Glass is the third and final installment in M. Night Shyamalan’s Eastrail 177 trilogy, but it’s the movie’s first twist that actually completes Unbreakable’s story arc. Shyamalan became a household name for his early films, particularly The Sixth Sense, but it was Unbreakable that earned him a certain repertoire among comic book readers and superhero movie fans alike.
Unbreakable told a grounded story about a man - Bruce Willis’ David Dunn - discovering his superpowers and becoming a superhero, while the man, Samuel L. Jackson’s Mr. Glass, who created him becoming a supervillain. But that’s not where the story ended. Years after Unbreakable hit theaters, Shyamalan revived the story with a twist in 2017’s Split, starring James McAvoy as Kevin Wendell Crumb (along with Kevin’s 24 other personalities).
Although Split contained no obvious connections to Unbreakable at first, Split’s ending and post-credits scene of David Dunn confirmed its existence within the same universe as Shyamalan’s original Unbreakable film. And then everything came together in 2019’s Glass, which brought back David Dunn, Kevin Wendell Crumb, and Mr. Glass for one final showdown.
Glass’ First Twist Connects The Movie To Unbreakable
Just like past Shyamalan films, Glass contains multiple twists in its third act that aim to deconstruct the story as well as connect it to both Unbreakable and Split - but it’s really the movie’s first twist that completes the story that Mr. Glass started all those years ago. In Unbreakable, Mr. Glass admitted to orchestrating Eastrail 177’s disaster, which ultimately resulted in David Dunn’s birth as the Overseer. It turns out that, as revealed by Joseph Dunn in Glass, Kevin Wendell Crumb’s father also died in that train accident. Because Kevin’s father died that day, he was forced to grow up with his abusive mother, which, regrettably, fed his dissociative identity disorder, thus ending with The Beast’s creation.
How Glass’ First Twist Completes Unbreakable’s Story
In the Glass movie, Mr. Glass says that this was all part of an origin story, not a limited edition. Judging by Glass’ ending, it seems this was an origin story for the world, as everyone now knows super-powered people exist out there. But what’s interesting is that it’s also the end of a story arc that spans three movies - Unbreakable, Split, and Glass - and almost two decades. In Unbreakable, Mr. Glass - the supposed supervillain in that movie - accomplished his goal of finding David Dunn, a person with superpowers and someone who is, effectively, a superhero. But, again, the Eastrail 177 disaster also killed Kevin’s father, which eventually led to him creating The Beast - a supervillain.
It’s not until Glass’ first twist unfolds that it becomes clear Mr. Glass didn’t just create a superhero but also a supervillain; one cannot exist without the other. David is the unbreakable man, but The Beast is the self-appointed protector of the broken. In creating both characters, Mr. Glass lives up to his name as the trilogy’s “mastermind,” thus completing his and Unbreakable’s story of producing (and finding, for that matter) super-powered people in the world - a superhero and a supervillain. After all, his supposed destiny of being the villain to David’s hero was actually misleading, as it was really his job to create and find that villain all along, which he finally did in Glass.
