How the TSA agent in Oscar-nominated ‘Get Out’ speaks to travelers’ most fervent hopes

If you are planning to see the Oscar-nominated “Get Out,” please stop reading this post right now. There are spoilers, here, ladies and gentlemen, and they will affect the way you watch the move.

So just stop.

Please stop.

Stop. It.

OK, let’s move on just to put this out there ahead of the Oscars on Sunday. “Get Out” is one of my favorite movies this year (I still haven’t seen two of the nine nominees but hope to remedy that before Sunday), if not my favorite.

Fine movie. Outstanding acting — lead Daniel Kaluuya is nominated for a best actor Oscar — and the mix of social commentary in a scary movie elevates it.

But those are not the only reasons I love it. I’m not a movie critic (any more than any other moviegoer). What I am is a traveler who would rather fly than drive.

In 2017, I logged, by my estimate, 45,000 air miles through 20 airports in North America. Of those, I went through Transportation Security Administration checkpoints in 15 airports.

Here is how many of those security experiences I remember:

Zero.

Which means, I think, that the 47,000 or so TSA officers and I are both doing our jobs. I colored inside the lines and so did TSA.

TSA rarely gets credit for keeping us safer. People who dislike the TSA demand an answer to this question: “Just how many terrorists has TSA stopped?” Unclear, though this may fall under the general category of proving a negative.

But I do know this: TSA doesn’t get a lot of credit for the difficult job it does. The week of Feb. 5-11, for instance, it spotted and stopped 104 guns in carry-on luggage; 87 of them were loaded. This was a record.

And, yes, TSA doesn’t catch everything. Forbes reported in a November article that TSA missed 70% of the fake weaponry hidden by testers operating out of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General. Of course, no harm occurred because the weapons were fake. We should always be this lucky.

Which brings me to “Get Out.” (Please stop reading here if you haven’t seen it and plan to.) It’s not real either, but (one more chance to stop reading) the hero is a TSA agent named Rod Williams (played by Lil Rel Howery).

Rod rides to the rescue of tortured/hypnotized/terrorized Chris Washington (Kaluuya) in the movie’s final scenes, which make me laugh and get a little teary all at the same time.

Chris, having just been brutalized by his girlfriend (Rose Armitage, played by Allison Williams) and her family, looks at his evil lover, who has been shot by, well, someone else.

She’s not dead (too bad), and he starts to choke the life out of her then stops. “Chris, I’m so sorry. I love you … I love you. I love you.” Then she gets this twisted smile on her face about the time he hears sirens.

He figures he’s done for, but the door of the be-sirened car doesn’t have the name of local law enforcement but, says, instead, “Airport.”

It’s his pal Rod, who, acting on instinct, knows something is wrong with Chris, although he thinks it has to do with sex slavery or something.

Chris leaves Rose in the road, staggers to the car and gets in. Rod turns to him and says, “I mean, I told you not to go in that house.”

Chris then asks how Rod found him. In his (cleaned up for this publication) response, Rod replies, “I’m TS ... A. We handle .... That’s what we do. Consider the situation … handled.”

Ka.Pow.

Part of the fun of having the DVD is getting to see the multiple variations on the things Rod tells Chris besides, “I told you not to go in that house.” This includes Rod’s reminding Chris not to give up on love, Rod’s mentioning to Chris that Rod has a single cousin, and Rod’s wondering aloud whether he could use the bathroom at the (now-engulfed-in-flames) Armitage home.

They’re all kind of weirdly hilarious, but each is followed by Rod’s firm explanation of how he found Chris.

No wonder it’s a finale to fall in love with. In the end, don’t all of us who fly want the comfort of believing the situation has been ... handled?

Ka.Pow.

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