# Meet Joe Black...
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meet-joe-black/180600
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [June 9, 2003, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meet-joe-black/180600 "2003-06-09T05:13:58Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Stccrd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stccrd)
#### Post date: [June 9, 2003, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meet-joe-black/180600/1 "2003-06-09T05:13:58Z")
This has probably been covered, but when I tried a search, “joe” was too short a term. Anyway, I really don’t understand this movie.
What exactly happened at the end? How did Susan know what Joe Black wasn’t…Joe Black?
Help the confused…thanks in advance
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### Author:  [@nevermore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nevermore)
#### Post date: [June 9, 2003, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meet-joe-black/180600/2 "2003-06-09T13:21:39Z")
Not sure I’m getting the question entirely, but…
If you’re asking how she knew he wasn’t the same guy anymore when he “came back”, well, all I can say is that she knew he was leaving, and she knew he wasn’t normal (she asked him, in a scene close to the end), so she probably just assumed that since he returned, it wasn’t “him” anymore. I think she knew he was Death, because she said “I wish you could have met my father” when her father had only been dead for a couple of minutes and there was no other way she could have known that.
This a sappy movie, meant to be touching and sentimental and all that nonsense…it wasn’t really meant to be analyzed. Take it at face value, cause there isn’t much beyond that.