Every Twist In The Saw Franchise - Ranked From Worst To Best
2. The Game Was Taped, Amanda Is Jigsaw's Apprentice (Saw II)
Saw II had the tough, tough task of trying to match the jaw-drop factor of the original film's twist, and despite releasing just a year after the first Saw, it damn-near pulls it off.
The beauty of Saw II is that audiences weren't really sure what to expect this time, and there was never any guarantee the sequel would actually hinge on a plot twist at all - let alone two.
The sequel introduced the first time-shifting twist of the series by revealing that the central game was actually pre-taped, and Detective Matthews' son Daniel (Erik Knudsen) was never really in danger.
He spent the entirety of his father's game locked securely in a safe, so all Matthews had to do was sit there and talk to Kramer until the timer ran out. Instead he went rogue and wound up locked away in Jiggy's bathroom.
Saw II also served up the series' first and most effective apprentice twist, that after being "helped" by Jigsaw in the first film, Amanda became his disciple.
At the time it seemed like a reasonable way to distend the franchise given Kramer's limited timespan, even if both of these twists became the most shamelessly recycled in future installments.