Screenshot: Lionsgate Knives Out is a miraculous film for many reasons, but chief among them is Trooper Wagner, the junior officer of the team investigating mystery author Harlan Thrombey’s suicide/possible murder. Rather than writing yet another good cop/bad cop or by the books/rogue cop dynamic, Rian Johnson gives us Detective Lieutenant Elliott, laconic and deadpan in the face of the Thrombey family’s privileged cluelessness, paired with with Trooper Wagner, a starstruck fan of both Thrombey’s mystery novels and Mr. Benoit Blanc, Gentleman Detective. Trooper Wagner doesn’t even try to investigate the crime—he’s much too excited to just sit back and watch it unfold around him, like his very own murder mystery dinner party.