| “ | They look exactly like us. They think like us. They know where we are. We need to move and keep moving. They won't stop until they kill us... or we kill them. | „ |
| ~ Red (Adelaide) on the Tethered. |
Adelaide Wilson is the protagonist of the 2019 psychological horror film Us written and directed by Jordan Peele. While the film initially presents Adelaide as the victim of the home invasion, the ending reveals that she herself is actually a Tethered, having switched places with her counterpart ergo making her indirectly responsible for the events of the film.
She was protrayed by Lupita Nyong'o.
History[]
In 1986, Adelaide Thomas and her parents arrive at Santa Cruz, California, to attend the festivities. After separating from her father who was drunkenly playing Whack-A-Mole, Adelaide discovers an attraction housing a hall of mirrors. When the power is knocked out by a storm, Adelaide starts whispering to calm her nerves only to then hear someone else whistling in unison to her.
Walking aimlessly through the hall of mirrors, Adelaide discovers her Tethered and is immediately chocked to unconsciousness. Upon coming to, Adelaide finds herself chained to a bed and her doppelganger taking her Thriller shirt and abandoning her to the hands of the Tethered. Fearful for their daughter's condition, the parents decide to teach her to speak through dance and performance. Eventually, the doppelganger would meet her future husband Gabe Wilson and marries him resulting in her children Zora and Jason. However, it would appear that the doppelganger had forgotten about her actions, believing that the traumatizing experience happened to her instead of the other way around.
Years later, the doppelganger goes on a vacation to Santa Cruz with her family. Even though she is hesitant to go due to her trauma, she is convinced to travel to the beach with them. When she believed that her double was going to get her, she starts boarding up the house to no avail. The Tethered versions of the Wilsons invade the house, and the doppelganger is made to confront her double who had become the de facto leader of the Tethered. When Red initiates the "untethering", the doppelganger and her family manage to kill their Tethered as well as the Tethered of their white friends. With Pluto's (Jason's Tethered) death as a result of Jason forcing him to walk into the fires of the flaming car, Red kidnaps the real Jason and takes him to one of the facilities. Arriving in an abandoned classroom, the doppelganger has a brawl with Red climaxing in her choking her to death, laughing maniacally as she did.
The film concludes with the family leaving Santa Cruz with a lingering shot of Jason having possibly realized the truth about his mother's nature. However, as there was not much to be done, he instead drops his Wolfman mask over his face, quietly accepting the notion.