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One of the best films of the year, Sinners, is already streaming on HBO Max, so now is the perfect time to revisit Ryan Coogler‘s horror masterpiece. Although it’s a standalone movie, it’s rare nowadays to watch stories with such well-established lore on the big screen, from the Smokestack twins’ (both Michael B. Jordan) past as World War I veterans, to Remmick’s (Jack O’Connell) past as an Irish vampire. But there are still some gaps in there, like how the twins became rich so suddenly while living in Chicago and how exactly Remmick ended up in the Mississippi Delta. All of those are primarily left to interpretation — the twins are indeed very resourceful, and vampires are usually unfathomably old, right? — but the answers are available for those who know where to look in unexpected places.
Gone are the days when DVDs brought with them tons of extra features about their movies, like making-of and other hidden details. Coogler, however, is clearly one of us and misses these awesome features, so he did hide some of them on the internet, only in a rather unusual place: Spotify. There’s much more than just the score and soundtrack in the movie’s Spotify profile, and the “About” section works pretty much as a DVD extra features section. The opening monologue is all there, for example, but there are also three newspaper clippings that greatly expand on the mysteries the movie doesn’t answer.
The Smokestack Twins Were Once Bank Robbers in the Mississippi Delta
One of the most frequently asked questions in Sinners is how exactly the Smokestack twins suddenly return home filthy rich. They never answer it directly, and it’s implied that they got lucky while working in Chicago. That’s not actually it, though, and one of the newspaper clippings goes into detail. On February 9, 1924, a local newspaper reported that a bank was violently robbed in Clarksdale, MS by two individuals who “looked so alike, almost like they could’ve been twins” — Clarksdale, of course, is Smoke and Stack’s hometown. The piece continues, saying that one of the robbers was clearly the brains and acted smoothly and calculatedly, while the other was the brawn, using brute force to get people to comply. It ends by reporting that the robbers escaped with “a significant sum,” and that they could be connected to other heists in nearby towns.
Although they are not identified in the report, the heist was obviously the work of the twins, and they can even be seen in the picture on the front page. As soon as they return to Clarksdale at the beginning of the movie, everyone they knew is immediately worried, because they know what Smoke and Stack are capable of. The twins do get the respect they’re owed for their service in World War I and for being important members of the local community, but their interactions with the locals always have that underlying feeling of trouble. Also, Smoke and Stack have always been like two sides of the same coin, looking the same, but with completely different aptitudes, just like the newspaper says about the robbers. So, the mystery about the money is solved, but how did they come across so much top-quality alcohol to sell in their juke joint?
The Twins Are World War I Veterans, but They Also Have a Shady Past in Chicago
World War I raged from 1914 to 1919, meaning that the Smokestack twins had 13 years of moving around the U.S. doing their thing. The warfare knowledge they acquired in Europe certainly came in handy during their heists in the Mississippi Delta, but there is another period in their history filled with mystery. When they return home to the South, it is after having spent years in Chicago working for the local mob. Smoke is even asked why he isn’t in Chicago working for Al Capone. Of course, the legendary mobster was convicted of tax evasion in 1931, a year before the events of Sinners. In the meantime, according to another newspaper clipping available on Spotify, things were very tense in Chicago after the fall of Capone’s Outfit, and it’s suggested that the twins had a hand in aggravating it.
The clipping is from October 5, 1932, shortly before Smoke and Stack return to the South. In it, a local Chicago newspaper reports on several clashes between the Irish mob and the Italian mafia in Chicago, with one accusing the other of stealing their alcohol shipments. The Irish complained about their missing goods, while the Italians were furious about their own stock being stolen. It’s important to note that this took place during the prohibition, so all alcohol was illegal. While there isn’t any direct mention of twins having acted at all, like there was in the Clarksdale heist, the connection is obvious. It’s an Irish beer that Smoke offers Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo) to convince him to play at the juke joint. Irish beer and Italian wine both flow heavily later during the joint’s opening night, and the twins never clearly admit how they got the goods.
This particular clipping is also interesting because it relates to how Smoke and Stack present themselves once they return home. When they first show up, picking up their young cousin Sammie (Miles Caton) for a ride, Smoke is wearing a blue paddy cap, and Stack is wearing a red fedora, hinting at their connections to the Irish and Italian mobs, respectively. Even when they aren’t wearing hats, Smoke is usually presented in blue tones, while Stack is often seen in red. The colors themselves are also a nod to how Stack eventually turns and becomes a vampire, who even have glowing red eyes, while Smoke remains human. The hats, though, are all about their past as mobsters.
Remmick’s Arrival in the U.S. Is Also Documented
The main villain in Sinners, Remmick himself, is a mystery. He shows up all of a sudden on the brink of death, and steadily grows his own following by turning people from all backgrounds into vampires. His whole arc in the movie is wanting to get Sammie, because his gift of music transcends time and reaches even the dead, so Remmick wants to be reunited with his own people. Remmick is Irish, of course, as he lets on by having his peers sing the traditional Irish folk song “The Rocky Road to Dublin” and his natural accent after he stops pretending to be from the South. His age is never revealed, but the fact that he resents Christianity being forced upon his people implies that he is many centuries old. Thankfully, one of the newspaper clippings on Spotify points us in the right direction.
A local Boston newspaper reports on the arrival of an Irish immigrant ship, the Celtic Hare, arriving at the harbor on August 1, 1911, but with a twist. The ship was also a complete wreck, with “blood-soaked decks, burned remnants, and a haunting silence.” No one survived, and no bodies were found. Reports from the previous night say that lights could be seen flickering aboard, as if a celebration was taking place. The only report on survivors comes from a woman who claims to have seen “a lone man fleeing the scene, his skin reportedly smoking as he disappeared into the shadows.” While that doesn’t necessarily confirm that man was Remmick (it could have been someone else he turned, since there were no bodies), we meet him in Sinners this exact same way as he is running from the Choctaw vampire hunters. Regardless, that’s how his 21-year-long bloody journey across the U.S. began.
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