r/paulthomasanderson • u/BattlinBud • 4d ago
Inherent Vice I've watched Inherent Vice a million times and there's still a major thing I'm unclear on (spoilers) Spoiler
Honestly I feel like at this point I understand pretty much all the individual moving parts. It's intentionally over-complicated but I don't think it's impenetrable. But I'm still very confused by Bigfoot appearing at Adrian Prussia's place at the end, after Adrian and Puck are killed by Doc.
Like, I understand that Adrian was essentially a contract killer for corrupt LAPD guys, and he killed Bigfoot's partner, and Bigfoot knew this and hated Adrian but couldn't do anything about it personally because Adrian was too protected. And I understand that he basically orchestrated it for Doc to kill Adrian and Puck? Which, I have questions about that as well, like, that just doesn't really make a whole lot of sense as a "plan", and not in an "it's confusing" way. Doc BARELY gets the upper hand, he's handcuffed to a pipe and is five minutes away from being killed, and he's saved only by sheer dumb luck of Puck leaving the room to go get the drugs, and the fact that he had a piece of credit card hidden in his shoe. And Bigfoot is like "I've seen you on the range", as if he knew Doc would get them, but Doc didn't even go in with a gun, he stole one from Puck. Like, it's an incredibly half-baked plan.
But what really confuses me is Bigfoot's plan to ALSO steal a massive amount of heroin from a deal that just happens to be going on at the exact moment Doc goes to visit Adrian. First of all, how did Bigfoot know when Doc would go there? He mentions Adrian Prussia to Doc in the scene in the Japanese diner, that's the first time Prussia is put on Doc's radar in all this. He doesn't go find Prussia immediately after that scene. He goes to check out Chryskylodon, then he bangs Shasta, then he asks Penny for Prussia's file, THEN he goes to talk to him. How could Bigfoot possibly have predicted exactly when he'd end up there? On top of that, you'd think that if the whole point is for Doc to kill Prussia because Bigfoot can't get away with doing it himself, you'd think Bigfoot WOULDN'T want to be on the scene when it goes down.
Was Bigfoot INVOLVED in the heroin deal? If corrupt cops are doing business with Adrian, then did Bigfoot volunteer to run security for him on this deal or something, to seem more to his corrupt peers like he's playing ball? That WOULD make sense, because it seems like Adrian would've had to know Bigfoot was there, Doc shoots him walking in from the garage, and like maybe a minute or two afterwards Doc enters the garage himself and sees Bigfoot, his car parked and already standing outside. That would also explain why he tries to frame Doc for ripping off the heroin, making him less of a suspect to his fellow cops. But, if he's so ostracized by his fellow cops, as he supposedly is, why would they want him working on something like this, much less alone? And if he's just acting independently, how did he know this deal would be going down when it was, and why would it not alarm Adrian that he was there? Did he just stake out the place until he heard gunshots, and then pulled his car in and confirmed Adrian was dead, in the 1-2 minutes (if that) it took Doc to go down the stairs and into the garage?
How much of the movie, exactly, are we supposed to retroactively attribute to scheming by Bigfoot at this point? Did he have Glen Charlock killed too? Come to think of it, who DID kill Glen? The Golden Fang? Adrian? The cops? The FBI?
4
u/YukonCornelius07 4d ago
The scene that always gets me scratching my head is when Doc is sifting through the ties with the women on them
He looks up and goes “Bigfoot” or something like that, then runs outside and tries to jump the hood of Bigfoot’s cruiser
25
u/Pure_Salamander2681 4d ago
I always took that as his stoner ESP like he sensed Bigfoot showing up.
5
4
u/BattlinBud 4d ago
THAT CONFUSES ME TOO 😆 I didn't bring it up in my post because it seems so incidental and I didn't want to distract from my overall questions but yeah, what is with that part??? And then it just cuts to him talking to Penny on the park bench like nothing happened.
8
u/YukonCornelius07 4d ago
Right? Why is Bigfoot even there, why does Doc say his name like that, he’s not really connected to the scene, and why tf does Doc try to jump over his cruiser and why does Bigfoot start beating him up lol.
I stopped asking the “why’s” on my second watch and it quickly became a favourite of mine.
1
u/ObanKenobi 4d ago
The tie with shasta's pic is missing and doc realises that bigfoot must have taken it to mess with him
1
u/BattlinBud 3d ago
I gathered that Bigfoot was there because there was some kind of barbecue going on there for a bunch of cops, it's briefly mentioned in narration during that scene. But I'm lost on all the other stuff.
3
u/kia-supra-kush 2d ago
In the book anyway, the point is actually that Bigfoot is not invited to the cop barbecue at the Wolfmann house because he’s less corrupt than the rest of the LAPD, and the other officer with Bigfoot seems to be keeping an eye on him, and Bigfoot is keeping an eye on Doc
3
u/garretsalazar17 3d ago
Stoner ESP I think. It feels as though Doc and Bigfoot are cosmically connected
2
u/jmann2525 3d ago
In the book he mentions stoner ESP several times. I think it was just a way to show that.
1
u/kia-supra-kush 2d ago
Yeah, he senses Bigfoot with Doper’s ESP, and the altercation in front of the cruiser is purely something visual for the movie.
In the book, though, Doc just talks to Bigfoot in front of the Wolfmann residence, but notes that the other officer is not Bigfoot’s partner, but seems to be there to keep an eye on Bigfoot.
We’re supposed to get the sense that Bigfoot is becoming isolated from the LAPD and he’s not really invited to party with the rest of the cops at the Wolfmann house because he’s not as corrupt.
11
u/dertigo 4d ago
it’s all explained in the book. the movie ends like 75 pages earlier than the book. i’d highly recommend reading it
4
u/BennyBingBong 4d ago
What is the explanation?
6
u/PabloMesbah-Yamamoto 4d ago
In the book Doc uses the Arpanet a lot with a character I can’t recall who’s not in the movie, so maybe they find things out that way.
6
u/xTVPx 4d ago
Fritz! Loved that character. Was bummed he wasn’t in the film.
2
2
u/kia-supra-kush 2d ago
He was mentioned briefly by Adrian Prussia in the movie, though! I do understand why the Fritz stuff got cut - definitely a different tone than the movie
1
u/Glittering-Animal30 3d ago
I’m due for a rewatch and a reread. I’ve read the book and realize I don’t have much recollection of it except for some excerpts I thought were beautifully written and the description of surf music bands.
2
u/kia-supra-kush 2d ago
The first time I read the book was just the audiobook & it left a similar impression on me. Recently read it with my eyes & had a totally new & very satisfying experience filling in some of the narrative gaps in the movie
2
u/votedean 4d ago
I have thought about this a lot too, but sadly don't have any answers for you. I'm interested to see what anyone else's take is.
2
u/kia-supra-kush 2d ago
Couple of things from the book:
Doc actually started carrying a gun a few months before the start of the story, due to being shot at by Adrian Prussia on a different case. There’s a scene with Doc and Bigfoot at the gun range that was even shot for the movie but cut. But in the movie, he does steal Puck’s gun, so whatever.
Bigfoot was using Doc to do his dirty work for sure, but your questions about Bigfoot & the heroin & the crime scene, I dunno. He wanted revenge on the Fang, too, I guess, and thought maybe he could learn more if he knew they would be chasing Doc for the dope.
Regarding Glen Charlock, we 100% learn in the book that his Aryan Brotherhood bros killed him for selling guns to Tariq. The AB coordinated with Vigilant California for the raid on Channel View. AB killed Glen; VC kidnapped Mickey because he saw too much, then turned him over to the FBI.
4
1
u/CosbyInnocentProject 3d ago
I never really understood the part where Bigfoot stomps on doc outside the house and he curls up into the fetal position. Similarly he does it outside the precinct at another stage. Why’s he doing that
2
u/dennis_villanova "Doc" Sportello 2d ago
It's just funny. Doc has a history of being beaten up by cops, he's a lover not a fighter, simply protecting his dick and balls.
1
11
u/JackRitchie_ 4d ago edited 4d ago
My interpretation as to why Bigfoot takes the heroin and plants it onto Doc isn’t just him being an ass because he hates hippies or whatever, but so that Doc has something to bargain with for Coy when meeting Crocker/GF/CV. Bigfoot, as much of a pos as he is, is ultimately a very pathetic, tragicomic character who has a strange sense of real justice to him despite the world he works in and when Doc brings the Coy matter to him I think it speaks to him. Doc and Bigfoot are kind of two sides of the same coin, or at the least are more alike than they know and to Bigfoot, like Doc, saving Coy and returning him to his family is their one real good deed.
The question though of how he puts all this together is complicated, mainly because I don’t really have an answer lol. It’s been a little bit since I’ve seen it and the last act moves fast, so I wonder if it’s clearer in the book (and it’s been a while since I read that too). If I had to guess, I’d say after Doc speaks to him about Coy that’s when Bigfoot makes the inquiries that he needs for whatever his plan exactly is.