Julian Smith - Kidnapped - Explanation

Just this past week, Julian Smith, a YouTube sensation, just completed a short series of six episodes called Kidnapped. Now Julian Smith a while back did a similar thing where he got kidnapped by a character named Gabriel and the whole thing was a way to get Julian Smith more subscribers because Gabriel said he would execute Julian if he didn’t get a certain number of subscribers by a certain time. Now I don’t have a problem with that. I think it’s a fun way to hit a milestone with subscribers. Now when he started this second Kidnapped season, I thought it was the exact same thing. And from the first five episodes, there was no reason to question that theory. However, the sixth and final episode threw a huge curveball into that. After watching that episode for the first time, it confused me a whole ton. But after re-watching the whole series again last night and a few other Julian Smith videos that tied in with it, it all connected and I think it is one of the coolest things that Julian Smith has ever done. The thing that made it unique was that usually Julian Smith videos are just clever, fun, and don’t require much effort in thinking about what happened in the video. This one is the exact opposite. It is a lot more serious and causes you to really think about what happened.

Now, if you watched this video beforehand and are just coming here for an explanation, then that last paragraph was probably redundant to you, but thanks for enduring that while I give that introduction to those reading this without having known anything about the video. Meanwhile, if you haven’t seen this, I recommend that you stop reading this blog post and go watch the series first. While you are at it, I recommend checking out his other videos as well. They are all really good. My purpose here is to give my explanation of what happened in this series for those confused after watching it. So let’s jump in. Warning, there are spoilers ahead.

So to understand a little bit of background, the video you need to watch his “You in Five Minutes” video. That explains the idea of the box. Once Julian touches the box, a clone of him is created. Whether or not this was Julian’s intent when he originally made the “You in Five Minutes” video is a debate for another time, but either way, this is the direction he decided to go with it for this series. So the jist of what happens is that Jeffrey calls Julian and warns him that Gabriel is coming. Julian is alarmed and gets up and packs his things. In the process of this, he finds the box and picks it up and when he does a clone of him is created. After this happens, the real Julian barely escapes and Gabriel comes and kidnaps Julian’s clone and not him. So if we re-watch the first episode of the series, we are seeing things from the Clone’s point of view. In that episode, before he’s kidnapped we see he looks into a room and sees someone packing. That was the real Julian. So Gabriel thinks he kidnapped Julian but he never did. In episode two you see two of Julian’s friends walk up and say they are looking for Julian because they were planning on making a movie. Gabriel makes up a bunch of excuses and the clone yells that he is in the shed. The two friends walk away and it appears as if they give up on looking for Julian, but we find out that they end up finding the real Julian and start shooting a video. That’s why at the end of episode six, Julian is walking through a movie set. You’ll notice both of the friends there in that scene as Julian is walking through as well as Donnivin, who Julian typically uses in his videos. Throughout the series you see Gabriel talking to a mysterious somebody who hired Gabriel to kill Julian. That somebody tells Gabriel that he is weak and can’t do it, but Gabriel is angered by this and goes through with it and drowns Julian in a pool. Or so he thinks. Once again, it is the clone that he drowns and after it is done you see that the real Julian walks away from it. After quite the epic finale song through the credits, we learn that it was Mr. Timn who hired Gabriel to kill Julian.

So with this in mind, watch the series over again, especially that final episode and prepare yourself to be amazed at Julian’s brilliance in the whole thing. So that is all from me. If I missed anything that you noticed, feel free to chime in. I would love to learn anything else that I may have missed.