When you are winning, most will frown on changing the game plan. Talk to an expert, though, and they’ll tell you the best coaches are the ones who do exactly. They recognize when a winning formula is at risk of issuing diminishing results. So even when things are paying off, they’re moving to a new plan. At the risk of stretching this metaphor to its breaking point, Wake Up Dead Man cements Writer-Director Rian Johnson as that kind of coach for the Knives Out franchise.

Superficially, plenty about the new film resembles its two predecessors. It is, again, an “impossible” murder-mystery to solve. The cast is, again, stacked to the heavens (pun only partially intended). And, of course, there’s Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig). He’s on hand to solve the mystery and look out for the innocent and vulnerable among the wolves and assholes.

Not so superficially, it is also a story about money. Not money as an inherent evil, but as something that encourages lousy people to be their absolute worst. This is where the differences start to manifest, though. In the past, money and the moneyed were a source of satire. This feature treats money more as a low-radiation catalyst. It’s there, humming below the surface throughout, but it only takes center stage at a few key moments.

What Johnson and the film are more preoccupied with is faith—religious and otherwise—and how that can be affirmed for good or twisted for ill. There are jokes, and the actors nail their laugh lines, certainly. But this is miles down the road from satire. It is Johnson’s most earnest effort in the Knives sequence and likely the best studio film about religion this year. But if you are as allergic to religion as Blanc himself, please don’t let this fact scare you off. This isn’t proselytizing via celluloid. Johnson is realizing a far more interesting and complex set of maneuvers than that.

After losing his temper with a deacon, boxer turned priest, Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor), gets sent to an Upstate New York church by Bishop Langstrom (Jeffrey Wright). The head priest there, Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin), insists on being called Monsignor. Despite the Catholic Church’s rather strict hierarchy, it has allowed Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude to become a dynastic branch of the faith with Wicks following his grandfather, Prentice (James Faulkner), as the lead celebrant. As a result, the congregation is very much Wicks’, not so much the capital “c” Church’s. That’s something he makes repeatedly clear to Jud, torturing him with very specific confessions of masturbatory behavior and mocking the younger priest’s humane view of religion.

Chief among the devotees is Martha Delacroix (Glenn Close). She imprinted on the Our Lady as a tween, helping out the previous Wicks. Her fervor eclipses even that of the converted. The only thing that comes close to her dedication to the church is her relationship with the groundskeeper Samson Holt (Thomas Haden Church). He’s not especially interested in Our Lady or Jefferson, but he’d do anything for Martha.

Occupying the pews with her are Nat Sharp (Jeremy Renner) a doctor, turned bitter by his wife leaving him; Lee Ross (Andrew Scott), a successful sci-fi writer who’s largely flushed his career with an increasing obsession with “woke-ism”; Vera Draven (Kerry Washington), the church’s attorney who’s late father was one of Wicks’ closest friends; Cy Draven (Daryl McCormack), Vera’s adopted son and failed conservative politician who’s hitched his wagon to Wicks’ in the hopes of another chance at power; and Simone Vivane (Cailee Spaeny), a concert cellist so wracked by pain she’s stepped away from her career in search of a solution. Or a miracle. Yes, Johnson remains incredible at naming his characters.

Unlike the previous two installments, the ensemble is more flavoring than focal point. Mila Kunis, playing the town’s police chief Geraldine Scott, gets it even worse, barely registering as anything more than someone to voice an occasional question. In fact, even the famous Blanc mostly takes a backseat in his own franchise. On the other hand, in just two scenes, Bridget Everett becomes a fulcrum for one of the film’s most memorable and vital interactions with Jud, the film’s true lead.

As played by O’Connor, Jud has no problem anchoring the film. His faith, fear, frustration, and anger all feel honest and relatable. Without being reduced to a two-dimensional symbol, he gives voice to a kind of faith that barely gets attention in political circles or in explicitly Christian films, a faith devoted not just to the powerful or the evangelical, but to the lost, the broken, the lonely, and the confused. It is a faith based on welcoming, not on rejecting or holy battles.

That’s impressive on its own, never mind that Johnson also manages to reflect on the politics of grievance and casual misogyny as he explores faith. What’s more impressive than all that, though, is how the writer-director puts all that into a movie that is frequently funny and revolves around a tightly written and twisty murder-mystery. While the least focused on comedy and the least interested in unraveling the crime of the three, Wake Up Dead Man still delivers plenty on both fronts.

The feature is also a departure from the previous installments. It eschews the well-manicured grounds and impeccably arranged bric-a-brac of the Thrombey estate or the gleaming, tasteless architecture and gorgeous nature of Mile Bron’s island. Wake Up Dead Man is earthy and rougher. Ditching the spoiled inheritors and vapid disruptors of Knives Out and Glass Onion has seemingly inspired Johnson and Cinematographer Steve Yedlin to expand their palette and reach for a new aesthetic. The camerawork under Yedlin’s guidance remains as great-looking as ever. But it feels looser and less studied, once again pointing to something a little less controlled, a bit more down-to-earth.

It’s all great save for a ten-to-20-minute section during the second act where the film starts to feel frantic and unfocused. There’s plenty of running but no real ground gained, no details unearthed or fit into place. That gives the film a bit of drag. The third act kicking in quickly pushes that bit away. Still, in looking back, it is the rare pacing misstep in this series.

But if Wake Up Dead Man isn’t as perfect as the mystery at its heart initially appears, those flaws are an easy price to pay. I’ve loved the previous two films, so I likely would’ve been happy with more of the same. But by altering the formula, Johnson suggests that the Benoit Blanc series can do more than repeat the same thrills in different locales with different noxious wealthy people. That’s even better news.

Wake Up Dead Man is in the midst of a brief, selected theatrical run. On December 12, it will be kneeling in the pews at Netflix.

Wake Up Dead Man Trailer: