Us: Everything You Missed On The First Watch | All Double Meanings, References, Easter Eggs & Foreshadowing Explained

Love it or hate it, Us is incredibly dense so we thought we’d put together a list of everything you missed first watch.

This video contains things I noticed as well as twitter user eveewing who has just created an entire thread on Twitter that Jordan Peele even retweeted. Click here to go to their profile >

From here on out, it’s full spoilers ahead, so if you don’t want to know anything about the movie I highly recommend that you turn off now.

With that out the way, I’m Deffinition and lets get into the full list of everything you missed from your first watch of us!

Us Everything You Missed First Watch

Ok so the first big thing that you pick up from the opener of the film is the Thriller shirt that young Adelaide is given at the carnival.

In the infamous music video for that song, Michael Jackson not only transforms into a werewolf but also a zombie which confirms the notion of duality.

When discussing the choice of the Thriller Tee, Jordan Peele, the film’s director said:

“the duality with which I experienced him [Jackson] in that time was both as the guy that presented this outward positivity, but also the ‘Thriller’ video which scared me to death.”

In addition to this Michael Jackson also made the song, ‘Man In The Mirror’ which is a motif that plays heavily into the house of mirror scene.

Zora And The White Rabbit

Zora, the daughter of the Wilsons, is training to be an athlete and her father Gabe suggest that she should run in the sand under suboptimal conditions to get better at running. This is why she is no match for Umbrae who easily chases her down due to the fact that she has been trained to run underground and is therefore faster and stronger.

The name Umbrae— means “the dark moon shadow that causes an eclipse” which ties heavily into the shadows, which is what The Tethered refer to themselves as, rising.

In addition to this, Zora also wears a shirt with a white Rabbit on before changing it in the film to one that says “thỏ” which means Rabbit in vietnamese.

Those who’ve seen the Matrix will be familiar with the fact that White Rabbits are often references to Alice In Wonderland which this film too has tonnes of nods towards.

In Alice in Wonderland, Alice follows a white rabbit into an underground world that is a weird, uncanny version of her own.

Adelaide’s childhood toy is also a white rabbit and when she sees it in the house the repressed memories from her childhood come back. When entering the subtarean tunnel, the first thing Adelaide sees is a single white rabbit.

If that doesn’t confirm the ties there’s also the sequel to Alice In Wonderland which is called ‘Through The Looking Glass’ in which Alice climbs through a mirror to discover a distorted version of her own universe.

Another item of Clothing worn by Zora is a badge with a Raven on it. The Raven is a story by Edgar Allen Poe in which a man is haunted at night by an otherworldly visitor that won’t leave him alone.

Red even begins their first encounter almost like a story by stating “Once upon a time there was a girl. And the girl had a shadow.” which further cements the literary notion of the film.

The Spider And Red

Early on in the film we see a scene in which a living spider emerges from underneath a fake one, much in the same way that the real Adelaide emerges to start her quest for revenge against the fake one.

When entering the house of Mirrors, The Real Adelaide whistles ‘The Itsy Bitsy Spider’ and this thematically shows that she is coming back to take over.

At the beach we meet The Wilson’s family friends who have twin daughters. Again this continues the duality mirroring and showcases that there are doubles for everyone. It’s also at the beach scene that we see a red frisbee covering up a blue circle on a towel. This symbolises red coming to take over.

Red’s Movements

When entering the house, Red moves at weird right angles and later when she fights her movements are very deliberate and square. This is because she is used to living underground and having to move through the tunnel.

She also knows that the key is hidden under the rock which is a dead giveaway that she has lived on the surface before.

Throughout the fight, Red tends to stick to the shadows whilst Adelaide fights in the light, once again showcasing their duality.

When Adelaide escapes from the house, she starts running around handcuffed to herself, however, she manages to break this which of course shows the seperation from Red.

At the beach we learn that Kitty has had some form of plastic surgery and her shadow, Dahlia, tries to copy this by cutting herself with scissors.

The Scissors

The scissors two represent the opposing sides of the character’s personalities. Their design looks like heads facing in opposite directions and they can either be brought closer together or moved further apart but if one side of the scissor moves, the opposite side moves with it.

The Title

And finally, the title itself, in the film Adelaide states ‘we are Americans’ and the title ‘Us’ of course can be changed to stand for ‘United States.’

The film hammers home the idea that the Us needs to look at itself with the hands across America finale and it’s definitely another double meaning to add to the pile.

Your Thoughts

And that’s everything you missed on a first watch. Obviously with a film this dense there’s going to be a tonne of things that I missed to, so if you noticed anything that wasn’t in the list, make sure you leave it in the comments below.

If you enjoyed this video then please like it and share it with your friends and make sure you check out my fan theory on why Jason isn’t the real Jason, which will be linked at the end.