How It All Connects

How It All Connects

How It All Connects

How It All Connects

"Please, please help us! We don't understand the movies! How are they all connected? What's with Jay and Silent Bob being in all of them?" After about a thousand of these emails I decided to create this section to end all of this. For most of you this will be stuff you already know, but read it anyway and who knows, you might find out some new shit you never even heard of before.

The New Jersey Chronicles

The Original Trilogy: Clerks, Mallrats, and Chasing Amy

The Time Frame

You really have to listen carefully, see the movie a couple of times, and pay close attention to the plot in order to get all of the details. The most important thing to remember in these movies as with most, is their time frame and location. The movies are set in the Tri-City area, which includes Leonardo, Middleton, and ....................., New Jersey. Clerks takes place on Saturday, Mallrats the day before Clerks, Friday, and Chasing Amy takes place two years after the events in Clerks and Mallrats. Also keep in mind that Julie Dwyer died in the YMCA pool on Thursday night at midnight, as their are continuous references to this. But before we make our first connection, we must first list the important characters so we understand the connections.

Clerks

In this film we are introduced to the first set of characters which would be dealt with through the next decade by View Askew and Kevin Smith. Dante, Randal, Jay, and Silent Bob, are of course given as they appear so often in View Askew Productions.

Dante Hicks - A depressed guy who hates his life and pines over his highschool sweet-heat, Caitlin Bree

Randal Graves - Dante's best-friend who's quick with the quips, and fast to poke-fun at those who are inferior to him.

Rick Derris - the hot shot kid who has sex with practically all of the girls in the Tri-City area.

Jay - One of the local drug-dealers who basically lives at the Quick Stop, and peddles his wheel outside the building. He is loud, obnoxious, and funny as hell.

Silent Bob - Jay's partner and best friend, who rarely speaks, and but protects his friends, and definitely comes off as the purer and more compassionate of the two.

Caitlin Bree - Dante's girlfriend who cheated on him in high school many times and left him as a shell of a man working in Quick Stop. In Clerks as she is about to come back to him, accidently has sex with a dead man in the Quick Stop bathroom. She goes insane and is committed.

Alyssa Jones' younger sister - She only shows up briefly to hook-up with Rick Derris and to remind Dante that her older sister was best friends with Caitlin Bree.

Willam - A dazed out, drugged, barely conscious guy with a mustard-stained shirt, who loves snowballing. He spouts out phrases like "That's beautiful man," or "Do you work here now?"

Julie Dwyer - All we learn about her in this flick is that Dante had sex with her, and she died on Thursday swimming in a pool at the YMCA.

Mallrats

Here we see the first hook-up of a second plot with the original Clerks. The same characters are mentioned, and we view Jay and Silent Bob's antics for the second time, along with getting to cheer on our favorite mustard-stained buddy, Willam.

Brodie Bruce - Your basic comic collecting badass. He does zero work lives in his mom's basement, and loves chillin' at the mall with his boys Jay, Silent Bob, and T.S. Brodie is much fonder of his ex-girlfriend Rene than he lets on

T.S. Quint - Brodie's best friend, helps Brodie see he must win back Renee while he is trying to win his own ex-girlfriend, Brandi. He's very skeptical and reluctant to move on with his life, and wants only to return to the girl he loves.

Julie Dwyer - We learn in this film that it was T.S. who motivated Julie Dwyer to go to the pool (where she died) because she was going to be the suitorette on Mr. Svenning's game show, and T.S. told her that everytime you're on t.v. you look ten pounds heavier.

Jay - Same as before except this time around, we get to see his comic genius unfold, his loyalty to his friends (Brodie - Easter Bunny), and his hatred of all authority (LaFours).

Silent Bob - In this movie we also learn more about everyone's favorite mute, Silent Bob! Not only does he want to be a Jedi Master, he's also a master in electronics (he's like McGuiver).

Rene - Brodie's ex-girlfriend who goes back to him when she sees how much he really does care.

Brandi Svenning - T.S.'s girlfriend who reluctantly broke up with T.S. because she was forced by her father to skip their trip to Florida, she deeply loves T.S.

Mr. Svenning - Hates T.S., and wants his daughter to break up with him and so he has Brandi replace Julie Dwyer (she died) as his gameshow's (Truth or Date) contestant so she 1.) can't go to Florida with T.S., and 2.) she will end up dating a new "better" man.

Roddy - Mr. Svenning's head assistant, who caters to the every whim of Mr. Svenning.

Steve-Dave - An employee of Comic Toast who warns Brodie to calm down or he'd be removed.

The Fan Boy -A huge comic fan who is Steve-Dave's side-kick.

LaFours - "The most feared security guard in the business man, 260 callers, all convicted! I hear he's even got two kills!" (Jay) Hired by Mr. Svenning to protect his gameshow which is airing live that afternoon in the mall.

Gwen Turner - A past girlfriend of T.S. who hangs out with him and Brodie all day and convinces Brandi to go back to T.S.

Tricia Jones - A beautiful brainy girl who at age fifteen is a senior, and writing a book on the sex drive of men called "Borgasm."

Shannon Hamilton - The manager of the upscale wannabee shop on the second floor called Fashionable Male. He dislikes Brodie and all mallrats, but is greatly fond of having sex with girls in an uncomfortable position (not in the back of a Volkswagon), and tries to do this with Brodie's ex-girlfriend Rene.

Chasing Amy

This movie may be farther away in time than the other two, but it makes many more references to them. It both develops and makes major plot bases on characters that were barely mentioned in the past films.

Holden McNeal - A very conservative comic book writer who falls head-over-heals in love with a lesbian named Alyssa Jones "Fingercuffs."

Banky Edwards - Holden's best friend and partner on their extremely successful comicbook "Bluntman and Chronic," whose main characters are based on Jay (Chronic) and Silent Bob (Bluntman). He despises Alyssa, and predicts she will be the downfall of Holden and his friendship. Though he appears to be homophobic, he is suspected of being gay himself.

Alyssa Jones - A lesbian who changes her view of the opposite sex and falls in love with Holden. Their relationship is ruined by Holden finding out that she had indeed had sex with men besides him (Rick Derris and Cohee).

Hooper LaMont - A gay comicbook writer who introduces Holden and Alyssa. He pretends to hate white people to help sell his comicbook about a black superhero fighting white people. He is the one who first suspects that Banky himself is gay.

Jay - The magnificent duo only appear for a few minutes to guide Holden in love, and pick up their check for likeness rights in the comic.

Silent Bob - Should I say "Not-So-Silent" Bob? He gives a huge speech, about a girl he was in love with, Amy, and advises Holden to forget about Alyssa's past and go back to her.

The First Connections

Here's where it gets sweet as hell! This truly is your reward for reading about all the characters, never will you look at these movies the same, and you will finally understand the true genius of Kevin Smith, so without further ado.....

In Clerks Dante Hicks is told that his ex-girlfriend Caitlin Bree was best friends with Alyssa Jones by her sister . Alyssa Jones is the lesbian girl who Holden McNeil falls in love with in Chasing Amy.
In Clerks, Dante and Randal go to the funeral of a girl who Dante had sex with, we learn she died in a pool of an enurism popping in her brain.
In Clerks, a girl claiming to be Alyssa Jones' little sister hooks up with Rick Derris.
In Clerks Brian O'Halloran plays the part of Dante Hicks the same actor plays the parts of both Gil Hicks in Mallrats and Jim Hicks (MTV executive) in Chasing Amy.
In Clerks, Randal refers to his "cousin Walter" who died by breaking his neck trying to suck his own dick. In Mallrats Brodie refers to his "cousin Walter" who both stuck a cat up his ass and jerked off publicly on an airplane. Could it be that these two different cousins ar the same, and that Randal and Brodie are, however distantly, related?
Willam appears in both Clerks and Mallrats.
Jay and Silent Bob appear in Clerks, Mallrats, and Chasing Amy.
In Mallrats Brodie and T.S. recall Gwen banging Rick Derris, from Clerks, on a pool table at a costume party.
In Mallrats, the movie opens with Brandi Svenning telling T.S. Quint that Julie Dwyer died in the YMCA pool from an enurism popping in her brain.
In Chasing Amy, Holden asks Alyssa if she knows about a variety of landmarks in the Tri-City Area, which included The Eden Prairie Mall (the mall from Mallrats) and the Quick Stop from Clerks.
In Chasing Amy Alyssa Jones makes reference to Clerks when telling Holden that her friend Caitlin Bree was committed (to a psychiatric ward) after having sex with a dead guy in the Quick Stop bathroom.
In Chasing Amy Holden asks Jay and Silent Bob whether they had been hanging out at the mall, since they had been late. Jay says that they stopped doing that years ago, which is right on since Chasing Amy takes place two years after Mallrats did.
In Chasing Amy Alyssa Jones makes another reference to both Clerks and Mallrats by speaking of her other friend Julie Dwyer who died in a pool at the YMCA.
In Chasing Amy Banky tells how he was giving head to Brandi Svenning, the same girl T.S. is dating in Mallrats. Banky also makes mention of her father who was another main character in Mallrats.

The New Jersey Chronicles

The Final Two Installments

Dogma

This movie is the fourth in the series, and continued the New Jersey Trilogy that was supposed to end with Chasing Amy. That being said this movie doesn't have many links to other movies so I won't waste time explaining stuff that doesn't connect with the other films.

Jay - His fourth film appearance, he finally returns as a main character as he did in Mallrats. This film is all about religion and get this he's a prophet!

Silent Bob - His fourth film appearance aswell and his return as a main character. He is also a prophet assigned to protect the last scion.

Steve-Dave - An angry abortion protester outside of the clinic where the last scion works.

The Fan Boy - Another protester outside of the abortion clinic; the side-kick of Steve-Dave.

The brief god appearance - In this film Alanis Morissette does a brief cameo at the end portraying God the Father.

Mooby - In this movie a cartoon character named Mooby the Golden Calf, has his own t.v. show, theme parks, movies, fast-food places, and magazine. Sound like any other cartoon characters you might know?

Connections

Jay and Silent Bob appear in this film as well.
Steve-Dave and the fan boy appear in this film and the fan boy says his fabled "Tell 'em Steve-Dave," just like in Mallrats.
At the very end of Clerks, the last line in the closing credits is "Jay and Silent Bob will return in 'Dogma.'" This shows that Kevin already had the idea for what would be his fourth film back in 1993-1994 while still finishing his first film.

Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back

This movie by far has the most connections as it was made to say a farewell to Jay and Silent Bob along with all the other great View Askew characters. As such, none of the new characters relate at all to the other movies, only the reappearances of past characters are references to the other four Jersey Chronicles. So with that in mind, I am just gonna jump straight into the connections with past movies.

Connections

Jay and Silent Bob are in this movie also.
Jay opens up the movie rapping the same song he rapped in Clerks in front of the Quick Stop on both occasions.
Clerks Dante Hicks and Randal Graves are working again at the Quick Stop.
We meet Brodie from Mallrats once again, and learn that he left his position at the Tonight Show to have a career in owning a comic book shop called Brodie's Secret Stash (the store is real and is actually called Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash).
We find Holden McNeil in a new apartment, and hear him quote what Jay said to him the last time he saw Jay and Silent Bob.
We see a Buddy Christ statue (available at Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash) from Dogma on the dashboard of the nun who gives Jay and Silent Bob a lift in her station wagon.
Jay and Silent Bob steal a orangutang named Suzanne which was predicted at the end of Mallrats (only the orangutang's name in Mallrats was spelled Susanne), as the two walked into the horizon and the credits came on.
We saw Banky Edwards again and learn he sold the Bluntman and Chronic (a comic book from Chasing Amy based on Jay and Silent Bob) movie rights to Miramax.
As the Bluntman and Chronic movie premier let out, we saw many familiar faces: Alyssa Jones (Chasing Amy), and her sister Tricia Jones (Mallrats), Hooper LaMont (Chasing Amy), Steve-Dave and Walt "The Fan Boy" (Mallrats and Dogma), and of course Willam Black (Clerks and Mallrats).