"I want to play a game." - Saw

All still movie images used in this are property of Lionsgate Films, but are also used under I guess review or commentary laws, I'm not sure, I'm not a lawyer. 

Something a Little Different and Spooky

Hello, everyone!

Welcome to the second part of a special little article series. Inspired by Dan Sheehan's podcast Pie Break - on which I have guested a number of times covering Chips, Sodas, Pasta Sauces, and Game of Thrones - I'll be covering some characters in the Saw franchise and determining their color identity. I spoke to Dan, and he's good with me running this as a one-off for a topic that he likely won't be touching ever, so it's kismet!

Will it be every character? No, but I cover many. Check out part one for reference. 

You can't assign a color identity without discussing core facts about the characters. So, that said...

A SPOILER ALERT IS IN EFFECT FOR ALL SAW MOVIES AND ALSO TRIGGER WARNING FOR A TON OF STUFF!

SAW V

The Era of Hoffman is upon us!

Detective Mark Hoffman

Nothing can prepare you for the absolutely bonkers performance Costas Mandylor gives throughout the series. From the confrontation with Jigsaw where he sing-yells "You didn't see what he f$@kin' did ta' hah!" to the absolute nonstop mess of a rampage he goes on in his final movie. Oh, and there's the post-credit scene in Saw X where Hoffman delivers the line "I call that...epic bad luck." I freaking love this franchise.

Mark Hoffman is a detective who we are introduced to in Saw IV as one of Jigsaw's victims; he's linked to Eric Matthews. The trap is designed to electrocute Hoffman when Eric dies. But that's the thing: when Eric's head is crushed by two comically large ice bricks, Art is shot in the head, and Rigg is succumbing to his wound. But where's Hoffman? Standing over Rigg because, holy hell, Hoffman's been working with Jigsaw this whole time!

Detective Hoffman's story is that his sister was murdered by Seth Baxter, a man who begins Saw V in a trap where he completes the task and dies anyway, so we can assume this isn't a real Jigsaw trap. That's because Hoffman made the trap. And with inferior blades, to boot. Hoffman straight up murdered his sister's murderer. Jigsaw found out. Jigsaw captures Hoffman and confronts him. Ultimatum time: turn me in and I'll turn you in, or we can work together, but you have to learn how to do it right. 

Hoffman is now Jigsaw's apprentice, and he has a contentious relationship with Amanda Young. They're like siblings who fight all the time. Hoffman blackmails Amanda into killing Lynn. Hoffman sets up Peter Strahm to look like one of Jigsaw's apprentices. Hoffman slashes and stabs a whole precinct and puts Jill Tuck in the reverse bear trap after she put him in one at the end of Saw VI. Hoffman freaking survives the reverse bear trap by jamming the opening in a door's bars. Eventually, after killing Jill Tuck, we get the reveal of Lawrence Gordon being a hidden accomplice to Jigsaw's endeavors. He traps Hoffman in the famous bathroom and locks him in without a saw. 

Hoffman is the most dedicated, resilient, and rampaging member of Jigsaw's team. He is the epitome of evil and wrong. He is also the perfect villain to hate and root for at the same time. Hoffman is an incredible character. It is my honor to bestow him in my favorite color pair. If there's a Hoffman card ever, I will build the deck. 

COLOR: RED - BLACK (Rakdos) perhaps the most a card can be. A case can be made for Grixis, but let me have this one. 

Special Agent Dan Erickson

Special Agent Erickson might be the dumbest boss in this franchise, and that's saying something. 

Erickson decides to keep Perez a secret from Hoffman and Strahm since she didn't actually die. He doesn't spend any time asking Perez what she thinks or establish an alibi for Strahm and instead he just blindly follows some of the laziest breadcrumbs Hoffman is leaving behind to frame Strahm. 

Erickson is the kind of guy who got into a position of power somehow and let that fact get to his head while doing nothing to improve. He is gullible and stupid and if we ever got a card for him, it'd be one of those cards that you gift to an opponent to make things worse for them. 

COLOR: WHITE or BLUE or both (Azorius), but he sucks and would be worth less than a common in the set. 

The Saw V gang of five

I debated giving these guys each their own section, and since William Easton and others who are part of the main game are getting their own, why not them? And the reason is because they are a unit. They don't learn their lesson, which is that they should have all worked together from the beginning and they could have survived. They take each other out one by one, moving from room to room, booby trapped with nail bombs. 

Ashley Kazon, Charles Salomon, Luba Gibbs, Brit Stevenson, and Mallick Scott are all complicit in a plot to take over a part of real estate so they can put up condos or something. There was a cover up of a crime: a house was set on fire where they wanted to develop and nobody was supposed to be home, but they were and it was a murder via arson. Ashley was the firefighter or fire tech who falsified documents, Charles was the journalist who buried the story, Luba took bribes as a top person at the Department of City Planning, and Brit is the Vice President of the real estate company hoping to build on that land. And Mallick? He's the nepo baby drug addict who set the place on fire. They die in that order, too. Brit and Mallick have their arms split down the middle from between their fingers to their elbows to pass the final part of the test. Mallick is alive and seen in Saw 3D, but Brit is believed to be alive as well. 

They were greedy and corrupt. They knew what they were doing and it was conniving. They staunchly uphold rules except for themselves. That feels Orzhov but dare I posit an Esper even. 

COLOR: WHITE - BLUE - BLACK (Esper)

SAW VI

"That's it?" Yeah, Strahm is a big part of Saw V, and we covered him already!

William Easton

This might be my favorite Saw movie. William Easton is the senior Vice President of an insurance company called Umbrella Health, and in Saw VI, we get to watch the head of an insurance company have to go through painful traps for coming up with a policy that takes money and doesn't pay out when it's time. Chef's kiss. Insurance companies are a symptom of the capitalist disease. I digress. 

The plot of Saw VI kicks off when William denies John Kramer's request for insurance coverage for an experimental treatment for his cancer. John says "We have it all wrong in the west. Did you know in the east, people pay their doctors when they're healthy?" Now, I'm not about to fact check Saw VI, but what I will say is "Piranha".

William Easton also denied coverage to a man named Harold Abbott who needs money for heart disease treatments. He was denied due to a "potential preexisting condition" because he had gum surgery decades prior. They've paid their premium for years, and now Abbott's getting no help at all. 

Naturally, Easton ends up in a trap where he has to run around a warehouse where he has the lives of employees in his hands. The traps require Easton to sacrifice himself to save people; however, Jigsaw is encouraging William to follow his own policy.

He immediately betrays his own policy. For example, when confronted with the choice of saving his lone bachelor assistant with no family or his elderly secretary who is ill and has a family, he chooses to save his secretary rather than following his own company policy.

William literally says "Those are the rules" at some point, and he makes the freaking rules! But he believes it. He believes he's at the mercy of a law: the cycle of life and death.

COLOR: WHITE - BLACK - GREEN (Abzan)

The Abbott family

This'll be short, but I think this is a clear deal. The remaining Abbotts, Tara and Brent, are in a cage waiting for William at the end of the warehouse. "We're here because of your father," Tara says, misleadingly because this is the twist. The audience believes that William is Tara's husband and Brent's father. In another cage is a reporter. Because I've already tipped the hat, Tara and Brent are the Abbotts, as in Harold Abbott, the man fatally denied coverage for his ailment, so Tara is correct about the father thing. In the cage with the Abbotts is a giant jug of acid and a switch that says Live or Die. They try it, nothing happens. The movie ends with Easton making his way to the end with the cages. He greets the reporter, relieved. Brent and Tara snarl and recognize the man who killed their loved one. 

The reporter is Easton's sister. Brent and Tara are greeted by a video of Jigsaw - John himself, not Billy the Puppet - offering them a gift of sorts: They get to decide if William lives or dies. Tara tries to pull the switch, but can't do it. But Brent? Oh yeah, Brent can. And he does. A rack of syringes from the ceiling slams into Easton. They're attached to the acid jug and they fill his body, killing him gruesomely. 

This is three creatures as one, reminiscent of Trostani. Could this be a partner pairing of Harold as one card and Tara and Brent as another? Sure. Maybe a flip card that requires Harold to die before flipping to Tara/Brent. Selesnya feels right, but throw in that red for Brent's anger in the final moments of the movie. In the words of Dominic Toretto: Family. 

COLOR: WHITE - RED - GREEN (Naya) Partner pairing? Flip legends? Activated ability for color inclusion? Who knows! But they're a big catalyst for the movie. 

The Dog Pit

One of the absolute best traps in the history of Saw. The Dog Pit is a group of six Umbrella Health employees who share a space and exist to conduct background checks of their clients in an effort to find a reason - any reason - to deny their customers' claims. William beams with pride when they find one. 

They are in a trap called the carousel. They are strapped and spin around until they land in front of a shotgun. William can choose to impale his hands twice to save two people, meaning that four will die for sure. This is one of the best scenes in the Saw franchise. William saves two people before the final member of the Dog Pit, and that means that somebody gets to have the best "I quit" speech ever mustered... but it costs him his life! It's one of the most satisfying speeches. It's incredible. I love this scene. Watch this from the 6:40 mark and especially the 7:18 mark. 

They deal in information and using it against you. They are malicious and intend to be underhanded in their dealings. This just screams...

COLOR: BLUE - BLACK (Dimir)

SAW 3D: THE FINAL CHAPTER

Buckle up.

Bobby Dagen

Saw 3D: The Final Chapter is the most (unintentionally) hilarious entry in the franchise. I didn't say it was the worst (Jigsaw). I love this movie. I laugh so hard at it. There's bright spots, like Chester Benington (RIP) of Linkin Park playing a racist who dies. His screams are so gnarly. But then there's also Chad Donella's acting.

The plot of this one is kind of fun! Bobby Dagen is a guy who, one day at a bar with his friend, decided to start lying about having been in a Jigsaw trap. He's written a book. He's on the talk show circuit, he's doing book signings, he's cashed in on a lie that Jigsaw finds distasteful and offensive. 

This plot line gives us a confrontation between John and Bobby where Jigsaw decides to wear a backwards cap.

This movie is hilarious.

Bobby has assembled a team: his best friend Cale, his publicist Nina, and his lawyer Suzanne. They all know the secret and they're keeping it quiet. They are all in their own traps where they must depend on Bobby to save them, and folks: Bobby is bad at these macabre minigames. 

Bobby's wife Joyce gets the worst of it: she had no idea he lied. She believed him. She was just as betrayed. Every time Bobby fails a trap, she gets pulled closer and closer to the floor. When Bobby fails at the trap that he describes he has already lived through in his book, Joyce is trapped in a brazen bull and roasts to death. It's brutal and messed up and she didn't deserve this. Like I said, Jigsaw is, capital I, Inconsistent. 

In the end, Bobby Dagen saw a shortcut and wanted to see where it led. It's chaotic. It's greed. He represents stolen valour, in a sense. A thief and a liar. Something about him being a grifter feels like a tale as old as time and that gives me green vibes. 

COLOR: BLACK - GREEN (Golgari)

Officer Matt Gibson

One of my favorite performances in the entire franchise for the absolute wrong reasons. Jill Tuck goes to Gibson to rat out Hoffman and hopes for protection. Gibson brings Jill to a safe house and calls her crazy several times. I really wish I could find that part of the movie on YouTube, but we'll have to settle for Gibson teaching Jill about what "safe house" means.

Chad Donella is so poorly cast in this role, but also I can't imagine him really nailing much acting with this being the only thing I've seen him in. He is so abysmally bad that I remember him because I look forward to his garbage performance. In the movie that embraces the absolute over-the-top heights the franchise has hit and pairs it with campy stuff like 3D, dream sequences, and Officer Matt Gibson dying à la Breaking Bad. A standing ovation for this awful performance. Gibson accomplishes nothing and he is background noise. 

COLOR: GREEN

Jill Tuck

What can I say about Jill Tuck? 

I initially forgot to include her, but when I got to Saw 3D and wrote up Gibson, I was reminded of the series' second worst performance. Jill Tuck might as well be wallpaper for how little she gives. We're introduced to her in Saw III via John's flashback memory during his surgery when he tells Lynn "I love you". We don't learn anything else about her until Saw IV where she is featured as "Jigsaw's" wife and interrogated by Strahm pretty aggressively.

She was a good enough person to start the Homeward Bound Clinic, where many drug users were treated for their addiction. She has endured some trauma and hardships, what with Cecil slamming a door into her pregnant belly causing a miscarriage and her husband getting cancer then becoming the most infamous murderer in the area. She's dealt with a lot. This character is rich with subtlety in backstory that can be used for performance, but hats off to Betsy Russell for phoning in every appearance and giving us some fantastic moments that suck so hard you have to laugh. 

As part of John's will, Tuck is given a box of a new game and she unlocks it with a key on her necklace. This moment smacks of "when the time comes, you'll know" and is delivered with "teenagers programmed a robot" energy. There are several envelopes in the box. Hoffman comes to confiscate the box, but she keeps one envelope from there. Hoffman sets up the game, but at the end of Saw VI, Jill appears behind Hoffman, shocking him, and puts his head in a reverse bear trap. She reveals the final envelope was for him. 

Jill's purpose in this movie is to do the little things that tie up some loose ends. She delivers a video tape from John to Lawrence Gordon, she gets the new game in motion, she tells Special Agent Erickson that she is being followed by an officer.

From hiding in plain sight while trying to escape Hoffman to being repeatedly called crazy by Gibson, Jill Tuck is a character that is unfortunately extremely necessary. Her acting is awful and sometimes, you'll laugh about it. 

As far as color identity goes, I'm really at a loss. 

COLOR: WHITE? GREEN? COLORLESS?

JIGSAW

I don't wanna. 

Jigsaw sucked so much, I booed it in theatres and people applauded me. Jigsaw is so bad. They ruin the classic "game over". The twist in this one? Oh, another apprentice... okay. Oh, but the twist is it's also THE PAST?! Fine, whatever. This movie is just not even bad in a fun way like most of the franchise. It's just frustratingly bad. When I do a series rewatch, I forget about this one. 

Logan Nelson

Logan is a former military medic who came back and was changed. Throughout the movie, we see Logan as the competent medical examiner and the movie makes you wonder "Why this man? Why should we care?"

Logan is assisting Detective Halloran with "some sort of weird copycat Jigsaw case" ten years after John Kramer's death. He finds that it's really Jigsaw's blood at the scene and the voice recordings at scenes appear to be legit. Could this be some kind of new Jigsaw case? Logan and his medical examiner assistant Eleanor - who breaks up words in the most annoying way - can't shake the case, so they work with Halloran and do some investigating of their own. Even though Halloran is a real ass. He's corrupt. He runs criminal informants and keeps them out and about. Edgar Munsen, one of his CIs, murdered somebody and he's out on the streets!

Well, turns out Logan's messed up somebody's brain scan and didn't get news to a patient in time to help them with their cancer... OH, NO! WHO IN THE FRANCHISE HAS CANCER?

That's right, that's the basis for Logan being in a Jigsaw trap! He messes up results and Jigsaw decided to pop him in a torture barn. But John has a change of heart and pulls Logan out of the game while the other four move on to die. Jigsaw gets to know him and helps him heal from the PTSD of bombing innocent countries. They "heal" by creating the reverse bear trap. You must be thinking, "is Jigsaw a prequel?" And the answer is no, but for a very stupid reason!

Ugh. Logan Nelson is annoying. If there was ever a Saw movie to retcon and erase forever, it's this one, for many reasons, but mostly because of Logan Nelson. You see, Logan is yet another apprentice of Jigsaw's. He's actually the first! We get Jigsaw in the movie in the flashback to see the game from ten years ago and the framework Logan is using to frame Halloran as the new Jigsaw - quel homage! Edgar Munsen? Murdered Logan's wife! 

Well, hey, at least when Logan leaves Halloran to die, he learned the right line to say when a game is over, right? 

Wrong. He says "I speak for the dead" like some friggin' loser. 

Logan planned everything to a tee. He get the lessons direct from John himself. This man is Simic.

COLOR: BLUE - GREEN (Simic)

Detective Keith Hunt

This guy is basically a walking pair of handcuffs. I just really like this actor. 

COLOR: WHITE - BLUE (Azorius)

Detective Halloran

Whatever. He sucks. He's a corrupt cop who gets away with everything. I hate this movie and want to move on.

COLOR: Black.

Eleanor Bonneville

I will never forgive this actor for this. Sincerely, I cannot stand how bad that line read is. The fact that they made her say that instead of just "Jigsaw" or "f&$kin' Jigsaw" or like "oh, sheesh, it might be Jigsaw for real then, eh?" All of it would be better than this.

Anyway, Eleanor is good at her job and is a good partner for Logan in this side quest investigation. She's uniquely qualified, given that she's obsessed with Jigsaw and all. I completely forgot about this when I started writing. Eleanor is obsessed with the true crime that is Jigsaw to the point where she owns Jigsaw memorabilia, is an active member of a Jigsaw message board, and recreated one of his unused traps in a warehouse museum she rents.

Incredible character, terrible use of her. Wacky movie.

COLOR: WHITE - BLUE - RED

SPIRAL: FROM THE BOOK OF SAW

It is absolutely incredible we ever got to a tenth Saw movie considering Jigsaw and Spiral. There are truly not enough potentially important characters to really warrant an entry here, but I'm going to try to extrapolate something.

Detective Ezekiel Banks

Chris Rock loves Saw so much he did what it took to be in the universe. Spiral is the product of Chris Rock going to the studio and saying "What if Jigsaw's influence extends to another nondescript city?" I like this one just fine. It's got some great traps and a real grit to it. Some of the editing decisions are wild and the Jigsaw stand-in's recording voice is unsettling, but I beats the hell out of Jigsaw and frankly Saw III (Jeff SUUUUCKS). 

Rock plays Zeke Banks, a detective who saw an officer kill a witness and reported him. That cop gets sent to jail and gets out 20 years later and he now leads 12-step programs. The whole police department treats Zeke like some sort of pariah. He never gets backup anymore and nearly dies because of it. Zeke is trying to be a good cop. His retired chief of police father, Marcus Banks, and the current chief of police, Angie, covered up crimes. He gets partnered up with a rookie cop and they investigate deaths in the police department with Jigsaw-trap influence.

In the end, Zeke encounters the Jigsaw copycat and gets asked to join him in doing "justice" the Jigsaw way. Or he's going to kill Zeke's dad because of the corruption. Zeke chooses dad, copycat gets away, Zeke's dad dies because it looks like he's pulling guns on a S.W.A.T. team. Zeke's fate is unknown and I doubt we'll ever know.

Zeke is impulsive and angry, yet he always wants to do what's right. This one felt obvious immediately. 

COLOR: WHITE - RED

William Emmerson aka Detective William Schenk

The rookie cop. The rookie cop who points at a picture of Marcus Banks on his first day and says, "He's the whole reason I'm doing this." It's the rookie cop. Turns out that the whole time he was working with Zeke, Schenk was making up a backstory and murdering cops. Schenk is the Jigsaw copycat and really takes Zeke for a ride. 

Turns out the witness the officer murdered had a son. Zeke saw him hiding in the closet and signaled to him to keep hiding. That kid? William Emmerson. Marcus Banks covered it up until Zeke reported it. 

Schenk is motivated by revenge and extremely determined. He pulled the wool over the eyes of many. That screams shapeshifter sneakiness. 

COLOR: BLUE - BLACK - RED (Grixis: the shard of revenge)

Marcus Banks

Surprise! Chris Rock's dad is Samuel L. Jackson. Not much to say, but surprise!

Corrupt cop. Probably Esper or Dimir right? 

COLOR: WHITE - BLUE - BLACK (Esper)

SAW X

Finally.

This one is really good and really gruesome. It takes place between Saw and Saw II. As established earlier, John Kramer has an aggressive form of brain cancer. If he'd caught it sooner, maybe he'd have a chance (thanks a lot, Logan). He finds an experimental Norwegian cancer treatment, but it's denied by his insurance (thanks a lot, William Easton). The woman in charge of The Pederson Program, Cecilia Pederson, finds room for John in her next run of the program somewhere in Mexico. It'll cost a ton of money, but it'll save him, so he goes for it.

He gets to Mexico and is immediately kidnapped to shroud the location from those pesky regulation boards. He's brought to a remote mansion equipped with a massive space for surgery and all the tech. John meets Cecilia and Gabriela. Cecilia's team of doctors perform the surgery, and John is cancer-free. John is then reverse kidnapped. He remembers a drink he and Gabriela shared. He finds a bottle and wants to gift it to her. Someday at the park, he sketches The Rack from Saw III and thinks on it before tossing the doodle in the trash. In the park he sees a familiar landmark and uses his math skills from being an engineer and triangulates the location of the mansion where he had surgery. 

He finds his way there and it's completely abandoned. He finds the screen he watched during the surgery featuring his brain being operated. He finds a remote and presses play. It's a DVD! He dramatically removes his head dressing and finds no scar. They didn't even cut his hair. 

He's been scammed. By Cecilia and her team of hired hands posing as doctors: a cab driver, a vet janitor, a woman he sells drugs to, and a sex worker. John tracks them all down with the help of Amanda and a detective we don't see until a post-credit scene about "epic bad luck". Then a game begins. 

Cecilia Pederson

The only person in history to make us root for Jigsaw as the good guy in the story. 

Cecilia and her team are the villains and the victims of the story. She pieces together John Kramer's alter ego when she finds herself in a trap with her co-criminals. She even says Jigsaw like Eleanor says it and I really, really cannot stress enough how badly I hope they don't do this again in the next movie.

She sells out her team, outright killing Gabriela after she's survived her own game. She has scammed and is scamming hundreds of people who are desperate enough to pay millions to stay alive. She manipulates every person she encounters. She is selfish and ambitious and is basically taxing those who are dying one last time. 

COLOR FOR DOCTOR TEAM: BLACK - GREEN

COLOR FOR CECILIA: WHITE - BLACK

That does it! 

I can't believe you read all of this. Thank you for doing that, actually. 

If you love Magic and Saw and want to talk about it, I'm really easy to reach. Listen to Am I The Bolcast? and check out my comedy! @amithebolcast and @mikecarrozza on socials! Let's talk about Magic, Saw, and comedy!