Recently, the concept of the multiverse and parallel realities has been at the forefront of popular science fiction, with major players like the Marvel Cinematic Universe and The CW's long-running Arrowverse telling stories that cross the threshold of what its heroes thought possible. Everything Everywhere All at Once takes a similar route, save that it centers its story not on a grandiose superhero or a cosmic adventurer but on one Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh), a meager laundromat owner who's somehow meant to save all of existence.

Despite her humble origins, Evelyn spends the film demonstrating a unique grab-bag of skills and abilities borrowed from the histories and experiences of her own multiversal variants -- each one seemingly living a more fantastic life than she ever did. This is every version of the Evelyn Wang character that appears in the film and what she learned from them on her journey to becoming the savior of all realities.

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Evelyn Prime Takes the Spotlight

Evelyn Prime variant in Everything Everywhere All At Once

The first Evelyn the movie introduces is, by design, the least remarkable of them all. She's a Chinese-American immigrant who, against the wishes of her father, married her childhood sweetheart, Waymond Wong (Ke Huy Quan), and moved to the States. When first introduced, Evelyn is running a struggling laundromat that's being audited by the IRS, is unaware that Waymond is seeking a divorce and has difficulty connecting with her openly lesbian daughter, Joy (Stephanie Hsu). The question of why this version of Evelyn is the chosen savior lingers throughout Everything Everywhere and ends up forming the thematic core of the movie.

Alpha Evelyn Discovered the Multiverse

Alpha Evelyn discovers the multiverse in Everything Everywhere All At Once

While the audience never actually meets this particular Evelyn, her legacy forms the basis of the movie's story. In Everything Everywhere, the first reality to make contact with another is called "the Alphaverse," with Evelyn herself as the scientist who spearheaded the discovery. However, Evelyn also experimented with "verse-jumping" (i.e., borrowing talents from other selves) on her version of Joy. The strain of experiencing so many different realities at once broke Alpha Joy's mind, leading her to become the mad cult leader, Jobu Tupaki, who killed Alpha Evelyn and seeks to do the same to Prime Evelyn and destroy all of existence as well.

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Evelyn Prime 2 Is More Important Than She Seems

Michelle Yeoh and Jamie Lee Curtis in Everything Everywhere All at Once

When Evelyn is attacked by Jobu Tupaki's followers, her first attempt at verse-jumping goes poorly. She only manages to see a world one step removed from her own, wherein she never found out about all the multiversal shenanigans and simply went on with her day as usual. However, this world ends up holding a tremendous significance later in the story, as it's the sight of Evelyn's breakdown when, in a fit of nihilistic despair, she tells off IRS agent Deirdre Beaubirdra (Jamie Lee Curtis), signs Waymond's divorce papers and wrecks the laundromat with a baseball bat. It's also where, in Everything Everywhere's climax, she makes up with these people and talks Joy into staying with the family.

Actor Evelyn Learns From Her Prime Self

Actor Evelyn training with a kung fu master in Everything Everywhere All At Once

One of the pivotal moments of Evelyn's life was choosing to leave China and move to America with Waymond. Everything Everywhere shows what could have happened if she stayed. One day, Evelyn nearly gets mugged, only to be saved by a kung fu master (Li Jing) who takes Evelyn on as a student. Fast forward to the present day, and Evelyn has spun her martial arts prowess into an acting career, becoming an internationally recognized star (not unlike Yeoh herself). Viewers later meet another variant whose intense, focused training gave her superhuman strength...but only in pinky fingers.

Prime Evelyn manages to learn martial arts from the verse-jump, but Actor Evelyn learns something too. She reunites with Waymond, who has now become a successful businessman. While they're both accomplished, the two find that they're both extremely lonely and eventually make the decision to give their relationship another shot.

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Hot Dog Fingers Evelyn Has an Emotional Journey

Evelyn looks at her hot dog-like fingers in Everything Everywhere All at Once

Likely the strangest variant Everything Everywhere shows (and that's saying something), one of the universes Evelyn jumps to is a reality where humans evolved to have long, sausage-like appendages for fingers, demonstrated in an extended reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey. Here, Evelyn still owns the laundromat but is now in a romantic relationship with Deirdre. While the whole idea is initially presented as a joke, it's given surprising dramatic heft near the end. Through this world, Evelyn is able to understand and connect with Deirdre, creating a bridge between two unlikely characters that ends up helping to save the day.

The Maid, The Singer and The Sign Spinner Give Evelyn Unique Abilities

Evelyn accesses her talents in Everything Everywhere All At Once

Things get even more complicated when Evelyn's father, Gong-Gong (James Hong), shows up, his body having been commandeered by his Alphaverse counterpart. Alpha Gong-Gong, having decided that the only way to stop Jobu Tupaki is to kill every variant of Joy he comes across, sends a cadre of his followers to attack the Wang family. Evelyn manages to save them through a series of rapid-fire verse-jumps. First, she accesses the memories of a variant who works as a maid in the IRS office -- and knows that one of the executives has a secret playroom in his office.

When the Alphas throw a gas grenade into the vents, Evelyn accesses the talents of herself as a singer -- namely, an increased lung capacity that lets her hold her breath through the gas long enough to steal a pair of gas masks and give them to Waymond and Joy. Finally, Evelyn fights off the Alphas, blending her martial arts skills with those of a sign spinner for a pizza restaurant, wielding a riot shield with enough finesse and agility to make Captain America jealous.

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Chef Evelyn Grows In an Extended Pixar Homage

Evelyn on Chad's shoulders and pulling his hair in Everything Everywhere All At Once

While fighting "Big Nose" (Jenny Slate), an Alphaverse soldier who uses her pet Pomeranian like a flail, Evelyn taps into a variant who works as a chef in a teppanyaki restaurant. Through this, she becomes an expert at handling cutlery and can use that to defend herself. However, we soon learn that Chef Evelyn has her own struggles, as she is often upstaged at the restaurant by her fellow cook, Chad (Harry Shum Jr.).

It's later revealed that Chad's prowess is owed to a raccoon that's been hiding under his toque and operating him like a marionette by pulling his hair -- a reference to Prime Evelyn's misunderstanding of the premise of Ratatouille. When Evelyn accidentally reveals the raccoon's existence and gets it taken away by animal control, she resolves to help Chad get his furry friend back, reflecting her growth throughout the story.

Miscellaneous Variants Help Evelyn Battle Jobu

Joy holding a flaming sword in Everything Everywhere All At Once

Eventually, Prime-Evelyn gets good enough at verse-jumping that she believes she's ready to match Jobu Tupaki's reality-bending prowess. Starting from the Prime 2 universe, the two battle each other in a blur of variants: they face off as kung fu warriors in a bamboo forest, as an inmate and a guard in prison, as two sketches on a piece of paper, as a judge and a lawyer in a courtroom and as two piñatas hanging from a tree.

However, the fight is all for naught. Jobu didn't search for the ideal Evelyn to kill her but to show her what it was like to have multiversal knowledge: to see everything, everywhere, all at once. Jobu wasn't looking for a fight; she just wanted to not be alone.

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Rock Evelyn Is the Key To Everything Everywhere's True Message

Rock on a beach with googly eyes in Everything Everywhere All At Once

To give her a feel for what the multiverse is really like, Jobu Tupaki takes Prime Evelyn to one of many realities where life never formed on Earth. The pair exist as nothing more than rocks overlooking the edge of a canyon. Jobu says she appreciates worlds like these for their quiet, allowing her a moment to exhale and simply be a rock. She and Evelyn share a moment, but it doesn't last. Jobu is too willing to give in to her bitter nihilism, but Evelyn is ultimately unable to let her daughter go.

This ends up becoming Everything Everywhere's thesis statement: it's tempting to give up on the world -- understandable, even -- but the only way to make it through the difficulties of life is to lead with caring and kindness. Evelyn's connection to the people she loves -- her daughter, her husband, her father, and even relative strangers like Deirdre and Chad -- and her unwillingness to let them go are what end up saving all reality and allowing Evelyn to appreciate the life she has.