Why The Waitress In Utopia Means More Than You Think
Contains spoilers for Utopia
The Amazon Prime series Utopia is an American adaptation of a British show of the same name, but it features some big names that should be well-known to viewers all across the globe. John Cusack, for example, plays the wealthy entrepreneur and head of the corporation BioChristie, Dr. Kevin Christie. Another famous face you see come onto the Utopia screen is Rainn Wilson, best known for playing Dwight Schrute on The Office; here, he takes on the role of Dr. Michael Stearns. And there's also a major Hollywood force who pops up in a tiny role on the show — and while you probably wouldn't recognize her face, she's actually vitally important to the entire American Utopia universe.
On Utopia, readers of the comic book "Utopia" come together dissect its pages, and eventually they craft a conspiracy. They soon realize that the "conspiracy" is beginning to occur in the real world, when a viral pandemic emerges in a similar fashion as it does in the comics. It's up to this group to save the humanity — a task made difficult when more dangerous unravel. As the series eventually reveals, Dr. Kevin Christie's corporation BioChristie is just a front for an organization called "the Harvest," whose main goal is to curb overpopulation.
The fourth episode of Utopia, entitled "Not Slow Not Bad," introduces viewers to the scientist Michael Stearns, whose work may be crucial in stopping the spread of the flu-like virus. He's seen sitting at a diner table while a waitress serves him pancakes — and that waitress means more to the show than you might think.
Cameos that clue us into the conspiracy
During the Utopia panel at this year's digital New York Comic Con event, it was confirmed that the waitress gig served as a cameo for the show's writer and creator, Gillian Flynn. Flynn is also the author of the novel Gone Girl and the writer of the screenplay for the book's feature film adaptation. That's only where the importance of the cameo starts, however. Watch carefully during the scene, and you'll see that the waitress' nails are painted in a design that looks suspiciously similar to the logo for BioChristie, which may very well mean something.
And that's not the only time Flynn makes a cameo on Utopia. During another episode, Flynn graces the screen as a hotel guest, seen wearing a shirt from a petting zoo chain that Stearns and crew later figure out is a likely source of the viral spread. On episode 5, we see a truck being filled with rabbits, and then learn that it's heading for one of the petting zoos. You know where else we see a rabbit? During the scene in which the waitress is serving Stearns his pancakes. As the waitress' hand is whip-creaming the short stack, you can see a large white ring in the shape of a rabbit on her finger. It seems like every time Flynn appears on Utopia, her cameo offers clues about the conspiracy that unravels throughout subsequent episodes.
As a side note: Rainn Wilson runs a podcast called "Soul Pancake," and it's entirely possible that Flynn chose to serve him pancakes specifically as a shout-out to his podcast.