The best suggestion from the discussion thread- months back- the cooks' pantry. Those are definitely items they'd have on hand for their own meals.

That does make sense! I doubt they would eat the high end ingredients themselves all the time!

Didn't he say they had everything?

yea, repeatedly.

its not surprising if they would have everything even if they dont cook it for the guests

If you saw Erin in his office she saw that he used to be a a world class burger chef, so I'm guessing he always has those ingredients to hand

Slowik would never serve someone tainted food. If he wanted to kill her he wouldn’t have let her leave.

Lol I don’t think he was a world class burger chef, I think the picture more represented his days when cooking actually brought him joy and accomplishment. He was proud of making that burger when he was young. No doubt it was good, but don’t think he won awards for it

Good point! I just thought it odd they mentioned it but then it wasn't a plot point

Ground beef for a hamburger is raw from the cuts of meat, it is not smoked like sausage.

Yeah, it's crazy how many people missed the theme/point of the movie. Slowik didn't just enjoy killing people for no reason. He was obsessed with the idea of turning all the people who'd made his life hell into his magnum opus. He had no reason to kill Erin. She was the one person there who made him genuinely happy, and who had done nothing to deserve to be there.

That dramatic beat at the end of the movie wasn't there to hint at another twist, it was to convey the transformation that Erin had gone through.

Only an Employee of the Month award, which he treasured.

Oh yeah 🤔

I think it was there for humor and as one of the first hints that something is a bit off about the workers and the restaurant.

The only questionable thing to me is the American cheese. I cant ever see a chef like that using american cheese on anything but a cheeseburger.

You say this, and I get your point, but I think it’s meant to be a point of contention; the foreshadowing for the bad meat is NOT subtle, and the pay off is how she chokes on it the while on the boat in the closing seconds. It’s there to make you doubt what’s happening. Personally, I find it unlikely that he’d kill her that way, I think the director has said so himself, but the film is posing that question. It’s being impish.

Not this stupid theory again. The lady's explanation in the smokehouse was a tad hyperbolic for narrative effect. There is no meat that becomes a deadly poison because it's aged 1 day more. I also don't think it is in Chef's character at all to serve tainted meat especially in a burger (the nostalgia in his eyes as he cooked it showed he was proud of it).

The foreshadowing on the bad meat is to show how morbid the staff are and how close to death the customers are without knowing it. It doesn't need a physical payoff where it's used to kill someone.

Also, as someone else pointed out, you would never use aged meat for a classic hamburger. The difference in taste would be immediately apparent.

It’s Chekhov’s gun. Don’t show the ingredients can be deadly if you don’t intend to flirt with it. I think they’re plenty of ways you can illustrate that same point, not that you need to, the film already established this without needing it… also, the film closes on her having a coughing fit. That’s not an accident. Lol

Hahah indeed. Looked like a fast food place. And he was lovin' it.

It's actually a really fantastic cheese to use for cheese sauces in a pinch because American cheese is made with sodium citrate, which emulsifies the cheeses together, so its perfect for something like macaroni and cheese or a mornay sauce. Granted a restaurant of their caliber might straight up have sodium citrate.

A "coughing fit"? You need to watch the ending again. I can't even find a moment where she chokes or coughs, let alone a whole fit. She sits down, panting (from exertion and adrenaline), gasps at the explosion, gets out the burger, takes a bite, wipes her mouth with the menu, takes a second bite, and a clap signals the cut to credits.

Anyway, this is moot because the director said the fan theory was wrong. Margot survives.

I too am the type of whore who prefers a burger

Ok 2 things; first, I think she lives as well, and I’ve even said the director said as much earlier. But I did think she had a cough at the end of the film- but I’m more than happy to admit I’m wrong on this if that’s not the case. There’s 0 chance I’m sitting through any of that again.

They have everything

they said that they had everything during Tyler’s trial, so I think that’s why they had the cheese. Plus American cheese is still a common ingredient in sauces and those things

I mean, "death of the author" and all that, you're welcome to interpret the movie any way you'd like. But you can't build a convincing case by saying that the director must have intended foreshadowing when they explicitly said they didn't.

Holeman & Finch, serving arguably the best burger available in Atlanta, uses American cheese. Chef Linton Hopkins is pretty dogmatic about this.

"World class burger chef" bro he was employee of the month at a greasy spoon lmao

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If she died anyway it would defeat the purpose of the message and theme. She got to live because she wants one of those bad food enjoyers, or art enjoyers since food is a stand in for art in this movie.

Wtf are you on about? Why does it matter? They have it to have it. They said they had everything.

He was a monster but a principled one.

He was really struggling with her presence the entire movie. She brought him joy in cooking - which is what he was punishing everyone else for.

That cheeseburger was the real deal. She's fine.

And it probably was the cheeseburger that reminded her of what it was like to eat her first cheeseburger.

That lady said things for the effect of it. Not only isn't it true 'out of the movie for us' but it wasn't true in the movie either. She was playing the part of the entertainer. She was asked a question with a boring answer, she made the answer melodramatic. Isn't her fault if some damned fool runs with it after the show.

I didn’t particularly like the end. I loved the concept of the movie. I was thinking it was going to be a TOTALLY different movie. I thought it was great. But the ending just wasn’t what I was expecting how to end. It kinda just hit a wall and she end up leaving. Yes I understand she got to bring joy back to his cooking before s’more. But I guess what I’m saying is I was expecting the end to have more. To be held to the level of the beginning.

There's a whole theory that it was planned for Margot/Erin to act as she did. Slowick deduced she was an escort immediately or even just from reservations. The photo was placed for her to discover in the same sense the radio was.

Ultimately he didn't know if she would actually ask him to make a burger just a hope that she would put two and two together in an attempt at her own self-preservation. He had the burger ingredients and the take out boxes brought to the island specifically as late as once the guest arrive.

Something also about a final test for Elsa who always wanted to enter the chef's living quarters but never was allowed, and now here this stranger is whose allowed to.

Idk in general I don't care for the theory because it removes the agency of Margot/Erin but it's an interesting thought.

Ooh that IS an interesting theory!

It's a world class kitchen and the chef said they had everything, so that's the answer.

If you want more of an explanation than that, keep in mind that the restaurant had been up and running for a while, serving any number of diners any number of dishes. Plus, everyone who was living on the island would need a variety of food to eat themselves.

Any theorizing about why he had the ingredients other than "it's a kitchen and they have ingredients for food so people can eat" is nonsense.

As to your second question, the answer is No. She found a way to play his game and get out according to dining rules, plus she gave him back something he had lost: the joy of cooking. He never wanted or intended to kill her, so he was happy to find a loophole to let her leave.

The S'More thing.... they were too passive.

I feel like I am missing something I might understand on a rewatch.

He said to them, 'You should have fought back! You might have won!' and then they sat all passive for the S'more thing.

Vegetarian here too lol but you know I went straight to Red Robin after the movie to order an Impossible Cheeseburger!

I think you are reading into the meat locker but a to much personally. She had a will to live constantly trying to find away out. She fought for her life against the woman see killed and looked for away to make a connection with the chef. The others did not they only cared about themselves even chef says to the others if they had actually tired a little they would have gotten away.

The chef repeatedly said during the entire run of the film "we have everything".

Because they, like him, all understood what they were signing up for and accepted it by the end.

On some level, they all hated themselves the way he hated himself, so it was sorta their admission to themselves he's right and they deserved it.

This is also in stark contrast to Erin, who truly did everything to make it out of there alive, she had a will to live none of them had.

He never said he didn’t intend that from what I recall, but I’m clearly far from the only one who saw that as a clumsy piece of foreshadowing. Having already accepted I remember the end of the film wrongly, I’m not quite sure why that got downvoted since much.

I am sure you are correct. The only other explanation I can think of runs contrary to what I think his character is - that he drugged them.

Mucking with food like that is below him. To him food is sacred. Besides, if he had drugged them we would have to talk about the taste of the drugs when he is encouraging people to savor the food.

So short of another idea, yeah, you got it.

>how morbid the staff are and how close to death the customers are without knowing it

Also how there is a relationship of inherent trust between customers and chefs insofar as customers trust chefs to be safe and not poison them.

>Slowik didn't just enjoy killing people for no reason.

I mean... he kinda did.

Killing someone because they went to Brown with no financial aid is.. funny, certainly, but there's no real principle to it.

I loved the movie. But what confused me about the ending was that he seemingly let Erin go free because she’d done nothing wrong and didn’t belong there.

But was totally fine killing that girl who went to Brown with no student debt and didn’t have a reason to be killed like everyone else seemed to.

Was it because she made him happy about cooking? So he’s totally okay killing innocent people just not ones that make him happy?

Staff meal. Chefs cook for the restaurant employees before service. They probably had chickey fingers too

He might make the cheeseburger and fries in secret for himself.

A person who went to brown with no student debt couldn’t be innocent, is the point

Don’t think too deeply. It’s a movie. You think too deeply you start to think, hey, if that guy wanted to make burgers he could have closed his insufferable art joint and flipped burgers, but he chose to serve entitled twits instead. What the hell is he moaning about. See?

Yep Slowic was definitely Lawful Evil. If he killed you, he had a defensible reason to do so.

To my knowledge many highly lauded chefs love American cheese in dishes. I’ve seen it on countless occasions