There are several times during the film where the viewer can see Lupita Nyong'o holding back Adelaide from making small Tethered tics and gestures, so it's not out of the question that Jason picked up on these signals and realized his mother was born a Tethered before the big third act reveal.
What did Red Whisper to Adelaide in the classroom?
Warning: Spoilers for the film Us. “How you could have taken me with you,” Red wistfully states to the Adelaide that has taken over her life. All that you have, all that you are, all that you've become — you took from me.
In the film's final reels, however, as the Wilson family flees Santa Cruz in their car, a flashback reveals that Adelaide has been Red, who in reality switched places with her in the funhouse, all along. To make the switch, Red strangles Adelaide unconscious, permanently damaging her vocal cords.
In reality, the Adelaide we've been following the entire movie, and thought was the hero, is actually the Tether. It's solidified by the fact that Red now talks with a raspy, strangled voice, which is a direct result of Adelaide choking her unconscious all those years ago.
Red then continued to live aboveground and eventually married Gabe and had two children, with everyone believing she was the real Adelaide—and the movie seems to imply that Red repressed her origins as a childhood trauma and believed she was Adelaide too.
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Why did Adelaide whistle when she died?
The tune she's whistling is “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” — the last song she had stuck in her head before she was kidnapped. (The song also invokes the slaves' ascent to freedom by “crawling up” the water spout, i.e. the sewers, to their escape.)
Adelaide was really Red all along. She shares a glance with her son with him seemingly understanding who his mother actually is. After all, he saw the brutal, tether-like behavior she displayed underground.
They return to the above world, where Adelaide drives her family to safety, and Jason gives her a suspicious look before he puts on his mask. That look might be interpreted as Pluto, Jason's Tether, and Jason switching places earlier in the movie, and Pluto knowing Adelaide's secret.
Most of the Tethered don't escape because they don't have Adelaide's clarity and ambition, but Red is a normal child, with every reason to explore until she finds her way out.
He is also interested in fire like Jason, as it is theorized that he got the burns on his face by copying Jason's fire trick, but it is changed so he just puts the fire to his face.
However, the rabbits hold a deeper meaning too. Rabbits commonly symbolize rebirth in human culture as explained by their usage around Easter to signify the rebirth of Jesus Christ. In the case of Us, the rabbits symbolize the rebirth of the Tethered who are now rising up to take their place in society.
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Peele added that in Us he explored various things relating to the duality of human beings and “the guilt and sins that we bury deep within ourselves”, so scissors are a visual representation of the duality of humanity.
The Hollywood Reporter noted that Nyong'o worked hard to find Red's frightening voice, basing it on a real-life medical condition called Spasmodic Dysphonia, in which muscle spasms cause breaks and interruptions in one's speech patterns. This condition can be caused by emotional or physical trauma.
At the end of the film, we learn that Adelaide was in fact a Tethered all along, having been switched as a child when she wandered into the boardwalk fun house.
Another question viewers might have had: Why were each of the Tethered wearing a single, leather half glove? Barrett approached this design element from a very practical standpoint. Her team learned early on that it's easy to cut yourself when handling large shears, which the Tethered use as their primary weapon.
It's Unclear What's Stopping The Tethered Or Adelaide Escaping. At the end of Us, a quintessential plot twist is revealed: the woman thought to be Adelaide was actually kidnapped as a child by her clone, Red, who replaced her in the above-ground world.
There are several times during the film where the viewer can see Lupita Nyong'o holding back Adelaide from making small Tethered tics and gestures, so it's not out of the question that Jason picked up on these signals and realized his mother was born a Tethered before the big third act reveal.
It's a great dark beautiful movie in a low budget, full of questions that all get answered at the end : it's not post-apocalyptic, its just a family that went to live deep in the forest because they know they turn into dangerous creatures, the first heavy chain was dad's, mom left because she knew she was turning into ...
Since the clones are purposefully tied to their above-ground counterparts — they share a soul, so to speak — the Tethered are forever linked to their originals. Forced to mindlessly mimic their counterparts, the Tethered live empty lives.
The Tethered were made by humans and were originally meant to control their surface-counterparts. However it failed and the Tethered were abandoned. For generations, the Tethered copied their surface-counterparts; whatever they did, they did as well, except in more horrific and strange ways.
At first, it appears that Adelaide is now stuck mirroring Red — having totally swapped places with her and becoming a Tethered herself — but that seems to change after her dance performance. The movie seems to suggest that Adelaide and Red became untethered after they both danced at the same time as children...
The experiment was abandoned and the Tethered were left to survive by themselves below until Red broke free of her bond and led a revolution against the surface. Then, Red and Adelaide fight and Adelaide kills Red, finds Jason and returns to the surface.
