History Headscratchers / ReservoirDogs

* Why do Eddie, White and Pink drive up to Orange's house? Isn't anonymity a big part of this deal? I understand Eddie needing to know names/identities, etc, being the son of the boss, but aren't the 6 robbers supposed to be protected from each other? And I know that it's Orange's house, or at least a police-appointed hideout (which makes no difference from the point-of-view of Joe and Eddie) because he's painting a room, has comic posters up (he mentions ComicBook/TheFantasticFour at one point) and he has a change jar with his wedding ring.

* On the {{Foreshadowing}} page, it says the opening scene foreshadows the identity of the rat. Where and how? The best I can think of is [[spoiler:Orange]] being easily swayed by Pink's 'Waitress Tipping' speech, but that's more foreshadowing [[spoiler:Orange's]] easily swayed nature than anything about his identity as a rat.
** It's Foreshadowing that [[spoiler:Orange]] is the rat because when Joe comes back from paying he asks who didn't tip. [[spoiler:Orange]] is the one who tells Joe it was Mr Pink.

* Here's something that wasn't adequately explained on the main page: if it is so torturous to the cop to have his ear lopped off and loud music blaring into the fresh, gaping hole (which of course it would be), then why does he seem to have no problem [[spoiler: hearing all those gunshots ringing out in that confined, echoey warehouse space a moment later?]]

*Could Orange really have survived as long as he does despite such major blood loss?

!!How did he knew

** It's also worth noting that he doesn't ''know'' that Mr Blonde is a close personal friend and colleague of Joe and Nice Guy Eddie and has all that history with them, including having sacrificed his freedom for them; given all the anonymity for everyone involved, all he really knows is that Blonde, like everyone, is just a hired gun for the job; maybe one with ties to Joe, but not much more than that. Therefore, he has no reason to expect that they ''won't'' believe that Blonde would try to double cross them. It's just unfortunate that Mr Blonde ''does'' have all that history that makes Nice Guy Eddie question and reject the lie out of hand.

* Could Orange really have survived as long as he does despite such major blood loss?

** Yep. He flat out says to Pink, Blondeand White that they're going to have to kill Nash, since he's seen their faces.
*** Remember that multiple people from the jewelry store, including several police officers, are dead at this point from being shot as part of an armed robbery gone bad. This means everyone in the crew could be charged with Felony Murder, a death-penalty offense (most Felony Murder statutes state that everyone involved in the underlying crime is responsible for any and all deaths that occur during its commission or aftermath). Why leave someone alive who knows who they are?

** Notice both Eddie's tone of voice when explaining to Orange who Mr Blonde was to him, and Blonde's tone when thanking Joe for not forgetting him while he was doing time. Eddie described Blonde as his "very good friend" and looked near tears that he was dead. Blonde said in a frank tone to Joe that "it meant a lot" to him that Joe continually sent him things while he was in prison. Clearly these are close people so Eddie's angry defense of Vic was not just professional, it was a friend angry his friend had been killed and someone is now saying that friend would have betrayed him.

* In the scene where White, Orange, Pink, and Eddie are driving to warehouse to meet Joe and plan the heist, Eddie refers to Pink as...Pink. This is directly followed by the scene where everyone gets their aliases. Now, granted, non-linear style could suggest this happens after, but given the costumes and the way it's set up it seems to be before hand.

** It's clear everyone had their codenames in advance. When Freddy/Mr Orange first tells his handler about getting in in on the job, he had only met Joe, Eddie, and Mr White. At the meeting, he was given Mr White's name as Mr White and already knew he was going to be called Mr Orange. He says as much to his handler. So Orange and White had their aliases already. Why not Brown, Blue, Blonde, and Pink?

*** Moreover, it's the kind of story that a criminal ''could'' tell a bunch of guys he's supposed to be concealing his name and origins from. He didn't get caught, and the deputies barely noticed he was there, so it's safe to tell without breaching the robbers' agreed-upon anonymity: if he'd recounted an offense that actually wound up in court, or otherwise documented, he'd be giving away too much about his (adopted) background.

*** I though the main purpose of that scene was to show how different the criminals are to how the cops think criminals are. Contrast the cop going out about the ridiculous amount of details Orange is supposed to know for his story with how Eddie talks about 'Lady E' being fazey on the details and flat out arguing with the other criminals about it.
*** There's a difference, though, in being hazy on details because it's been a while since they happened and your memory is unreliable and being hazy on details because you only learnt the story an hour ago and have forgotten several of the key details since then because you didn't adequately commit it to memory. One is just being a bit forgetful, the other looks suspiciously like you're just making something up or reciting something someone else told you -- which is not what you want to seem like if you're trying to convince someone this happened to you. The other cop compares it to a joke; you add stuff, you remove stuff, you maybe even forget a few details, but if you've told this story over and over it seems natural in a way that it doesn't if it's something you're reciting second-hand for the first time. Orange doesn't need to recite every single detail flawlessly as if it's a speech; he does, however, need to be familiar enough with the story to recite it ''convincingly''.
*** Nice Guy Eddie forgot the lyrics and meaning of the song because he hadn't heard it in years; he even says as much. Orange, however, has to learn the details of the story sufficiently well to be able to recite it.

* Did something happen to Mr Blondein prison that pushed him over the edge? Despite their close friendship and Joe's appreciation of his loyalty, it seems like very bad business to include an uncontrollable psychopath on a robbery. If he'd been that way before prison, how could he have gained Joe's trust in the first place. Is it a case that he'd gone so long since killing anyone and couldn't control himself?

** Yup. Although I don't doubt he probably thought Blonde was capable of it. The 'betrayal' story he cooked up was a handy way of deflection attention from himself as a potential rat. But Freddy's smart enough to lie his way out of a bad situation, and that's what he tried to do.

* I understand that Vic and Eddie are buddies, but his angry defense of Vic doesn't make that much sense. Sure he may have done time out of loyalty (or simply because it's [[CombatSadomasochist fun]]), but ratting out a powerful crime boss isn't exactly wise either. He might, you know, just chose to be silent because it's actually a good option.

* Just before Mr White picks him up to do a stake-out of the bank, Mr Orange fetches a wedding band out of loose change tray. Why?

*** It's unfortunate really. If Orange had stopped after "Blonde was gonna burn the cop" and used that as the impetus for shooting him (not directly i.e. He was gonna burn the cop and kill me in the process because I was so close to him and couldn't move) it might've worked. Granted Eddie would still be pissed but there was clear evidence that Blonde didn't care much if his team was caught in the crossfire (Orange may have even seen Blonde almost shoot White at the bank) but none that he would kill ''just'' to double-cross them.

** It's also worth noting that he doesn't ''know'' that Mr Blonde is a close personal friend and colleague of Joe and Nice Guy Eddie and has all that history with them, including having sacrificed his freedom for them; given all the anonymity for everyone involved, all he really knows is that Blonde, like everyone, is just a hired gun for the job; maybe one with ties to Joe, but not much more than that. Therefore, he has no reason to expect that they ''won't'' believe that Blonde would try to doublecross them. It's just unfortunate that Mr Blonde ''does'' have all that history that makes Nice Guy Eddie question and reject the lie out of hand.

** At this point, he's a little desperate -- not only is he bleeding to death, but he's shot one of the robbers, which -- considering they're no doubt on the hunt for a rat (and he's probably heard them talking about it) makes him Suspect #1, since none of the other robbers would have given much of a fuck if Blonde killed the cop (or, probably, him -- considering that most of them except White probably think he's a liability who's better off dead in his condition and are ruthless enough to do it as well). He's probably just trying to think of an explanation that's better than "I'm an undercover cop" and / or "I took exception to Blonde torturing a guy for no reason," and figures that since Blonde's clearly not stable it's not entirely unconvincing that he might try to rip the other guys off.

** A plausible theory, but remember that we have no way to know that because Blonde fortunately never got past "torturing the cop" stage. I wouldn't put it past Blonde that he could figure that since Orange was probably going to die anyway and was heavily blood-splattered to begin with, it was pretty easy to have his preferred way with him and cover all the traces afterwards. Had Orange not been on the verge of dying - yeah, it's unlikely Blonde would have attacked him, no matter the odds.
** It's straight up wrong to state "at no point does White ever think Orange is in danger from Blond". His exact words when Eddie proposes the plan are:

** As the OP, these are all mostly very good points, but I'm still not persuaded that my initial one shouldn't have won over for the characters. Consider that White has such compassion for Orange that by the climax he's going to kill Joe and Eddie, and take near-fatal (and possibly definitively-fatal regardless of the immediate intervention of the other cops) bullet(s) from them on his behalf. So a MutualKill has to rank as considerably more effort, personal cost and evidence of a devotion to the guy than a comparatively-easy argument to win against Eddie. Couple that with the fact that White and Pink still strongly suspect that they can get the ID of the rat from Nash (it ends up being true that he knows it, but they just haven't had the chance to get "persuasive" enough. Perhaps they could have found Nash's own identification and used it as leverage to threaten his family, at which point he may indeed have sang) and White should consider both men as, in their own ways, assets too valuable to risk leaving behind with Blonde. Pink may feel something approaching vaguely positive to neutral about Orange, but he sure wouldn't want Blonde to have free reign over him, albeit he might not be quite so as outspoken about it as compared to White. But the same rationale goes for Pink vis-a-vis Nash as White. The plan with the cars is, first of all, to have one man drive each car (so there are three). So, sandwich Blonde in the middle car with White or Pink in the front one and Eddie in the rear (and according to the script at least, Eddie says he's gonna follow the front cars anyway). During this part of the plan, I dare Blonde to act up. He's boxed between two stable men and the one behind him is his friend who trusts him to be on his best behaviour, to not further compromise the operation. No way he's gonna, say, randomly take potshots at pedestrians in this context. The next step, after dumping the redundant cars, is for all three men to get in Eddie's car and pick up the diamonds before returning to the warehouse. The same principle applies here - it is decidedly against Blonde's self-preservation instinct to do anything mischievous under this kind of supervision. Put him in shotgun, Pink or White behind him and Eddie obviously keeps driving. And you know what, if he did try and shoot at a passing ambulance car regardless, then the guy behind him is more than justified in putting a bullet in the back of his skull, and not even Eddie (much less you guys debating for the other side) would be able to contest that action. Rewinding back to when they're in the argument in the warehouse about this, Eddie should be figuring (or at least open to persuasion about this) that the operation is unstable enough just with the rat in the house. And he ''knows'' from no less than three witnesses that Blonde went crazy in the store. If I were Eddie, I'd want to take him along myself, just to keep the closest watch possible. Again, after being persuaded about this and as to Orange and Nash's respective worths to the operation by White and Pink. And Blonde might be the one Eddie can trust in terms of having been the one to do four years of time for the criminal organisation, but in terms of being able to trust with wounded people to look after? No fucking way.

** As the OP, these are all mostly very good points, but I'm still not persuaded that my initial one shouldn't have won over for the characters. Consider that White has such compassion for Orange that by the climax he's going to kill Joe and Eddie, and take near-fatal (and possibly definitively-fatal regardless of the immediate intervention of the other cops) bullet(s) from them on his behalf. So a MutualKill has to rank as considerably more effort, personal cost and evidence of a devotion to the guy than a comparatively-easy argument to win against Eddie. Couple that with the fact that White and Pink still strongly suspect that they can get the ID of the rat from Nash (it ends up being true that he knows it, but they just haven't had the chance to get "persuasive" enough. Perhaps they could have found Nash's own identification and used it as leverage to threaten his family, at which point he may indeed have sang) and White should consider both men as, in their own ways, assets too valuable to risk leaving behind with Blond. Pink may feel something approaching vaguely positive to neutral about Orange, but he sure wouldn't want Blonde to have free reign over him, albeit he might not be quite so as outspoken about it as compared to White. But the same rationale goes for Pink vis-a-vis Nash as White. The plan with the cars is, first of all, to have one man drive each car (so there are three). So, sandwich Blonde in the middle car with White or Pink in the front one and Eddie in the rear (and according to the script at least, Eddie says he's gonna follow the front cars anyway). During this part of the plan, I dare Blonde to act up. He's boxed between two stable men and the one behind him is his friend who trusts him to be on his best behaviour, to not further compromise the operation. No way he's gonna, say, randomly take potshots at pedestrians in this context. The next step, after dumping the redundant cars, is for all three men to get in Eddie's car and pick up the diamonds before returning to the warehouse. The same principle applies here - it is decidedly against Blond's self-preservation instinct to do anything mischievous. Put him in shotgun, Pink or White behind him and Eddie obviously keeps driving. And you know what, if he did try and shoot at a passing ambulance car, then the guy behind is more than justified in putting a bullet in the back of his skull, and not even Eddie (much less you guys debating for the other side) would be able to contest that action. Rewinding back to when they're in the argument in the warehouse about this, Eddie should be figuring (or at least open to persuasion about this) that the operation is unstable enough just with the rat in the house. And he ''knows'' from no less than three witnesses that Blonde went crazy in the store. If I were Eddie, I'd want to take him along myself, just to keep the closest watch possible. Again, after being persuaded about this and as to Orange and Nash's respective worths to the operation by White and Pink. And Blonde might be the one Eddie can trust in terms of having been the one to do four years of time for the criminal organisation, but in terms of being able to trust with wounded people to look after? No fucking way.

** As the OP, these are all mostly very good points, but I'm still not persuaded that my initial one shouldn't have won over for the characters. Consider that White has such compassion for Orange that by the climax he's going to kill Joe and Eddie, and take near-fatal (and possibly definitively-fatal regardless of the immediate intervention of the other cops) bullet(s) from them on his behalf. So a MutualKill has to rank as considerably more effort, personal cost and evidence of a devotion to the guy than a comparatively-easy argument to win against Eddie. Couple that with the fact that White and Pink still strongly suspect that they can get the ID of the rat from Nash (it ends up being true that he knows it, but they just haven't had the chance to get "persuasive" enough. Perhaps they could have found Nash's own identification and used it as leverage to threaten his family, at which point he may indeed have sang) and White should consider both men as, in their own ways, assets too valuable to risk leaving behind with Blond. Pink may feel something approaching vaguely positive to neutral about Orange, but he sure wouldn't want Blonde to have free reign over him, albeit he might not be quite so as outspoken about it as compared to White. But the same rationale goes for Pink vis-a-vis Nash as White. The plan with the cars is, first of all, to have one man drive each car (so there are three). So, sandwich Blonde in the middle car with White or Pink in the front one and Eddie in the rear (and according to the script at least, Eddie says he's gonna follow the front cars anyway). During this part of the plan, I dare Blonde to act up. He's boxed between two stable men and the one behind him is his friend who trusts him to be on his best behaviour, to not further compromise the operation. No way he's gonna, say, randomly take potshots at pedestrians in this context. The next step, after dumping the redundant cars, is for all three men to get in Eddie's car and pick up the diamonds before returning to the warehouse. The same principle applies here - it is decidedly against Blond's self-preservation instinct to do anything mischievous. Put him in shotgun, Pink or White behind him and Eddie obviously keeps driving. And you know what, if he did try and shoot at a passing ambulance car, then the guy behind is more than justified in putting a bullet in the back of his skull, and not even Eddie (much less you guys debating for the other side) would be able to contest that action. Rewinding back to when they're in the argument in the warehouse about this, Eddie should be figuring (or at least open to persuasion about this) that the operation is unstable enough just with the rat in the house. And he ''knows'' from no less than three witnesses that Blonde went crazy in the store. If I were Eddie, I'd want to take him along myself, just to keep the closest watch possible. Again, after being persuaded about this and as to Orange and Nash's respective values by White and Pink. And Blonde might be the one Eddie can trust in terms of having been the one to do four years of time for the criminal organisation, but in terms of being able to trust with wounded people to look after? No fucking way.

* Did something happen to Mr Blond in prison that pushed him over the edge? Despite their close friendship and Joe's appreciation of his loyalty, it seems like very bad business to include an uncontrollable psychopath on a robbery. If he'd been that way before prison, how could he have gained Joe's trust in the first place. Is it a case that he'd gone so long since killing anyone and couldn't control himself?

** Yep. He flat out says to Pink, Blond and White that they're going to have to kill Nash, since he's seen their faces.

** Considering that Blonde was the one who shot the place up and caused all the chaos in the first place, and both White and Pink make a point of telling this out to Eddie in no uncertain terms, Eddie perhaps has a much better idea of Blonde's level of mental stability than he did, say, the week before. They have no real reason to lie about what went down and Blonde doesn't exactly offer a full-throated defense of himself. Furthermore, friends or no, this is unlikely to be the first time that Blonde has done something to suggest that he's, shall we say, a wee bit volatile. Eddie might not have thought Blonde was "shoot up a jewellers during a heist" crazy, but he probably knows that the guy is at least a little unpredictable. And even if Eddie doesn't know the depths that Blonde will go to or is deluding himself that Blonde isn't a liability, ''White and Pink'' certainly do. They're not going to object too strongly to the idea of leaving Blonde behind where he can't cause them any problems, because the last time they were out in public with Blonde the result was a bloodbath that almost got them killed.

** As the OP, these are all mostly very good points, but I'm still not persuaded that my initial one shouldn't have won over for the characters. Consider that White has such compassion for Orange that by the climax he's going to kill Joe and Eddie, and take near-fatal (and possibly definitively-fatal regardless of the immediate intervention of the other cops) bullet(s) from them on his behalf. So a MutualKill has to rank as considerably more effort, personal cost and evidence of a devotion to the guy than a comparatively-easy argument to win against Eddie. Couple that with the fact that White and Pink still strongly suspect that they can get the ID of the rat from Nash (it ends up being true that he knows it, but they just haven't had the chance to get "persuasive" enough. Perhaps they could have found Nash's own identification and used it as leverage to threaten his family, at which point he may indeed have sang) and White should consider both men as, in their own ways, assets too valuable to risk leaving behind with Blond. Pink may feel something approaching vaguely positive to neutral about Orange, but he sure wouldn't want Blond to have free reign over him, albeit he might not be quite so as outspoken about it as compared to White. But the same rationale goes for Pink vis-a-vis Nash as White. The plan with the cars is, first of all, to have one man drive each car (so there are three). So, sandwich Blond in the middle car with White or Pink in the front one and Eddie in the rear (and according to the script at least, Eddie says he's gonna follow the front cars anyway). During this part of the plan, I dare Blond to act up. He's boxed between two stable men and the one behind him is his friend who trusts him to be on his best behaviour, to not further compromise the operation. No way he's gonna, say, randomly take potshots at pedestrians in this context. The next step, after dumping the redundant cars, is for all three men to get in Eddie's car and pick up the diamonds before returning to the warehouse. The same principle applies here - it is decidedly against Blond's self-preservation instinct to do anything mischievous. Put him in shotgun, Pink or White behind him and Eddie obviously keeps driving. And you know what, if he did try and shoot at a passing ambulance car, then the guy behind is more than justified in putting a bullet in the back of his skull, and not even Eddie (much less you guys debating for the other side) would be able to contest that action. Rewinding back to when they're in the argument in the warehouse about this, Eddie should be figuring (or at least open to persuasion about this) that the operation is unstable enough just with the rat in the house. And he ''knows'' from no less than three witnesses that Blond went crazy in the store. If I were Eddie, I'd want to take him along myself, just to keep the closest watch possible. Again, after being persuaded about this and as to Orange and Nash's respective values by White and Pink. And Blonde might be the one Eddie can trust in terms of having been the one to do four years of time, but in terms of being able to trust with people to look after? No fucking way.

** As the OP, these are all mostly very good points, but I'm still not persuaded that my initial one shouldn't have won over for the characters. Consider that White has such compassion for Orange that by the climax he's going to kill Joe and Eddie, and take near-fatal (and possibly definitively-fatal regardless of the immediate intervention of the other cops) bullet(s) from them on his behalf. So a MutualKill has to rank as considerably more effort, personal cost and evidence of a devotion to the guy than a comparatively-easy argument to win against Eddie. Couple that with the fact that White and Pink still strongly suspect that they can get the ID of the rat from Nash (it ends up being true that he knows it, but they just haven't had the chance to get "persuasive" enough. Perhaps they could have found Nash's own identification and used it as leverage to threaten his family, at which point he may indeed have sang) and White should consider both men as, in their own ways, assets too valuable to risk leaving behind with Blond. Pink may feel something approaching vaguely positive to neutral about Orange, but he sure wouldn't want Blond to have free reign over him, albeit he might not be quite so as outspoken about it as compared to White. But the same rationale goes for Pink vis-a-vis Nash as White. The plan with the cars is, first of all, to have one man drive each car (so there are three). So, sandwich Blond in the middle car with White or Pink in the front one and Eddie in the rear (and according to the script at least, Eddie says he's gonna follow the front cars anyway). During this part of the plan, I dare Blond to act up. He's boxed between two stable men and the one behind him is his friend who trusts him to be on his best behaviour, to not further compromise the operation. No way he's gonna, say, randomly take potshots at pedestrians in this context. The next step, after dumping the redundant cars, is for all three men to get in Eddie's car and pick up the diamonds before returning to the warehouse. The same principle applies here - it is decidedly against Blond's self-preservation instinct to do anything mischievous. Put him in shotgun, Pink or White behind him and Eddie obviously keeps driving. And you know what, if he did try and shoot at a passing ambulance car, then the guy behind is more than justified in putting a bullet in the back of his skull, and not even Eddie (much less you guys debating for the other side) would be able to contest that action. Rewinding back to when they're in the argument in the warehouse about this, Eddie should be figuring (or at least open to persuasion about this) that the operation is unstable enough just with the rat in the house. And he ''knows'' from no less than three witnesses that Blond went crazy in the store. If I were Eddie, I'd want to take him along myself, just to keep the closest watch possible. Again, after being persuaded about this and as to Orange and Nash's respective values by White and Pink.