Ayo Edebiri holding up her two SAG awards and smiling at the camera

Ayo Edebiri Understands ‘Tenet’ Logic

Ayo Edebiri loves to make waves online. When asked questions on carpets, she lets her humor shine. This time, she showed everyone who intelligent she is by explaining Tenet to them all in one simple response—and of course it’s Edebiri who broke the code for us all.

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The thing about Tenet is that it is having a little resurgence currently. Christopher Nolan’s most divisive film is currently having a re-release in IMAX and Nolan himself has been talking about how you don’t have to understand everything in it. Many people have tried to explain Tenet. We’ve screamed about how it makes sense until we’re blue in the face. And then Edebiri just explained one of the things that seems to really confuse people with a simple explanation.

When talking with Access Hollywood, Edebiri was asked what she would say to her younger self. Being asked if she ever thought she’d be there (at the SAG Awards streamed on Netflix with the cast of The Bear standing behind her) when she was younger, she replied: “I would say nothing to her, obviously, just because of the rules of time travel… I’ve never been visited by myself in the future, and so I think if that happened to me, I would not make the decisions. You understand, It’s Tenet logic.”

And the thing is, she’s right. That is Tenet logic. Within the context of the movie, that is something the characters are told not to do! (This is also a frequent fundamental element in nearly all time-travel media but we love her choice of reference.) If anyone is going to survive a temporal pincer movement, it is going to be Edebiri. Put her in!

She’d easily take down the Algorithm

The moment in question that Edebiri is referring to is when the Protagonist (John David Washington) is going backwards in time and as he’s meeting with Ives (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and learning what not to do for himself and Neil (Robert Pattinson), they explain that you cannot interfere with your past self because it can result in horrible things happening.

There is an entire fight sequence that we see where the Protagonist fights himself but doesn’t know it at the time. But the whole point is that you can easily explain what is going on in Tenet. Or at least Ayo Edebiri can.

(featured image: Monica Schipper/FilmMagic)


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Rachel Leishman
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Rachel Leishman (She/Her) is an Assistant Editor at the Mary Sue. She's been a writer professionally since 2016 but was always obsessed with movies and television and writing about them growing up. A lover of Spider-Man and Wanda Maximoff's biggest defender, she has interests in all things nerdy and a cat named Benjamin Wyatt the cat. If you want to talk classic rock music or all things Harrison Ford, she's your girl but her interests span far and wide. Yes, she knows she looks like Florence Pugh. She has multiple podcasts, normally has opinions on any bit of pop culture, and can tell you can actors entire filmography off the top of her head. Her current obsession is Glen Powell's dog, Brisket. Her work at the Mary Sue often includes Star Wars, Marvel, DC, movie reviews, and interviews.