How Did John Krasinski Know The Monsters Use Sound In Quiet Place 2?

Warning: SPOILERS for A Quiet Place Part II and its prequel, as well as the storyline of John Krasinski’s character Lee Abbott.

In the prologue of  A Quiet Place Part II, John Krasinski’s character, Lee Abbott, seemed to know that the monsters respond to sound despite the fact that the aliens had just landed on Earth – but how? Picking up immediately from where the 2018 original left off, A Quiet Place Part II shows how the monsters arrived and immediately attacked our planet, seen once more through the eyes of the Abbott family.

Lee sacrificed his life to save his family in A Quiet Place, and his wife Evelyn (Emily Blunt), teenage daughter Regan (Millicent Simmons), who is deaf, son Marcus (Noah Jupe), and Evelyn’s newborn child have no choice but to carry on in the sequel. Leaving the sanctuary of their farmhouse behind, they venture into an abandoned factory where they meet an old friend, Emmett (Cillian Murphy), who also survived the apocalypse but he no longer trusts other people. The sequel also builds on the information about the alien monsters from A Quiet Place, which established that the creatures are blind and hunt via sound and echolocation. The extraterrestrial killers are seemingly invulnerable to most physical attacks but Lee and Regan discovered that they are hurt by the amplified feedback of Regan’s hearing aid. While they’re reeling from the noise, their exo-shells open up, which allows them to be killed by guns or even sharp objects.

But did Lee already know the aliens’ secret in A Quiet Place Part II‘s prologue? Despite appearances, Lee did not know anything yet. The film’s opening sequence instead depicts how Lee formed his first suspicions about the monsters’ key vulnerability. In A Quiet Place Part II‘s flashback, the Abbott family is attending their town’s little league baseball game when a meteorite blazes through the sky and crashes nearby. Within minutes, the town is attacked by the aliens, who kill indiscriminately and smash up vehicles. Separated from Evelyn and Marcus, Lee and Regan avoid the initial onslaught and seek refuge in a tavern along with other people. The aliens are visible outside the bar’s windows and Lee is alarmed when some of the people he’s trapped with are muttering to themselves and praying. Lee tries to silence the man praying but the monsters hear the noise and attack the people in the bar. Fortunately, Lee and Regan are able to escape, reunite with their family, and flee.

Lee trying to keep the people hiding in the bar with him quiet didn’t display any special knowledge that the aliens hunt via sound. At that point, the Abbott patriarch knew nothing about the alien monsters and he was just trying to keep himself and his daughter alive. Lee was simply being logical: the aliens might be able to hear voices in the building as they walked past it. He was hoping they would eventually vacate the area so everyone inside could get to safety. The woman complaining about her lack of cell phone signal and the man whispering prayers seemed especially loud to Lee and he feared that the aliens outside would hear the commotion and realize there were people inside the tavern. It turned out his fears were correct.

But Lee and Regan’s horrifying experience in A Quiet Place Part II‘s prologue was the seed planted for how much the elder Abbott would be able to learn about the aliens by the time the events of the original film unfolded. Obviously, Lee thought a great deal about his first contact with the monsters and their behavior, and it formed the basis for his research into the murderous invaders’ strengths and weaknesses. A Quiet Place Part II‘s prologue not only established Lee Abbott’s courage, resourcefulness, and love for his family, it also subtly set up how and why Lee learned that quiet and silence was the first and best defense humans had against the aliens, although he didn’t really know how the monsters used sound at the time.