie actually addresses this by making him not really dead the first time; because his corpse disappears only to show up again with new injuries in a new location, it actually makes sense that the characters aren't sure how and where he died.
18	* After the bloodbath, we discover that all the visitors were either blackmail victims or Boddy's accomplices. The deaths of the latter supposedly clears the killer of the chance of prosecution, as the only witnesses are still subject to blackmail. Except we never hear how Mr. Boddy found out about Mr. Green. Makes sense in light of the third ending. In that one, Green is an undercover FBI plant, investigating Mr. Boddy. Since the best way to prove that he's blackmailing people would be to get blackmailed himself, Green could simply make up a likely story and intentionally get someone to leak it. Mr. Green gave a strong hint he's not supposed to be there. Remember, Mr. Green exposed ''himself''[[note]]''Please.'' We have ''ladies'' present![[/note]], with a confused looking Wadsworth briefly checking the evidence. He didn't know Mr. Green's blackmail!
19	** Even assuming that he did know Mr. Green's blackmail and was just surprised that Green would out himself, it's still the perfect blackmail cover for a time period when there was rampant homophobia in the government (with the bonus of being extremely easy to fake as well). Compare it to everyone else's secrets which are either highly immoral at best or a threat to national security at worst and Green's is downright innocuous. He even lampshades that he feels no personal shame in it and the only reason it's even blackmail worthy is because people in power have hangups about it.
20	* It's pretty likely, considering Wadsworth/Mr. Boddy doesn't seem surprised by his appearance, that the informant was intended to be the Evangelist. In the first two endings Wadsworth, as an FBI agent, would have known the Evangelist worked for the FBI; not only could he have told Wadsworth directly about Green's secret, being his boss, but Wadsworth could have assumed someone who worked for one government agency could have learned the blackmailable secret of someone working for another government agency. Or the Evangelist could have been planned to take the place of the real informant in order to keep from rousing Boddy's suspicions; he could even have been how the FBI learned about what Boddy was up to to begin with, thus leading to Wadsworth being placed in Boddy's employ. As for the third ending, when Wadsworth/Boddy was making sure all the informants would show up, he would have contacted whoever had supposedly informed on Green to him; when Green's "secret" was revealed to him, this person would also have let Boddy know how to contact them, and once he did so, the response could have stated the informant would appear dressed as an Evangelist as an excuse for a State Department official to be at the mansion.
21	* There are six murder weapons and six murders, one for each weapon. Just like in the game, you can work out how Mr. Boddy was killed through elimination.
22	* Pay attention to the cook during the pre-Boddy scenes, especially during dinner. She manages to walk out of sight just as the guests, including Mrs. Peacock, her old boss and the person she was informing on, entered the area. And during dinner, Wadsworth happens to step in the way of Mrs. Peacock looking into the now-open shutter to the kitchen and seeing the cook. Not one scene before the cook's murder has her being seen by Mrs. Peacock. This makes certain later scenes ("monkey's brains" and her parts in the murder(s)) even more clever. It means that she recognized the cook was the same one that worked for her from the meal alone. In fact, it makes sense that Wadsworth!Boddy would want to keep Peacock from recognizing the cook at that point in the night. Remember, at the start, Peacock is nervous and talkative because she dislikes the quiet. She might have accidentally blabbed about knowing the cook, cluing some of the others to their true purpose for being there. The movie made a point of such a thing happening when Ms White arrived and Wadsworth noted she and Yvette seemed to know each other. Wadsworth!Boddy knew that, while certain guests (White, Scarlet, Mustard) could keep quiet about Yvette and their connections to her, Peacock was more talkative and would not have thought anything of saying it.
23	* An interesting note about the cook's behavior: [[MeaningfulBackgroundEvent watch the background]] in the moments after Mr. Green is startled by the gong. While he's apologizing and cleaning up Mrs. Peacock, you can see the cook ''booking'' to get back to the kitchen before any of the guests can see her--another sign she's trying to avoid being seen by Peacock.
24	* Wadsworth's absurdly lengthy version of TheSummation makes sense when you consider the reveals in the various endings. In the first two endings, he's stalling for time until his FBI buddies can reach and surround the house. In the third, he's JustToyingWithThem.
25	* "Communism was just a red herring." 100% true and 100% false at the same time. Communism had absolutely nothing to do with any of the blackmailers, the blackmailed, the murderers or the murdered - except that it was the justification for everything. Security, bribes, blackmail, secrets, they were all because of Communists who ''weren't anywhere near the place.'' It was just a red herring - a red herring everyone was willing to lie, cheat, steal, kill and pay for. Ouch.
26	* Watch Mr. Green during the "Kingdom of heaven is at hand" preacher scene. He wears a very serious, acknowledging expression as he walks backwards from the door, as if to say "code phrase acknowledged." He also makes a dismissive gesture during that scene. It ''looks'' like a display of frustration, but it's also a signal: "No, don't come in yet: these people are blabbing everything just fine without you."
27	* In the third ending, practically every suspect uses the weapon given to them by Mr. Boddy. Professor Plum, who received the gun, ''tried'' to shoot the false "Boddy" when the lights were out, although he missed. Mrs. Peacock stabs the Cook with the dagger she's received. Colonel Mustard, who'd received the wrench, clubs the Motorist to death with it. Mrs. White strangles Yvette with the noose. The only mismatches are Miss Scarlet, who uses the lead pipe on the Cop rather than the candlestick, and Mr. Green, who kills Wadsworth in self-defense with a weapon that wasn't one of "Boddy"'s gifts, and who murders no one.
28	* The tile floor of the Hall is laid out in a large, square grid pattern, making it look just like the game board.
29	* All of the guests/blackmail victims have moments where they either lose their cool or come close to it, but Mr. Green is the only one who almost endangers all of them by trying to let the cop know that something weird is happening. It works in the context of all three endings. In the first two he is exactly as he appears, and he is out of his depth, and he knows it. At that point he just wanted the night be over. While he's a capable FBI agent in the third ending, the sting has gone sideways. Bodies are piling up and he's alone with at least one murderer, so he'd go for any backup he could get. It's also likely by this point he's guessed the "surprise" guests are accomplices and at risk, the cop included.
30	* Most movies use some variant of ExactTimeToFailure, but few manage what ''Clue'' does: Wadsworth says that they have 60 minutes until the police show up to discover what happened to Mr. Boddy... and 60 movie-minutes later the suspect and murder weapon are known and the FBI reveals themselves at the door for the ending.
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32	[[AC:FridgeLogic]]
33	* Mr. Boddy's circle of spies features prominently as secondary victims and antagonists, but in none of the endings is it explained how Mr. Boddy knows of Mr. Green's sexuality, with no spy ever tied to him. While it's possible that Boddy's butler or the Evangelist qualify, these only work in the third ending. Neither of the other endings offers any explanation.
34	** Given Wadsworth's surprised reaction and shuffling through the files, it's possible he had a ''different'' issue they blackmailed him over, but Mr. Green outing himself took him and Mr. Boddy off guard. Still leaves the issue of who was the informant for him in Ending A and B.
35	* After Colonel Mustard leaves Miss Scarlet by herself in the ballroom, she is visibly ill at ease as she approaches the curtain because she believes that the murderer is hiding behind it. This behavior makes sense in the second and third endings (Miss Scarlet is innocent in the former, and in the latter, the cop hasn't arrived yet, so Miss Scarlet hasn't killed anyone at that point), but makes no sense in the first ending, where Miss Scarlet is the mastermind behind the murder spree, and the only other murderer in the house is Yvette, who Miss Scarlet seems to comfortably have under her thumb.
36	** Acting in case Mustard or someone else came in her and saw her? Or perhaps, despite being the murderer and having Yvette working for her, she was still afraid one of the ''other'' guests might also be willing to kill to protect their blackmail secret. Or she could have thought that Yvette wasn’t as comfortably under Miss Scarlet’s thumb as she acted and was really waiting for a chance to kill Miss Scarlet herself, and was just making sure that Yvette hadn’t gotten away from Mr. Green and wasn’t hiding behind the curtain waiting to attack Miss Scarlet.
37	* A major plot hole goes unexplained in the third scenario. In the first two, Mr. Boddy's status as a possible villain is played for all it's worth, and eventually sustained even if the true BigBad is someone else. In the third scenario, the Mr. Boddy we've known is a fake... but nothing is done to explain his smugness or antagonism. Similarly, he's never truly redeemed, nor are there hints he's as much a victim as before. You'd think he'd have made a veiled comment about Wadsworth's own framing or that nothing is as it seems, but no; he lets Wadsworth do his spiel, introduces the weapons, makes a few thinly-veiled threats, then sets off a potential GambitRoulette that fails within minutes, without ever contradicting a word Wadsworth has said about him. Even in the third ending where he's not the true blackmailer, he comes off as an AssholeVictim at ''best''.
38	* In the second ending, Mrs. Peacock did it all. You can easily notice things like how she is absent in scenes where the murders were committed, and because she was in the cellar, had access to the mansion's power. But one death doesn't make sense - The Motorist. The motorist's death makes sense in the first and the third ending in which he is killed by Ms. Scarlet and Colonel Mustard, who were on the ground floor. While Mrs. Peacock was in the basement at the time, how'd she get away from Plum without getting spotted? And how did she learn of the secret passages?
39	** There would seem to be only two explanations: either the cook knew of them and told her (but that would require a) the cook to somehow still trust her enough to do so and b) time for her to ask and be told, while Yvette was screaming, before Mrs. Peacock killed her), or Yvette did. Since Yvette stayed behind in the study when they went to see the cook, and Mrs. Peacock stayed behind to check on Mr. Boddy's status, this did provide a great (and really, the only) opportunity, though why she would have done so is a different question altogether. (Perhaps because, after seeing Mrs. Peacock kill him, she was frightened into doing so?) In this second case, this would also mean Mrs. Peacock had no way of knowing of the passages when she killed the cook, so she must have simply run back down the hall to the study while the others were busy calming/interrogating Yvette. It also puts a different spin on Mrs. Peacock's request of Yvette about the bathroom, directing suspicion off of herself. (This is also true for Yvette herself, in the first ending.)
40	* In the third ending, where Mr. Green is a plant, no one asks why he's still there. Wadsworth is suspicious of him when he outs himself, and whoever destroyed the information could have checked Green's status as the outlier. Instead, they all blindly accept his claim and his is the only one in any ending that goes nowhere.
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43	[[AC: FridgeHorror]]
44	* Col Mustard probably wasn't making it up when he said "I can't take any more scares!" RuleOfFunny? No, he possibly has PTSD, being a WWII veteran.
45	* Mr. Boddy pretended to be dead so he can escape. If he did so, then he would have exposed them out of spite. He would have also added attempted murder into their charges.
46	* Most of the people we see get murdered are {{Asshole Victim}}s, but the singing telegram girl was connected to the suspects simply by having had an affair with Plum when he was her doctor. So this poor young woman was not only seduced by her doctor but then murdered for it.

Context Fridge / Clue