"You know what I say? I say one down, a couple hundred thousand to go. I don't mean to get on my high horse, but I'm telling you I do not like the fucking deer, I'm sick of it, they're taking over, they're like rats, they're destroying the ecosystem. I see a dead deer on the side of the road and I think to myself 'That's a fucking start.'"
This is a monologue uttered by Dean not long after he has welcomed Chris into his home. He goes on a tirade about how much he hates deers after Rose tells him they hit one on their way up. His absolute disdain for the deer is unsettling because it is reminiscent of the language of a eugenist who wants to wipe out an entire group or race.
Chris: Do they know... Do they know I'm black?
Rose: No. Should they?
Chris: It seems like...something you might want to, you know...mention.
Rose: "Mom and Dad, my uh, my black boyfriend will be coming up this weekend, and I just don't want you to be shocked because he's a black man." Black...
This exchange happens early in the film. Chris wants to know if Rose has told her family he's black, but she claims not to see what the big deal is. For Chris, his race is relevant because he wants to make sure that they aren't going to be racist or disrespectful towards him, but Rose claims that she is confident that Chris' race is a total non-issue. This moment is a kind of preview of the Armitage family's studied casualness about race. The pretense that they don't care hides much darker secrets.
"By the way, I would have voted for Obama for a third term if I could. Best president in my lifetime. Hands down."
Dean says this to Chris, just as Rose predicted. It is an awkward aside, a way for Dean to broadcast to Chris that he is not a racist. He assures his daughter's black boyfriend that he is completely okay with Barack Obama, as if this is all the evidence he needs to prove he is not racist.
"Sink. Now you're in the Sunken Place."
Missy calls Chris into her office after he's gone outside to have a cigarette on his first night there. She hypnotizes him and sends him to the Sunken Place, a state of deep hypnotic sleep in which he has no agency.
"Then he sent me some weird pictures... I'm like 'Oh man that's Andre Hayworth'... this dude been missing for 6 months. Right? So I do all my research you know cause as a TSA agent... you know, you guys are detectives, you know, I got the same training. We might know more than y'all sometimes, you know cause we are dealing with some terrorist shit, so... but that's a totally different story. So look I, I go do my... my detective work, right? And I start putting pieces together. And see this is what I came up with. They're probably abducting black people, brainwashing them and making them slaves. Or sex slaves. not just regular slaves, but sex slaves and shit. See? I don't know if it's the hypnosis that's making em slaves or what not, but all I know is they already got two brothas we know and there could be a whole bunch of brothas they got already. What's the next move?"
Rod says this to Detective Latoya, whom he hopes will help him locate the missing Chris. He goes on a long speech about his theory of what has happened, and the way he says it makes the whole situation sound pretty far-fetched. The irony is that he is (mostly) right.
"What is your purpose, Chris? In life, what is your purpose?"
Dean says this to Chris while staring into the fireplace as Chris is trying to leave the Armitage house. While Rose stalls looking for the car keys, Dean stands near the fire preparing to bring Chris downstairs for the transplant, and asks him some enigmatically existential questions.
Rod: I mean, I told you not to go in that house. I mean...
Chris: How you find me?
Rod: I'm TS-motherfuckin'-A. We handle shit. That's what we do. Consider this situation fuckin' handled.
These are the final lines of the film. Rod has been the comic relief throughout the film, and his first words to his friend, who is shocked and covered in blood, is that he told him not to go to Rose's house in the first place. When Chris asks Rod how he found him, Rod reminds his friend that he works for the TSA. This errand to save Chris is hardly in the TSA job description, but Rod has a deep pride in his title and sees his saving Chris from near-death as all part of a day's work.
"Yo, and the black people out here too. It's like all of them missed the movement."
Chris calls Rod throughout his visit to the Armitages to update him on the situation. He tells Rod about the fact that the black people he has met, Georgina and Walter, are completely out to lunch and do not seem to have any kind of solidarity with him as a black person.
"No. No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no…."
After Chris tells Georgina that he gets nervous when there are too many white people around, Georgina has what seems to be some kind of brain malfunction. Her expression gets tight as her mouth curls into a strained smile and tears run down her cheek. Her emotions seem dissonant from her affect, and she says "No" over and over. This is a cue to Chris that something is not right at the Armitage house.
"Are you ready for this?"
Rose says this to Chris as they watch a parade of black cars pull into the Armitage driveway for the party. It's another instance of irony: while she's presumably referring the ordeal of a fancy party with her parents, it is really something much more sinister which Chris must "get ready" for.
