#meat lady

The first is Meat Lady herself. Wilkins give a fantastically deadpan performance as a character who is basically a turbo Riley.

Hear me out.

Riley is the universally beloved main character in National Treasure, sand I think a lot of that has to do with his everyman persona. While all this crazy, outlandish shit is happening he's just like...wtf. why??

He's bringing a lot of this energy to the story.

And I would argue that Meat Lady brings a condensed dose of that same energy. She is just so done with whatever is going on here.

And yet, like Riley, she is actually quite supportive of the heistin' huntin' characters.

MEAT LADY I see why you left him.

Enough said.

The second reason is because the tension is actually really high. As much as this scene is both a physical and comedic rest from the chase sequence, it also underscores exactly how much danger our heroes are in without including any violence.

Something about how intense and heavily armed Shaw seems from Abigail's place behind the case, and how strongly she reacts to seeing the gun he has holstered, really emphasizes how much danger she and the rest of Team Treasure are in.

Like, we're not really expecting Ben to get shot when he's running through the graveyard. We've seen movies.

But this? This scene makes it clear that Shaw is absolutely willing to kill Abigail and anybody else who gets in his way, all without him picking up the gun.

But we're here to talk about Meat Lady.

Nothing close to this scene exists in the 2003 script, by the way. That Philadelphia chase sequence is an action-heavy car chase featuring a Corvette, a horse, and a Declaration stored carefully in the cleavage.

Abigail is briefly kidnapped by Ian in that version, but I love this quiet moment so, so much more.

What happened to her?

I like to think that first she saw coverage of the treasure on the news and was like, well I'll be damned.

And I like to think that Abigail tracked her down to thank her for quite possibly saving her life. They went out for coffee, Abigail told the full story of the treasure hunt and the chase, and Meat Lady shared more about herself.

Abigail would want to invest in whatever Meat Lady's passion is. Maybe it's private school for her kids, buying the butcher's stall, franchising, going back to school, whatever. I'm sure there would be some social two stepping involved to find an arrangement that worked for both parties, but imo Meat Lady is deserving of a bit of that finders' fee. She saved Abigail's bacon.

Yes, I've been waiting all article to use that joke.