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"Out of all the men to cheat, you picked John Kramer?"
— Mark Hoffman, Saw X
These numerous idiotic moments make Jigsaw look like a merely average guy who's dealing with stupidly incompetent people.
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In general:
In General
- Jigsaw's traps, while technical marvels, tend to have very obvious design flaws, such as exposed wires and gears, that are necessary for the trap to function as intended and are plainly visible for anyone to notice.
You'd Expect: For the victims to attempt to rip out any and all wires they can find (as machines need power to operate) or try jamming the gears with whatever bits of debris are left lying around (or even their clothes if nothing is available). In doing so, there is a good chance that the trap will be outright broken, or at the very least buy the victims much-needed time in order to figure out a solution to the trap.
Instead: The victims all play the game exactly as it is intended. To be fair, though, plenty of them are pressured under a timer of up to one minute, so there's not much they can think about.
The Result: They almost always fail due to insane time restraints or near-impossible win conditions, and thus die horrible, painful deaths for their trouble.
By movie:
Saw
Saw:
- Lawrence, a doctor, wakes up chained in a bathroom at a mysterious derelict building. Working with his fellow captive, Adam, he learns that if Adam doesn't escape or Lawrence doesn't kill Adam in the next few hours, they'll be locked away forever and Lawrence's family will be killed. Lawrence isn't willing to kill Adam right away, and hesitates to cut his foot off with a rusty hacksaw when he realizes what Jigsaw intended them to do in order to escape their restraints.
You'd Expect: Lawrence would use his medical knowledge to recommend they somehow break their chained ankles (maybe using the toilet tank lid, much like how Eric would do when he's stuck in the same situation two movies later).
Or: Since the saws they have aren't tough enough to cut through their chains, they'd try using them to cut the rusty pipe they're chained to.note
Instead: They simply talk and solve other puzzles in the room until the time is almost up.
The Result: Lawrence ends up finding himself pressured to escape as soon as possible with the little time he still has at the end, especially when he believes his wife and daughter are being shot. - Tapp and Sing, the lead detectives in the Jigsaw case, find a pen from Lawrence's hospital office at one of Jigsaw's crime scenes.
You'd Expect: That being experienced and supposedly smart, Tapp would take this extremely obvious clue with a grain of salt. After all, Jigsaw has so far set up elaborate death traps without leaving a shred of evidence and is unlikely to make such a massive mistake as leaving a pen with someone's name and address on it, meaning the clue was likely planted. Not to mention, Lawrence wouldn't make much sense as a suspect in his own right.Explanation They'll have to investigate Lawrence again, but they should also look after other people with easy access to the hospital's custom-made pens, such as Lawrence's patients or co-workers.
Instead: Tapp concludes Lawrence is the suspect he's looking for to uncover Jigsaw, and begins to actively stalk and harass the innocent man (at least at the time) without caring for police protocol, leading him to a progressive downward spiral as he becomes more and more obsessed with catching Lawrence. - Tapp watches a video tape from one of Jigsaw's games over and over for days if not weeks, which pays off when he spots the name of a mannequin factory in the background of the video. Sing suggests they get a warrant to search said factory.
You'd Expect: Tapp would take Sing's advice, or that Sing would insist; they've had this video for a while now, and even at night, it'll take at most a few hours to get a warrant and assemble a SWAT team to go after a promising lead in a serial killer case. After all, Jigsaw is a dangerous and mechanically inclined person who's likely to carry weapons and fill his lairs with booby traps. No matter how badass Tapp may think he is, he has to look out for the younger Sing and make sure Jigsaw doesn't slip through their fingers.
Instead: Tapp assures Sing the two of them can handle the raid, and Sing acquiesces, which not only drastically increases the chances they'll be injured or killed or that Jigsaw will escape, but would actually render all evidence they found in the search inadmissible in court, meaning Jigsaw might have walked even if they did catch him.
The Result: Though they do find Jigsaw at the lair, with only two of them, Jigsaw is able to outsmart them and escape. In the process, Sing dies from a booby trap, and Tapp is injured and subsequently discharged from the Metropolitan Police Department. - At the mannequin factory, Tapp and Sing find a man (Jeff) tied to a strange chair and gagged. However, they then hear the elevator. Tapp, wanting to see where this goes (and perhaps suspecting the man in the chair is Jigsaw trying to trick them), tells Sing to hide and see who comes out of the elevator. A masked man comes from the elevator and walks towards Jeff, commenting on the anesthetic he used on the latter.
You'd Expect: Tapp would immediately jump out and shout "freeze" at the masked man once he was just a bit past them, since the man's words effectively confirm he is Jigsaw and Jeff is a victim. Also, if Jigsaw gets to the part of the factory set up as his workshop, he could take Jeff hostage, or potentially grab a weapon or trigger a mechanism from the various hidden places in the factory.
Instead: Tapp jumps out once the Jigsaw is just barely out of arms' reach of Jeff and in the center of his workshop.
The Result: Jigsaw presses a button on the floor that activates two drills that will kill Jeff, trying to start a game with the detectives and demanding he be let go or else he won't stop the "game". While Sing responds with the smart decision of destroying the drills with his gun, the distraction allows Jigsaw to slash Tapp's throat with a hidden blade inside his robe and make a break for it. - Lawrence needs to answer a cellphone to save his family and himself and foil Jigsaw's plot. Unfortunately, courtesy of Jigsaw, the cell phone in question is lying about 40 centimeters out of his reach while he's chained. He has one of the hacksaws and he's wearing a long-sleeved shirt.
You'd Expect: That he takes off his shirt and swings it over the phone (just like how he told Adam earlier in the film to get his tape).
Or: That he uses the hacksaw to hook on the phone.
Or: That Adam uses some object to knock the phone closer to Lawrence.
Or: That (as aforementioned) he would take the toilet lid and smash his chained foot.
Instead: Having failed to reach the phone with some stupid box, Lawrence does takes off his shirt... and then ties it around his chained leg and proceeds to saw the foot off. *Facepalm* Yes, he was screwed up and in panic, but it was still idiotic.
Bonus Idiot Points: Adam wasn't panicking until Lawrence began to saw through his chained foot, yet still didn't suggest him any of the obvious solutions. - After being tied up and held at gunpoint alongside her daughter by Zep, Lawrence's wife Alison manages to take the gun from Zep and hold him at gunpoint. Zep tries to make a move for her, but she catches him and tells him to stay still while she and her daughter try to get help.
You'd Expect: As someone with no firearms training, but smart enough to get the upper hand on Zep, Alison would learn from her mistake of holding Zep at gunpoint while he's in arm's reach of her, and tell him to back up until he's against the wall, maybe on the ground or facing away from them. With a little room to breathe, she and her daughter could more easily use the phone to call Lawrence or the police.
Instead: Alison remains in the same position with Zep while she tries to make a phone call.
The Result: Zep tries again to disarm Allison, this time succeeding. Though Alison and Diana still survive, Zep escapes, meaning Alison has no idea where Lawrence is to tell the authorities.
Saw II
Saw II:
- The Metropolitan Police Department, which now has Eric leading the Jigsaw case, finds an emblem on Jigsaw's latest death device that points them to a metal factory, the Wilson Steel Plant. A squad consisting of Eric, Kerry and a SWAT team arrive, and after making it through a stairwell with booby traps, they find John Kramer sitting in the factory. John soon reveals he has a bank of monitors in the building getting live feed that shows a group of people including Eric's son, Daniel, in an unknown house set up as a death trap that will kill them in two hours.
You'd Expect: Eric or Kerry would realize how convenient it is that they found such an obvious clue after years of dead ends, the Nerve Gas House game began just as they arrived, and that their confrontation with John was intended by him, all at the same time. Thus, they can't trust what he says or shows them, but can expect him to try to escape or hurt them somehow. Even if they don't consider the possibility that the supposedly live footage from the Nerve Gas House might actually be recorded, they should resist doing what John says as best as they can.
Instead: They seemingly go ahead with what Jigsaw tells them under the assumption that they've caught him snapping at his pants down, and allow him to talk to Eric (the officer he has the most leverage over) alone in the hopes John will reveal the address of the house's address. They rather focus on tracking the footage's signal origin, which would take hours and accomplish nothing if the signal is being relayed.
The Result: The game goes off without a hitch for John, who escapes the police squad while effectively dooming Eric. - Entering the factory, three SWAT officers enter a caged-off stairwell. Halfway up the stairs, Billy the Puppet rolls into view on a tricycle, and begins laughing at them.
You'd Expect: Given they know from Sing's death in the first movie that Jigsaw's lairs tend to be booby trapped, the officers would realize that they might have triggered a deadly trap (something would have to trigger the puppet, and its laughing is probably to taunt them) and would thus try to exit the stairwell to get away from potential danger.
Instead: The officers continue venturing further into the stairwell.
The Result: The stairwell's booby traps are triggered perfectly; the first officer (Pete Baker) is seriously injured by a blade under the stairs, and the next two are electrocuted when the stairwell's cage closes and electrifies.note - It's the end of the game; from the police's perspective, the two-hour limit the victims in the Nerve Gas House have is almost up, and they still don't know where the house is. The last thing Eric saw of the footage from the house, his son and a young woman named Amanda are being pursued by Xavier, who wants to kill them to read the numbers on their napes and save himself. John offers to take Eric to the real Nerve Gas House, but only if Eric takes them out of there alone.
You'd Expect: Eric would either refuse, or go ahead with the offer trying to tell the other police to find some way to track him as he leaves. Even when he's terrified for his son's life and is regretting many of his past actions at that moment, Eric would have to realize that he shouldn't do what John says; John is most likely lying and to gain a chance to get away; a process that will likely risk Eric's life. Even if John does take him to Daniel's whereabouts, Daniel might already be dead, or John could just bring them together to kill them both or take them captive.note John may be a dying cancer patient, but could still wield a gun or lure Eric into a trap, and Eric knows from hearing about Obi on the house's camera footage that Jigsaw might have other accomplices.
Instead: In desperation, Eric abandons the rest of the police at the factory and does what Jigsaw says without hesitation, driving to the given address. He at least has the sense to handcuff John while he goes inside, but...
The Result: Eric gets ambushed by an accomplice (Amanda) and locked in a bathroom to die. John gets away, and Kerry finds Daniel to be alive and alright, meaning Eric's actions had no real bearing whatsoever.
Saw III
Saw III:
- In general, Jeff's conduct during his trial.
You'd Expect: Him to quickly decide whether he should save each victim he comes across or not. Although the whole point of his trial is for him to save all of them, the final test is actually the only one that would matter for his own survival, due to how the trial is structured, so he only has to do an obligatory decision by that point.
Instead: He takes too long with snapping at and arguing with the victims and generally wasting time, so that when he does decide to save them, he's far too late. The fact that he saves anyone is astounding, and they die in an accident within the next trap anyways.note - Jigsaw, of all people, gets one for how his favorite trap, the Rack, is made.
You'd Expect: Him to use a simple gun like a pistol or rifle in the part where Jeff has to take a gunshot in order to get the key that disables the trap.
Instead: He has Jeff take a buckshot from a shotgun. Not only is buckshot much more lethal than a simple bullet (especially at point blank range), but it does kill Halden when he gets in the way. If Jeff had taken the buckshot, he probably wouldn't have made it out of the room, let alone to his final test.note - After making it through the gauntlet of traps, Jeff comes to the sickroom John, Amanda and his wife, Lynn, are at. Lynn is seriously injured after Amanda shot her (which Jeff saw just in time to shoot Amanda in retaliation), so he checks on her, and in keeping in with her position the process, sees that she's wearing a strange, mechanical collar.
You'd Expect: Having just seen so many of Jigsaw's traps and creations, Jeff would ask Lynn what the collar is, and adjust his response accordingly.
Or: Lynn, even in her injured state, would volunteer the fact that the collar will shoot shotgun shells and kill her if John's heart monitor stops, or if a certain trigger is pushed (a fate she's been trying very hard to avoid all night).
Or: Once Jeff decides to kill John, that he would at least look back at Lynn to get her approval to see if she knows something he doesn't.
Instead: Jeff completely ignores the collar or the possibility that John may have another trick up his sleeve, and decides to kill John with a nearby circular saw; the noise of which drowns out Lynn's protests against his decision.
The Result: In killing John, Jeff accidentally activates the Shotgun Collar, resulting in Lynn's death and him being left in a mess.
Saw IV
Saw IV:
- Rigg, a SWAT officer whom Jigsaw denounces as having Chronic Hero Syndrome, finds himself the subject of Jigsaw's latest game. A timer is counting down on a where room Eric and Hoffman are trapped in, and Rigg has to go through his game to find where they are. In his first test at his apartment, Rigg saves a woman from a death trap, only to find she was instructed to kill him in the case he saved her, forcing him to kill her himself in self-defense.
You'd Expect: That having gone through the events of Saw II and knowing Jigsaw's penchant for irony and deception, Rigg would realize that he and likely the following victims would be put in danger if he continues trying to save them. Thus, he would take the time to find a way to escape from the game on his own and/or contact the rest of the police department and the FBI, so all their available resources will be put towards figuring out the game and rescuing Rigg and the others.
Or: Since the 90-minute time limit gives him enough time to jack cars and drive around town, he'd risk spending a few minutes to just contact the department and FBI, even if he intends on continuing playing the game.
Instead: He just follows the trial while keeping his Chronic Hero Syndrome behavior.
The Result: His idiocy eventually leads to the deaths of Art and Eric, as well as himself. - Speaking of the aforementioned woman, Brenda, she's in a trap where her hair (tied into a braid) has been fed into a machine that will slowly rotate and pull her hair backwards, eventually tearing her scalp off with it. For this test, Rigg needs to find a solution to get Brenda out of the trap. There are no knives or scissors in the apartment, so cutting her hair to get her out isn't an option.
You'd Expect: Since Rigg still has his service pistol, for him to put the barrel at her braid and fire, with the bullet and resulting hot gases hopefully being enough to completely sever Brenda's hair from the mechanism pulling her scalp.
Instead: Riggs puts a few rounds into the trap itself, which does nothing to stop it. He then panics until Brenda has to tell him the solution (the combination to turn off the trap is located in the gears).
The Result: While Brenda does survive the trap, it's only barely, as most of her scalp has been ripped off, so she'd likely have had to undergo months of reconstructive surgery had she not died trying to kill Rigg. - At the school, Strahm and Perez find a room wherein a Billy sits on a chair with candles surrounding it. The Billy has a tape warning Perez that "her next move will be very important" and she shouldn't attempt to make contact with it. Perez moves a bit towards the puppet and hears some faint mechanical sounds.
You'd Expect: That being FBI agents who should already know about the nature of Jigsaw's booby traps, Perez or Strahm would realize that the Billy might be a booby trap, and either step away from it (for Perez's case) or pull his partner away from the puppet (in the case of Strahm).
Instead: Perez continues to get closer to the Billy while Strahm stands in his place doing nothing.
The Result: As it turns out, the Billy had a shrapnel explosive inside it that causes Perez to suffer facial injuries and pass out upon detonating. Not a good first impression from what is supposed to be a pair of experienced FBI agents. - At the end of his trial, Rigg has got to the building Eric and Hoffman are held in, but with only seconds to spare. Inside their room, Eric is locked in a trap that will kill him, Hoffman and Art (the man being forced to run the game and look after the other two) if someone opens the door before the timer runs out.
You'd Expect: Eric or Art would shout something that lays out their predicament; that they die if the door is opened, in no uncertain terms (e.g. "Don't come in or we die!", "The door's booby trapped to kill us! Stop and wait for the timer!", etc.).
Instead: Eric simply shouts "Don't come in!" And Art says nothing.
You'd Then Expect: That even in a frenzy to save his colleagues with seconds to spare, Rigg would recognize Eric's voice, realize that Eric wouldn't say that without a good first impression from whatever reason, and hesitate in opening the door to ask for clarifications. Part of the door and wall between them is also conveniently comprised of windows, which Rigg could break open to get or look inside with less chance of setting off the trap.
Instead: Rigg ignores Eric's words and barges into the room.
The Result: The mechanism rigged to the door activates, killing Eric and Art. Hoffman survives, but only because he turns out to be a Jigsaw accomplice playing as a victim, and so leaves Rigg to die from the shot Eric gave him in an attempt to prevent him from entering. - Back in Saw III, Jeff was told by a tape that his daughter Corbett is trapped in a room and in danger of asphyxiation. Here, Strahm overhears this from outside the sickroom, and subsequently comes in.
You'd Expect: Since Strahm isn't wearing a full uniform or a plainly visible badge at that moment, he'd identify himself as an FBI agent to Jeff and maybe enter the room with his gun lowered, since someone listening to a Jigsaw tape suggests they are alone and a victim.
Instead: Strahm runs into the room shouting "freeze" with his gun raised.
The Result: A panicked Jeff mistakes Strahm for someone in league with Jigsaw, and so aggresively raises Amanda's leftover pistol to Strahm, shouting "where's my daughter?!"
Then You'd Expect: Strahm would defy police procedure this time and lower his gun to explain things, since he's now clearly seen that they're alone, Jeff is a victim, and the latter's words means he wants information from Strahm and won't shoot him at once.
You'd Also Expect: Jeff to drop his gun and show he's in compliance, then desperately explain to Strahm about his ordeal from the previous movie or (even more pressingly) the predicament he and his daughter now find themselves in. Strahm would then be able to bring the full weight of the city's FBI presence to bear in searching for Corbett.
Instead: Strahm quickly shoots Jeff to death, meaning that...
The Result: ...neither of them are none the wiser about both the horrible fate which may befall Corbett and that the immediate Denlon family is now all the way up to three members down, in addition to the fact Strahm is left without an ally in the booby-trapped building.
Saw V
Saw V:
- One of Jigsaw's supposed earlier victims is a convicted Domestic Abuser who recently got out of his prison sentence for killing his girlfriend due to a technicality. Said girlfriend is the sister of Hoffman, one of the detectives involved in the case.
You'd Expect: Any one of the numerous other detectives on the case would question about said connection at some point, and finger Hoffman as a possible suspect for being Jigsaw. They could then get Hoffman taken off the investigation and survey him. Granted, only the non-canon video game Saw II: Flesh & Blood states that all these detectives were on a task force investigating Jigsaw together, but Hoffman canonically knows all the others and works in the same precinct(s) as them.
Instead: Seemingly no one realizes this, except the real Jigsaw, who's able to recruit Hoffman into his cause.
The Result: Jigsaw gains a Detective Mole who's in a good position to sabotage the ongoing investigation and provide intel on the detectives, which leads to countless officers and other people dying. - From the end of the previous film, Strahm finds himself locked inside the room where Jeff's final test took place, courtesy of Hoffman, without any signal to call the FBI or the police for emergency. As he searches for a way out of the room, he finds a hidden door alongside a tape warning him to not proceed until the police arrive to rescue him.
You'd Expect: Strahm would heed to the warning and wait for the police, especially since he had previously witnessed Perez falling for a similar bait from Jigsaw.
Instead: He goes through the door regardless, leading to him getting anesthetized and put in an "inescapable trap" that he barely survives. - Early in the movie, the Fatal Five victims figure out that closing the door in a room activates the next trap. This, in addition to brainstorming creative solutions to the traps, does a lot to get the audience on their side (even if they're pretty unsympathetic overall). However, they still make a couple big screw-ups.
- In the second room, the four surviving victims by then find are instructed by a tape, that the only way to survive the room's time bomb is by getting inside four grated pipes spread across the walls on their sides. They have to find the correspondent keys for the grates' locks by breaking the jars on their ceilings; there are only three keys, meaning that one of the pipes will remain locked.
You'd Expect: One of the victims, either from observation or once they get inside the pipes midway through the game, would realize and point out that the pipes are clearly large enough to fit more than person each, so they could offer the others to work together so they can all survive the room. The victims are all deeply selfish people, but teamwork probably wouldn't cost them anything besides a minute of discomfort of being in tight spaces with others, and having more survivors going forward could help them beat future traps.
Instead: None of the victims realizes this, and thus the group fight over survival not only in this room, but also the next one. Two rooms later, Brit and Mallick eventually figure this out too late (as the result explains).
The Result: Charles and Luba die in the process while Brit and Mallick remain the only victims alive, making future traps harder. - In the third test, Brit and Mallick kill Luba and use her body to provide an electric current to open the door to the final trap. They see that in the next and final room, they have to stick their hands into a device's sawblades in order to draw enough blood to fill a beaker and open the final door to escape.
You'd Expect: Given the fact that they were a fairly smart duo, either Brit or Mallick (who had suggested alternate plans before, making the actual outcome all the more jarring) would go back to the previous room, disconnect the electric clamps, bring Luba's body into the final room and use her hands to draw enough blood to fill the beaker.
Alternatively: They could just cut off Luba's arms (seeing as Brit still had a very big knife) and use them to fill the beaker that way. Granted, the arms wouldn't be attached to a beating heart, meaning the amount of blood yielded almost certainly wouldn't fill the beaker all the way, but it'd still lessen the damage Brit and Mallick would take to their own bodies.
Instead: They just stick their hands in and cut halfway up through their arms to fill the beaker.
The Result: While they both survive, they pass out due to massive blood loss, and when Mallick later returns in Saw 3D, it's shown that he permanently lost the use of his left arm due to nerve and muscle damage.
- In the second room, the four surviving victims by then find are instructed by a tape, that the only way to survive the room's time bomb is by getting inside four grated pipes spread across the walls on their sides. They have to find the correspondent keys for the grates' locks by breaking the jars on their ceilings; there are only three keys, meaning that one of the pipes will remain locked.
- At the climax, Strahm has discovered that Hoffman is the new Jigsaw, and found the lair where Hoffman monitored the Fatal Five's game. Walking into an underground network of hallways, he comes across a room with a heavy mechanical door, where he finds the Glass Coffin, inside of which is a tape addressed to him that claims the only way to survive the room is to enter the coffin. While the tape plays, Strahm hears footsteps from outside, meaning Hoffman is near, so he turns off the tape.
You'd Expect: That Strahm would place a high priority on getting out of the room, which will save him regardless of whether or not the tape is telling the truth. Ideally, he could jump out into the hallway with his pistol pointed forwards, ready to shoot Hoffman if the latter tries to raise a weapon of his own.
Instead: He decides that the tape is lying both about the room being dangerous and the glass coffin being safe, so he opts to wait in the room, hiding behind the door and waiting for Hoffman to step inside.
You'd Then Expect: That Strahm would hold Hoffman at gunpoint by keeping his pistol close to the latter's body, and perhaps use his remaining left hand to grapple Hoffman.
Or: Considering how many officers and agents, including seemingly his partner, have died on this case already, and the tape he found proved beyond reasonable doubt that Hoffman is Jigsaw's successor, Strahm would do what Kerry previously did when she thought she was alone with a killer; shoot first, worry about evidence or brutality issues later.
Instead: He puts his gun right up to the back of Hoffman’s head, trying to get him to surrender.
The Result: Just like with Alison to Zep in the first movie, holding someone at gunpoint within arms reach proves dangerous, as Hoffman is able to grab Strahm's gun and the two get into a struggle. Strahm prevails by throwing Hoffman into the Glass Coffin, but doing so activates the death room; the door locks and the walls close in on Strahm, while the coffin sinks into the floor with Hoffman inside, leading to Strahm dying and Hoffman not only getting away scot-free, but also returning to the now-deactivated trap to use an intact hand from Strahm's crushed corpse as misleading evidence to frame Strahm as being the new Jigsaw.
Saw VI
Saw VI:
- Having survived her injury from Saw IV, Perez continues the FBI's investigation in the Jigsaw case with Erickson. They find evidence implicating Strahm, who has gone missing, as being Jigsaw's new successor. Although she goes along with it without bringing up any direct questions, Perez believes little in the hypothesis that her former partner could be the successor, and the FBI's local forensic lab later finds proof that Strahm was already dead when the fingerprints they found at crime scenes were made.
You'd Expect: Perez and Erickson would quickly realize that Strahm was being framed, and conclude that Hoffman might be the new Jigsaw, because Strahm accused Hoffman shortly before his disappearance and Perez could be aware that she mentioned Hoffman just before she fell unconscious. Thus, they should at least keep Hoffman out of their work and investigate him to find proof leading to him.
Instead: Erickson keeps Hoffman in on their investigation without Perez interjecting at all, and invites him to watch and/or receive updates as they uncover key evidence, such as having an audio tech decrypt the voice of the Pendulum Trap's tape.
Bonus Idiot Points: It's only at a meeting with said audio tech as she's nearly done with the voice recognition process when they actually start suspecting Hoffman, largely because he was getting nervous.
The Result: Because they had little backup around them, Hoffman successfully kills Perez, Erickson and the audio tech, and subsequently torches all their found evidence that could implicate him. - The reason John tests William (and arguably the entirety of William's game) boils down to an unusually idiotic choice on John's part. To begin with, long before his cancer diagnosis, John meets William at a party in Jill's clinic, where the latter tells him about his policy for Umbrella Health in regards to which clients should be covered based on economic reasons. John chides him because the policy would deny more than half of the insurance claims Umbrella Health receives.
You'd Expect: That John would file a complaint to the CEO of Umbrella Health (William is only a vice president who heads the company's department for membership and claims, after all) addressing the issue that one of the departments knowingly leads to the potential deaths of a number of clients.
Or: That he would just leave William and Umbrella Health with their business and not get involved in it.
Instead: For some insane reason, John decides to become a client of William's, despite already being aware of his policy.
The Result: When John later goes to ask William in person if they could cover him for an innovative cancer treatment he recently found out about, William predictably refuses to offer him coverage. - In the Steam Maze, after William manages to get Debbie out of the maze, they find out that the key needed to unlock Debbie's harpoon harness and prevent her from dying was put inside a side of William's abdomen. Seeing a circular saw, William is willing to take out the key himself for Debbie's sake, even if he's afraid of harming himself any further.
You'd Expect: Debbie to let William use the saw and cut himself at the key's area.
Instead: Debbie panics, takes the saw herself and begins swinging it at William to kill him, starting a fight between the two for no practical reason.
The Result: Debbie ends up wasting all the time that she and/or William could have used to actually get the key. Thus, the harpoon contraption activates and kills her. - At the end of his game, William finds himself in a cage with a rack set up to drop syringes of acid on him. The two family members of the recently-deceased man he had discussed about to Debbie not long before (Harold Abbott, who was one of his company's insurance denial victims), have control over the rack's mechanism, and Jigsaw's tape for the trap challenge them to cause his death.
You'd Expect: William would notice that because of the way the rack is set up in the cage, he'll be out of danger if he lies flat on the floor. Doing so wouldn't make him look very good to the others, but Tara and Brent would have no more immediate power to kill him.
Or: Be very careful with his words and how he appeals to Tara and Brent; for instance, he can say he's learned his lesson about choosing who lives and who dies, and that if they kill him, he can't reform his company (which he may or may not carry out afterwards, but it's a fact Tara and Brant wouldn't likely know the truth about). He should also point out that he is a father himself, and if they kill him, they'll be doing what he did and leaving children fatherless and a spouse a widow.
Instead: William continues standing straight up and only appeals to Tara and Brent in vague, desperate ways.
The Result: While Tara ultimately decides to spare William anyway, Brent is quick to activate the mechanism at that, and William is killed.
Saw 3D
Saw 3D:
- In the Public Execution Trap, Dina is attached to a "neutral" side of the trap, whose saw will only reach her if Brad and Ryan don't try to kill each other with the other saw present. After listening to the trap's instructions, Brad and Ryan decide to fight without thinking about how Dina has been frauding both of them.
You'd Expect: Dina to stay quiet as Brad and Ryan fight and not intervene with them.
Instead: She tries to convince both Brad and Ryan to kill the other within each other's earshots, exposing her true intentions.
The Result: Brad and Ryan subvert Murder the Hypotenuse and make a pact to let Dina die instead. - Bobby's storyline, including the entirety of his game, kicks off because of how he carelessly publicited his made-up story of being a Jigsaw survivor. To wit (based on a deleted scene), Bobby and Cale first learn of Jigsaw and his then-ongoing spree through an interview of a survivor on television, to which Cale gives Bobby the idea of pretending to be a survivor himself for a later book.
You'd Expect: That either Cale or Bobby would have studied about Jigsaw's MO (be it by talking to the survivors or viewing other sources) and be aware that he was still active at the time, so they'd have considered that publishing the book early (including giving it extensive marketing) could risk them to fall into Jigsaw's watch. Even if they didn't put that in count, they should at least shelf the finished book until they get some news about Jigsaw getting caught or similar.
Alternatively: Bobby could dismiss Cale's idea or not publish the book at all, for reasons outside of Jigsaw. Such a fake story, no matter how carefully done, could still be uncovered in a variety of legal and public waysExamples include, which would likely make him subject to lawsuits for fraud or potential criminal charges for exploiting the investigation of a serial killer for his own benefit.
Instead: Neither of them bother about releasing the book while Jigsaw's still active, and they give it lots of advertising and dedicated events.
The Result: While the book ends up a massive success and the police and/or media don't discover the ruse, it also the actual Jigsaw take notice of Bobby and put him and his support team (including Cale, who served as the event manager) on his hitlist for later victims to capture and set up games for. It's not until long after John's death when Hoffman (whom they didn't know about) picks up the then-dormant scheme and captures Bobby and co., but they still blew themselves to the Jigsaw they were aware of without considering about such thing. - In Bobby's second test, he has to use a fish hook to retrieve a key from inside Nina's body, with the key being what will open the lock and free her; however, whenever any noise is made, such as by Nina screaming, spikes will move closer to pierce her throat and kill her.
You'd Expect: That Nina would try to keep herself from saying anything. Screaming while Bobby's fishing the key out can be blamed on pain (especially with all the blood coming out), though you'd still expect her to not scream out of panic.
Instead: Before the test even starts, after Bobby's been told that her making noise will drive her closer to death, Nina's instant reaction is to scream at the top of her lungs and not stop until Bobby forcibly covers her mouth.
Bonus Idiot Points: Bear in mind that at this point, besides fear and discomfort from being held in place, there's nothing going on to induce screaming and Nina was rather quiet before this. Bobby's reaction when she ultimately dies sums it up nicely:Bobby: Why wouldn't you just SHUT THE FUCK UP?! You just needed to shut up! - Bobby himself falls into this in his final test, the recreation of his made-up trap. The trap in question consists of two large fishhooks, from which he has to hoist himself on to connect two wires that will free his wife and complete the game. Its tape assures Bobby, in a somewhat sarcastic tone, that human pectoral muscles can support a grown man's weight, as he had claimed in his book.
You'd Expect: That Bobby would investigate whether literally any other option outside of embedding the hooks in his pectorals (the way he had invented the trap to be like) might work, either in case the trap is meant to show that what he claims to have done is impossible, or just to avoid the extreme pain involved in such a task (which would increase his chances of failure), even if he's worried about the potential consequences he might face from not doing it in the way he was told. For instance, the hooks looked big enough for him to put his feet in or put them under his armpits, and even though he decides to strip off his shirt without a second thought to do the trap's task, it's entirely possible he could've hooked the belt loops on his pants and not risked injury at all.
Instead: He immediately tries to do it the way he claimed to have done it, and it turns out that it's impossible to complete the trap that way.
The Result: Bobby fails the test and is forced to watch as his innocent wife gets burned alive in the Brazen Bull. - A group of SWAT officers, having discovered where Bobby's game was taking place at, enter the Clear Dawn Psychiatric Hospital.
- They hear screams from a living victim, and go through both heavy mechanical doors and a writing on the wall that warns them not to enter.
You'd Expect: Having presumably been briefed on Jigsaw's MO going in, the team would make a point to spread out and disable visible mechanical instruments to avoid more than a few of them being killed or trapped in large groups, and would heed any warnings Jigsaw gives.
Instead: All the officers enter a single room with a heavy door and a strange box-like device at the center.
The Result: They end up trapped in the room when they trigger a mechanism unbeknownst to them and the door shuts. - Even after they got locked up inside the room, the SWAT team must be aware that the Jigsaw Killers have previously made use of poisons and gases in both death traps and booby traps.
You'd Expect: That the officers would've been kitted with gas masks or rebreathers for such a contingency.
Instead: They don't carry such equipment.
The Result: They're killed when the aforementioned device spreads cyanide gas against them.
- They hear screams from a living victim, and go through both heavy mechanical doors and a writing on the wall that warns them not to enter.
- Gibson orders an active pursue of Hoffman shortly after the latter finds out about Jill's whereabouts, prompting the Metropolitan Police Department to send squads of officers (normal and SWAT alike) to various locations outside in search for Hoffman.
You'd Expect: That the department would leave a decent amount of officers, especially those with SWAT or similar training, to guard the precinct Jill is at, since she insists Hoffman wants her dead. Even if they didn't know how Hoffman would try to get into precinct, leaving it guarded should be at least a major priority if they're going to actively prosecute him, especially considering that they likely experienced no shortage from all the police deaths in the previous films. Plus, Hoffman knows the precinct's layout and police procedure well, and has proven smart; with only a few officers inside, he could probably walk in a door and shoot everyone with an automatic weapon.
Instead: They take almost all personnel outside, only leaving five officers and two coroner workers inside Jill's precinct.
The Result: When he gets to the precinct, Hoffman easily kills every officer and coroner, and manages to catch Jill. - Gibson and two uniformed officers find a hidden room at the Pete's Auto Body junkyard, where they find a figure wearing a Jigsaw robe in front of a bank of computer monitors. When they unveil the figure, Gibson and the officers discover that it's merely a corpse (thus having fallen for Hoffman's deception), and find out that Hoffman was using this location to spy on the police department.
- First, Gibson realizes Hoffman's plan, and calls Palmer (who's serving as the department's dispatcher at the moment) to immediately bring every officer outside back to the precinct. He doesn't get a proper response from Palmer, since she asks "I'm sorry?" with evident doubt before he says "Right now!" to her.
You'd Expect: Palmer would heed Gibson's order regardless, since he's the detective currently leading the case, and his tone of voice clearly indicates that he's not messing around.
Instead: She seemingly ignores the order when she doesn't hear back from Gibson.
The Result: The police precinct is left all but empty, allowing Hoffman to enter and kill everyone inside with little trouble, including Palmer. - Then, Gibson and the uniformed officers hear mechanical noises, and look over to see an automatic Sentry Gun pointed at them rise from an unseen spot in the junkyard's office.
You'd Expect: That Gibson and the officers would duck or dive to the floor, since the sentry gun can't aim vertically.
Instead: The three of them freeze like deer in headlights, even as the gun begins firing.
The Result: They're gunned down to death.
- First, Gibson realizes Hoffman's plan, and calls Palmer (who's serving as the department's dispatcher at the moment) to immediately bring every officer outside back to the precinct. He doesn't get a proper response from Palmer, since she asks "I'm sorry?" with evident doubt before he says "Right now!" to her.
Jigsaw
Jigsaw:
- After making it out of the Bucket Room, the group in the Barn Game finds themselves still locked in the previous room's collars with chains hanging from the ceiling. Listening to a tape and finding three syringes with numbers on them, they realize that they'll all be hanged unless one of them, Carly, injects herself with the correct syringe; said needle will do nothing to her, while another will do nothing at all and the third will kill her. Ryan grabs the syringes, shows them to Carly, and asks her if any of their numbers mean anything to her. Carly recognizes one of the numbers as the amount of money she stole from an asthmatic woman who ended up dying because she accidentally took her medication too for simply snatching her purse to commit the theft. She notes the number as significant to the rest of the group, but doesn't explain why.
You'd Expect: Carly would inject herself with the syringe with that number on the spot; there's a chance it might be lethal, but they're all dead for sure if she doesn't do something, and the number being the only one she recognizes increases the likelihood that it's the life-saving syringe.
Or: If Carly is too terrified or generally indecisive, Ryan would inject her with the needle she pointed out, under the same logic that it's most likely the right one, and so he doesn't lose an ally in the game. Even if it isn't the right syringe, he should still have time to inject the other two into Carly afterward.
Instead: Even after Carly points the syringe out, the group continues badgering her for further explanation, and Carly does nothing out of apparent fear.
The Result: Enough time passes for the chains on their collars to pull up, which begin hanging them and moves Ryan away from Carly. Were it not for Ryan being luckily chained next to Carly and having the determination to hang onto the syringes and inject Carly with all three at once, the entire group would have died right there. At the end, only Carly dies, but agonizingly from having acid injected into her body. - Further into the Barn Game, Ryan gets trapped by a device that he can only escape from by pulling a lever to sever his restrained leg.
- Anna and Mitch then see a door to a grain silo open automatically, prompting them to proceed inside.
You'd Expect: Since the door they entered the room they're currently in closed and locks behind them after they entered, and just looking inside a grain silo would tell you that it's an all-but perfect place for another Death Trap, they'd try to wedge the door to the silo open with some of the heavy machinery in the room so they can exit the silo if they need to. Granted, Ryan only got trapped because he broke the game's rules by trying to Cut the Knot, but given Anna's later actions, she hasn't given up on the idea.
Instead: Both Mitch and Anna enter the silo without doing anything else.
The Result: Sure enough, they end up triggering a trap in the silo, and the door closes, locking them in. They start getting buried alive, first by grain, then by heavy and/or sharp tools, and they can only be saved by Ryan severing his tied leg (which would realistically kill him minutes later). Were it not for Ryan showing a surprising amount of compassion and bravery by pulling the lever, Anna and Mitch would have died in the trap. - In the middle of the Silo Trap itself, Mitch and Anna find themselves buried up to their arms in grain, before the trap starts dropping the aforementioned tools, including a pitchfork and sawblades (which have the most surface area on their reach), down on them.
You'd Expect: Since they still have their arms free, one of them would try grabbing the sawblades or the pitchfork out of the grain and hold it above their heads as a shield from further falling projectiles; it's a far from perfect or indefinite defense, but might buy them time while they plead to Ryan to help them.
Instead: Neither of them do that, even as more tools fall and leave brief cuts on their arms and heads. Thankfully, they're saved before either gets killed or crippled by one of the tools, but they still had some close calls.
- Anna and Mitch then see a door to a grain silo open automatically, prompting them to proceed inside.
- Mitch gets caught up in the Cycle Trap, a trap that's powered by a motorcycle engine that will mutilate him with coils if he doesn't pull the brake below. Mitch has difficulty doing it while the trap is running, but Anna interferes, jamming rebar into the motorcycle's wheel and seemingly stopping it.
You'd Expect: Mitch to use the time he's been bought to pull the brake and permanently disable the trap, just in case Anna's sabotage hasn't stopped the trap for good.
Or: Even if Mitch is temporarily overcome with relief and not thinking clearly, Anna would yell at him to pull the lever. She proves herself to be apathetic for the others later on, but she could spare Mitch for this moment so she can use him for later stages of the game.
Instead: Mitch just shouts in relief, thinking he's in the clear, and Anna says nothing.
The Result: The trap proves sturdy enough to break through the rebar Anna jammed into it, restarting the trap and mutilating Mitch. - Hunt finds some evidence implicating his former war buddy, Logan, as being the new Jigsaw copycat, so he decides to go arrest him.
You'd Expect: Even if he doesn't want to believe that Logan could be a serial killer (and remains unaware that Logan is actually the copycat by the end of the movie), Hunt would go to Logan's house with backup, maybe a SWAT team, and make sure Logan is locked in a jail cell before starting any interrogation or pursuing other leads. After all, many cops died in the original Jigsaw killings because they trusted Hoffman, a detective they believed was an essential ally, only for him to turn out to be one of the killers. And going after the other Jigsaw Killers alone got plenty more officers killed.
Instead: Apparently trusting his and Logan's past friendship and his own abilities, Hunt goes to Logan's house alone. He cuffs Logan at first, but listens to Logan's insistence that he's being framed, and so decides to let him go.
The Result: Logan uses his maintained freedom to set up a Frame-Up on Halloran. - Halloran tails Logan and Eleanor, both of whom he has good reason to believe at least one of whom is the new Jigsaw, to an old barn. Him not calling for backup and going in alone is a questionable move, but Halloran is a Dirty Cop who may not want any witnesses, or may suspect he's currently being framed (which would get the rest of the department after him). He's able to spy on Logan and Eleanor, and sees the former has an axe, and the latter a revolver.
You'd Expect: Halloran would stay out of arm's reach of either of them when he jumps out and shouts at them to drop their weapons. If Eleanor raises her pistol towards him, Halloran can legally shoot her.
Instead: Halloran takes Logan hostage and tries to use him as a Human Shield against Eleanor to get her to drop her gun.
The Result: Once more, holding someone at gunpoint within arms' reach, especially one with combat training like Logan has as a military veteran, proves dangerous. Not to mention, Eleanor is only a few feet away from him and has a gun; her shooting him without hurting Logan would be possible, if not easy, and if she was actually Jigsaw, she might willingly sacrifice Logan and shoot through him to kill Halloran, regardless of whether Logan was innocent or her accomplice. Logan disarms Halloran, and the two get into a scuffle, which ends with Logan capturing Halloran and eventually getting him killed.
Spiral
Spiral:
Spiral seems to establish that the series is set in a world that never invented the background check, and even that is nothing compared to the many idiotic moments below that just about everyone has in the plot.- The Metropolitan Police Department's hiring of Schenk really comes off as idiotic if you think about it. To wit, Schenk went under a fake identity and entered a police academy in order to qualify for a job in the department by the time he requests it later.
You'd Expect: That the department would do a background check and see if Schenk isn't really who he claims himself to be. It may not be totally effective, but it should be easy for them to do, both because it's a common hiring practice in real-life police departments and due to Schenk not having plans for many outcomes like how the original Jigsaw did.
Instead: Not only do they go ahead and apply a job to him, but they immediately hire him as a detective, a process that's known to take years in real life. They also take on his word to assign him as a partner to Zeke. - The movie opens with Bozwick finding a presumed suspect of robbery (actually Schenk's accomplice), whom he eventually chases into a sewer.
You'd Expect: That by the time he enters the sewer, he would stop to question why said suspect would use such a location as a escape route, since it isn't a common way thieves try to get away from the police. He could bring up the problem later to the Metropolitan Police Department, either by going to a precinct or making a call, to get help with this issue.
Instead: He just continues to run towards the suspect until he goes missing, and ends up being abducted into a trap. Bonus points for said trap being a result of the city's transit system apparently being so infrequent that it allows people to set up death traps and block TVs that can transmit Jigsaw-style video tapes. - The Metropolitan Police Department also appears to have the worst surveillance system that any police department could have for its facilities.
You'd Expect: That they'd have decent measures to avoid any surveillance guard or employee from getting distracted or resting during their assigned schedule unless necessary.
Instead: A guard at the transmission knobs decides to sleep for a while, either because the department allows them to do so or because they don't really care about applying rules at all.
The Result: While the guard is asleep, Schenk is able to smuggle in a spout and a wax pot for a trap. - Angie walks into an evidence room with a loaded pistol, where she finds a person in silhouette and sleeping gas begins to spread. She quickly realizes that she's been caught by the Spiral Killer, pulls out her pistol and heads into the door she entered to escape from the gas, only for it to automatically close.
You'd Expect: That she'd immediately take the moment to shoot the killer and take him down, even if the sleeping gas would still drive her to unconsciousness, as the time it took to fill was long enough for her to take action.
Instead: She's apparently far more concerned about the fact that the only way of escape she had was locked, not bothering to fight against the killer by then.
The Result: When Angie does decide to shoot for once, the Spiral Killer is already out of her sight due to the gas obscuring her vision, and she ends up in one of the killer's traps. - When Schenk's presumed corpse is discovered by the police, Zeke gets a piece of skin that has a tattoo identical to Schenk's.
You'd Expect: That, considering the forensic technology that the department has in hand, Zeke would request a DNA test to be done for the piece to see if it actually belongs to Schenk.
Instead: He doesn't even think about it once. He just decides that since the piece had the same tattoo, it must be Schenk's skin. - Marcus receives a phone call from what seems to be Zeke to meet him at an abandoned soap factory.
You'd Expect: That from his experience in the police department and as a retired chief of police, Marcus would at least go with some police accompaniment, as that's the usual protocol for the police to go to abandoned places for safety measures.
Instead: He decides to go on his own.
The Result: He ends up being abducted by the Spiral Killer, who had actually made the call.
