#sinners analysis

[lokilysolbitch]

okay i wasnt seeing any christian takes on sinners before but ive been seeing a couple now and OHHHHHH MY FUCKING GODDDDDDDDDDDDD. oh my god

'this is a movie about spiritual warfare' this is a movie about colonialism and white supremacy. and how black ancestral spirituality was demonised and still demonised by christians of all colors today as a result !!!! its about christianity being used as a tool to subdue black people and irish people !!!!!

'remmick knows the our father prayer bc the devil knows the bible' REMMICK KNOWS THE VERSE BC HE WAS A VICTIM OF CHRISTIANITY !!!!!! BOTH SAMMIE AND REMMICK WERE VICTIMS OF CHRISTIANITY !!!!! THATS WHY THEY BOTH KNOW IT !!!!!!!! THATS WHY IT DOESNT WORK !!!!! using an abusers tool on another abuser whos seen that trick already isnt gonna do shit

'the our father prayer actually did save sammie bc smoke protected him' hey okay so . im going to lose it. did we not all see sammie bash remmicks head in w the GUITAR. the SILVER and WOODEN guitar ?? that one. and i believed he also stabbed him with the WOOD of the guitar.

lets put two and two together here. so we see sammie sing and play guitar and it summons the ancestors and descendents. right. so. if the guitar represents ancestors. okay. and sammie kills remmick with the guitar. stay with me now. sammie kills remmick (a symbol of assimilation to whiteness) with his guitar (his connection to his ancestors). do you see. what im saying.

heres another one. annie is the one who spotted and identified the danger (vampires which are colonialism, assimilation, etc), the one who mobilized everyone and knew what to do, because of her understanding of her ancestral spirituality.

this is not about fucking. god versus the devil. this is not about them. this is about colonization vs knowing your goddamn roots. and this is about your history, where you come from, who you are, being what saves you. this is about joy and art and community being what saves you and being what makes life worth living. this is about colonization being something that is forcefully and violently spread. if you want to survive it, you need to know who the fuck you are and where you come from.

SO STOP MAKING IT ABOUT SATAN THIS IS NOT ABOUT HIM

and DO NOT let no goddamn vampires into your house

anyways. as beyonce says, if you know who you are and where you came from say i slay (i slay)

[seaglassdinosaur]

The way Remmick dunking Sammie in the climax of the film worked as a forced baptism? A precursor to a ‘conversion’ to vampirism? The one-sided conversation Remmick has about the imposition of Christianity, his own forcible conversion that he now inflicts on another young man, all while speaking as though he, Remmick, is better and more enlightened than his own oppressors? The violence of the scene, the terror and distress we see on Sammie’s face as he is waterboarded by Remmick. That it is all a metaphor for the actual violence of forced conversion, the mental, emotional, social and even physical helplessness and disorientation that is felt in the victim made tangible through Caton’s performance. All of it inflicted with an intention to control and subjugate.

Holy. Goddamn. Shit.

[krumbsblog]

Tbh we need more movies like sinners and less Tyler Perry movies with the same trope that heavily relies on our ancestors oppressors religion

[eqqautor]

this is so specific but in sinners I really liked how the cotton plantations are depicted. there's so many shots of them driving or walking through cotton fields which just feel infinite and really span into the distance, maybe a single tree in the frame. it's such a small detail but it really conveys the sense unending labour and the scale of exploitation of Black people in that industry in the US, like of course the cotton fields would have seemed/felt endless, especially as you work in them all day... Ryan Coogler i love you

[mayoiayasep]

me trying to go through the sinners tag peacefully and then seeing the 20th woobifying nsfw remmick x reader fic without even a damn read more warning of the past 5 minutes

[theegyal]

Hello ! Cinematic learner here !

Today I will explain to some of you (especially the ones who are mad at Smoke for killing the KKK at the end)

The core concept is called Catharsis.

Roughly, to vulgarize, it consist of healing, freeing spectators (in play specifically but can be applied to cinema) of any evil emotion, ill sentiments (sadness, anger…etc) through the witnessing of the villains tragic fate.

The concept initially was made to prevent people from doing wrong. For instance, as a racist bastard if you see the KKK clan being slaughtered, with catharsis you’re supposed to stop being racist because of the fear of being killed like them. That being said, as I explained earlier, the concept can be reversed to ease turmoil of victims.

That’s also why it’s canon in MANY films to kill the villain or anti-hero.

LET GET IT STRAIGHT NOW.

As a non black American (especially if you’re white), you should simply zip it when it comes to their history, I mean the one that was IMPOSED to them by your evil ancestors.

Being empathetic to literally KKK members because your whiteness allow you to be is cringe, corny and despicable.

You’re not the one under Cathartic healing, so you just hush and let people grief ; let them be pleased their oppressors get the tragic fate they deserved.

I see you coming : “yes but it’s not only Black Americans who’re happy for their. Death. KKK are evil but still two wrongs don’t make a right”

African related to Sinners Catharsis because still today we’re under neocolonialism. Our people slaughtered for our OWN resources (Congo, Sudan, Mali, Ivory Coast)

And somehow we wish to have a Smoke to deal with all these vampires.

Native American emphasized because their oppressors literally live in their ancestral land. Seeing Smoke annihilates the Klan mirrors their desire to regain their lands back.

Now you as white, I think you should sit down and think about WHY you feel the need to pity a Klan who’s known for slaughtering black people. Especially in the film it explained that the juke joint used to be a slaughter house and not for animals…

Is it your whiteness the problem ? Or the privilege associated to it that prevent you from being human ? Hmm.

Anyway. Thank you for hearing me. LOUD and CLEAR I hope.

[mcondance]

the way elijah is actually tearing up when he’s trying to get sammie to “leave all this improper shit to us,” is so… i think it speaks to how elijah thinks of himself and where he is in life. he wanted more, he and his brother wanted more, but the blood of their father kept them from being able to go down to mound bayou and make a living with the “proper Black folks.” and i think at a certain point it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. the whole world saw elijah and elias as no good, so it’s what they became. i think elijah really wanted more for his and his brother’s lives. i think, if he could have, he would have left all that “improper shit” behind and lived a good life. but he was dealt bad cards and he became a bad player to keep his head above water.

[superhoeva]

things i noticed the third time around watching sinners, in no particular order (spoilers under the cut!!):

delta slim is the one who hands sammie his guitar before sacrificing himself to let he, smoke, and pearline escape the juke. when he handed it to him, he told sammie "remember what i told ya," and i'm certain that has to be a callback to slim talking to sammie about the blues and christianity.

there's some kind of foreshadowing happening when the guy gets his cheek cut during a game of cards (?) to the scratches that remmick leaves on sammie's cheek. yes, we are privy to the injury at the beginning of the film but i feel like it's forgotten enough to see the man's cut cheek as a sign of what's to come!

the interplay of the conversations between smoke with sammie and stack with mary has soooo much fucking intention. smoke talking about how sammie needs to either join the "proper black folks or write church music." as we all know, sammie ends up doing neither of those things–instead he takes his guitar and leaves to become one of the best blues players in the world; stack and mary are the only people from that night able to see that sammie made the best choice for himself, and that's only because mary talked stack into letting her go check out remmick and the crew–in turn, knocking down the domino that leads to her and stack becoming vampires.

there was always a bird flying overhead when a kkk member was in the scene. birds, at least in horror movies, are known to be messengers of death and bringers of doom.

during sammie's conversation with his father in church at the beginning of the movie, a cross can be seen in the background multiple times when the camera is on the preacher. however, its less common (and sometimes even blocked) by sammie.

there was also another cross present in the background when we're taken. outside with mary when she goes to talk to remmick, which i personally feels says something about christianity's impact on why remmick is the way that he is.

another thing i noticed about sammie's conversation with his father–his dad calls him boy in a similar tone to hogwood when he says it to smoke and stack. two very different circumstances but both seemed like they were intended to be belittling in some way.

*the last thing we hear hogwood say i something like "i got money." being a man from the south during that time, you would expect him to call out for God, but no. the last word out of his mouth was money. this isn't only a callback to what smoke was talking with annie about but proves that that's the only thing people like hogwood really care about–money... along with power it gets them.

*the young black man on the stage playing with sammie/buddy guy during the first post credit scene is christone "kingfish" ingram–one of the most prominent faces of modern american blues singing/blues guitar–thus tying together the old (buddy) and the new (catfish) of blues

finally, i find it really touching and incredibly interesting that sammie seems to have been the most influenced not by his father or his cousins–but delta slim. he took what he said–that the blues came over with us when our ancestors were brought to america–and kept that with him the rest of his life. the very religion slim talks about being "forced upon us" is the same religion that often views blues and other secular music as evil. sammie's blues rendition of the little light of mine (a song regularly performed in church) is proof that it isn't the music that evil but rather the policing of the forms of art we use to connect with our past, present, and future...

*these two i technically got from my dad (who noticed this after his first watch???) but i wanted to add because they're very good points.

[mrmeepsmadmind]

this photo fucking kills me bcs it's smoke swearing in his mind

' if this goddamn pig shirks us or pulls up with armed whites, i'm raining hellfire in five seconds.' Always on Edge

&& then there's stack thinking

'im rollin THE BEST cigarette 😸😸😸 !!'

(says that abt all the cigs he gets to roll for smoke and or anyone, for that matter)

[the-crooked-library]

just got back from seeing Sinners and i have to say, one of my favourite lore/theme-building elements of that film was its blatant rejection of christianity, both religious and cultural. yes the vampires are referred to as demons/devils, yes they're evil, yes Sammy's music entranced them and attracted them, but even so, christ is not the answer. the lord's prayer does not save him, but annie's mojo bag prevents stack from biting smoke. remmick can speak the same prayer with impunity and preaches universal acceptance, but in doing so he is effectively passing on the same fundamentally colonialist violence that was done to his own people, erasing his followers' individuality and culture. Sammy's father disparages his music for being sinful, but people and vampires alike are drawn to it through time itself because it's real in a way that the hymns sung by the pulpit are not; smoke tries to convince him to make church music bc it seems safer, but that is not even a guarantee - slim's friend rice wanted to start a church and was lynched anyway. the point is that throwing aside everything you are for the sake of an artificial, violently enforced propriety just kills you sooner in every way that matters, even as you continue to walk and talk. a brainwashed fascimile of life.

fuck, what a film.

[aintnoloveintheheatofthesun]

A love letter to the brilliant, talented, lying ass, cheating heifer...Pearline 🖤

There is so much to love about this character. She is played by Jayme Lawson so jot that down.

I couldn't sleep after watching this film. Not only did she cheat, sing and kill in the space of 2 hours 18 minutes, she stole my heart, too.

Let's break this down sequentially.

Name

'Pearline' connotes something rare and beautiful. There's two elements I love about this imagery.

One - she is a shining vision in a sea of flesh. This reflects her performance on stage, where she is a sight to behold in a sea of moving bodies.

Two - she is linked to local history. For decades, African Americans found employment and even autonomy fishing oysters along the Gulf Coast. These oysters would be shipped around the nation; creating opportunity for black fishermen, chefs and entrepreneurs. Her names anchors her to the South, to black ingenuity and resilience.

Furthermore! Her solo reflects the idea that Pearline is deeply committed to her people. While Sammie wrote an original song that he had never shared before, Pearline sings a lively song where everyone could join in.

When she thumps in time with the twins' violence, I feel like that emphasises her carpe diem nature. You cannot reach the valuable part of an oyster without exerting physical force. Before we reach the climax of the song and see Jayme Lawson in all her brilliance, a sinner in the back room takes several blows to the chest. Since this takes place during the Prohibition Era we can assume that she is no stranger to violence or crime.

Look

Damn, this woman is fine. Her skin was so well lit in the film. The night scenes when she was sweating on stage (and on that table) had her looking radiant. The beat was flawless and the hair worked!

Fits

The Clarksdale train station look will always be a favourite of mine. The white fishnet gloves, the floral earrings, the dark hat with flowers at the back and the floral print dress ate down. I'm just glad Sammie saw the vision.

Her light green, silk number in the juke joint made sense. We even got a new accessories  on stage, she can be seen in her wedding ring, different dangling earrings and a shiny cuff. The matching scarf was the perfect touch and them shoes!! Lord. They took 'Pale, Pale Moon' to the next level. Speaking of that that song - I am obsessed. It went triple platinum in my house last week. Brittany Howard and Ludwig Göransson devoured.

Love interest

That introduction after Pearline first watched Sammie play did it for me. There were fireworks between them!! Only to be followed up by

"You gonna sing?" "We'll see where the night takes us"

My goodness me. This woman really said I do what I want. She walked all the way to that juke joint, got her pussy ate, and sang like never before.

Queen shit.

Character arc

We first meet Mrs Pearline in the golden light of day. She looks calm and curious; eyeing up Preacher Boy. We then learn more about her tastes (in terms of sex, music, choreography and aromatics) before seeing her in action (killing these undead motherfuckers with Annie). She starts off reserved and mysterious and later proves herself to be brave and self-assured. Her dance style is sensual, animalistic and free. Clearly, this is not her first time performing for folks in a place like this; unlike Sammie. He has only ever sung at church and on Delta Slim's territory.

Speaking of Preacher Boy! She stands side by side with him, guarding the room where they are holding Stack. She calls Smoke evil to his face when he threatens to kill her over some garlic. She shoots at vampires, stakes motherfuckers and fights to the bitter end. My girl has ice in her veins.

Background

A massive thank you to professional dancer and cultural historian Melany Centeno for her breakdown video on YouTube explaining all the ancestors in THAT scene. She found that Ahmari Vaughn played Pearline's ancestor. This dancer was dressed in Hamar cultural wear while doing traditional Nilotic dances. The Acholi people are a Nilotic ethnic group found in Sudan and Northern Uganda. They have dances like Larakaraka and Bwola; which emphasise female agility and elegance.

Also credit to Walter English. He created this reading list inspired by Ms Pearline. It explores some brilliant Black Feminist literature and historical archives.

Thoughts on the actress Jayme Lawson deserves every good thing in this world. I love this character that she has brought to life and I thoroughly appreciate how messy, beautiful and real Pearline is.

Favourite quotes by her

"Y'all are cousins? I thought you were a nice young man"

"What was in that jar?"

These quotes represent the 'fuck it, we ball mentality of Mrs Pearline. When she learns that Sammie is related to the twins, she doesn't run out of that place - she spends even more time with him. I love that for her. There's no doubt she has heard rumours of the Smoke Stack twins not-quite-legal employment history. Rather than seek the company of upstanding black folk in Clarksdale, she goes even deeper into this mess.

For the second quote, I love how Pearline is actively working to figure out how the hell they can survive. The criticisms of her character as a jezebel are not completely unfounded however this line changes things. She is a woman who feels trapped in her marriage, just like how Sammie feels trapped in his father's church.

While she is very comfortable in her sexuality; she is not defined by it. She gets head from Preacher Boy, with her wedding ring on. She performs with reckless abandon on stage to an adoring crowd.

Siren, sure. Jezebel? No.

Mrs Pearline is not a sexual object with no thoughts, no ambitions for herself. She understands that in 1932 Mississipi, the sale of alcohol is illegal and she sings in a Juke Joint. She learns that this man she has just met has notorious, gangster cousins and she continues to seek him out. She finds out that they are surrounded by cold blooded monsters and she picks up a stake, then ties it to a shotgun.

The lovers' performance

I am calling it a singular performance because these two partners, idgaf. When Pearline arrives, Sammie dares her to play. She plays it cool and returns the dare. As he sings, she makes her way over and dances for him.

Them getting nasty in the backroom is the interlude. And finally, as she sings, he is in the wings, watching her with pure adoration.

Her musical number is just as powerful and vibrant as Preacher Boy's. Both of them are shown to be deeply rooted Southerners who love their people and the arts. They even stand up to Smoke in a similar manner. When Smoke tells Sammie to live a decent life, playing gospel music in the next town, Sammie refuses. Smoke holds a gun to his head. When Pearline hesitates to eat a clove of garlic, Smoke holds a gun to her head. Neither of them back down, even when their safety is on the line.

I saw an excellent post that explores the narrative development between 'I Lied to You' and 'Pale, Pale Moon'. It is a beautifully constructed journey that takes us from a coming-of-age musical to a historically accurate horror film. Sammie's song introduces us to his God given talent, while setting the scene for Remmick's self-serving, cult-like, pursuit.

Pearline's song is where the violence and the music begin to converge; namely when Pearline gets to stomping on stage in sync to the twins kicking a man in the gambling room.

In this scene, Sammie is admiring his woman and the juke joint patrons are singing in a chorus with her. This siren is at the centre of everything, in part because of her sex appeal, but mostly because of her passion and vocal abilities. The lyrics of the song even foreshadow the violent fates of these patrons. Sammie's music celebrates Black cultural contributions through past, present and future while Pearline's is a warning for what is to come.

Sammie is not the only griot in that place. The final credit scene features the gospel song 'This little light of mine' in which the lyrics directly contrast Pearline's song. Ms Pearline gets turned and becomes vulnerable to the sun so when she sings

Don't let it shine x4

Oh Lord

We learn that she is Sammie's equal and opposite.

In conclusion, Pearline is much more than eye candy in Sinners (2025). She is Sammie's narrative foil. She is a daring, formidable character who is about that action.

Favourite quote about her

'You so beautiful' - Sammie Moore 1932

No notes. Dude's right.

That whole scene had me like

[seaglassdinosaur]

The most brilliant and impressive thing Ryan Coogler did in my opinion was figure out how to communicate to the audience the actual tangible power of Sammie’s music, so we could truly conceptualize what it was that Remmick wanted and what he threatened to take away.

[daydreamer2467]

Sinners: Movie Analysis

Here’s my analysis of Sinners that I put on Letterboxd + some additional commentary💕🩵🎶

I absolutely adored Sinners and was surprised to find so much of my own culture reflected in the film. As such I wanted to give some insight into the Irish vampire Remmick and his connection to its themes, its culture and its story.

Before I go into explaining I want to note that I live in Dublin and am a dual citizen of both the US and Ireland with family and cultural ties to both nations. It is because of my own history and culture that made me resonate and feel so seen by Coogler’s writing of Remmick, the main vampire villain of the movie.

I should also note that Remmick could be a nod to the Irish story of Abhartach, a legend about a man killed who rises from the dead demanding blood. The story has many versions such as Dearg Due, that most likely influenced the Irish writer, Bram Stoker, in writing Dracula.

From the very first scene that Remmick is in, where he is getting chased by the Choctaw vampire hunters, it is obvious the amount of research Coogler has done. For those who don’t know, the Choctaw Nation and Ireland have a very long history dating back to the Famine, a genocide against Ireland by the British. Wherein the Choctaw Nation donated $5,000 in today’s money not long after the Trail of Tears to help the country. Since then both peoples have maintained a relationship, with Ireland paying back the Choctaw Nation for their help. There’s even a memorial down in Cork to commemorate our relationship.

It felt ironic watching this scene for the first time knowing this long history but looking back it perfectly sets up the movie’s main theme surrounding Remmick. That’s because in this scene Remmick is pointedly finding safety in the house of a KKK member, the literal embodiment of white supremacy. Remmick is doing what many Irish Americans did at the time, turning their back on community in an effort to appeal to an American standard of whiteness (Irishmen hadn’t been considered white before this time period), eventually becoming that standard of whiteness themselves. Knowing this, the Choctaw men hunting him seems more like mercy kill than an actual hunting. Seeing it this way, it could even be mirroring a scene later in the film between Annie and Smoke.

I think it’s important to note that the core theme of this film is how culture and community are linked and what happens to people who’ve lost their culture and community. That is what Remmick, and what so many Irish Americans want and are cut off from. When he sees Sammy and the Juke Joint dancing with the past, present, and future spirits, he sees a tie to his own culture that he has lost. Except instead of wanting a mutual consensual connection between himself and Black Americans, he wants to take it over in a desperate attempt to get something that’s already lost.

When he sings ‘Pick Poor Robin Clean’ to try and get into the Juke Joint, he is imitating a song written and sung by Black Americans, taking it over, gentrifying it, and trying to use Black American culture for his own gain.

Though he doesn’t just sing this song, in fact he sings two songs that I have heard my whole life and was very shocked to hear in this movie. The first is ‘Will You Go Lassie, Go?’ and it is sung to the white passing character Mary before the vampires kill her. The song is an old folk song about a young man yearning for his love who has gone away. Though Scottish in origin it was reinterpreted by Francis McPeake and gifted to a woman named Maggi Pierce who left Ireland for America. In that sense it is also a mourning song for someone who is going far away, never to return. For those who don’t know, an ‘American Wake’ was a practice in Ireland for mourning someone leaving for America because they would not be able to have a funeral in their home country once they died.

When Remmick and the other vampires sing this for Mary, it is a song mourning a community already gone. He is a dead man, singing a mourning song, in a land that calls for funerals back home.

From this point on, Remmick grows his group of vampires larger and larger, trying to mimic the community they had when he wasn’t with them. They sing and preform the song ‘The Rocky Road to Dublin’, a rebel song about the oppression and colonization Britain exerts over Ireland. That being said, Remmick is the only one Irish dancing, all of the other vampires are just surrounding him without any real dances of their own. I saw a few people point out that they were dancing counter clockwise which could be a reference to Irish Sidhe/Fairy Folk who trick humans into dancing forever by going counter clockwise (though this is just speculation). There is also a lack of past and future spirits with them as they are neither dead nor alive. Their connection to their community is gone and their culture too.

I've seen some Irish people say that choosing these songs is lazy because of how widely known they are, but I disagree. Remmick is a man cut off from his culture, so it makes sense that the songs he knows are a bit superficial. I also agree with casting Jack O'Connell instead of an Irish person born and raised in country because I think he has a better understanding of Irish people in the diaspora and their relationship with Irish culture.

The last song we hear from Remmick after this is ‘Pick Poor Robin Clean’ again, only this time with all the people he has taken and transformed from the Juke Joint. He is, without intending to, the embodiment of white supremacy and how it takes and takes and takes.

When he fights Sammy, he does what many Irish Americans do, use their people’s past subjection to justify their oppression and bigotry over others. They know enough about oppression to knock on the door and peek inside, but because of their willingness to assimilate into American whiteness, the only community they have left to be a part of is one founded and controlled by white supremacy.

Before, Remmick was most likely someone like Sammy, a Filí able to use music to gather community, which is why he uses it to gather more and more vampires, yet he doesn’t understand that this is doing the exact opposite of building the community he yearns for.

In As Gaeilge, the Irish language, there’s a saying, “Tír gan Teanga, Tír gan Anam” which translates to “A country without a language is a country without a soul”. At no point in the movie does Remmick even speak Irish and the rest of the time he is switching between accents whenever it seems beneficial. I see Remmick, and many people who claim to be Irish American without any actual connection to Ireland, as the embodiment of this saying. They are people who have lost their language, their culture, their people, and as such have lost their soul to hate pretending to be community.

When Remmick is finally killed by the sun and burned in a giant cauldron of fire, it may seem to some that he is being punished and sent to hell. This is not how I interpreted his death, having had prior knowledge of Irish folktales as well as just attending Bealtaine at the Hill of Uisneach in Westmeath a couple weeks ago. For those who don’t know Bealtaine is an old Irish festival celebrating the coming summer, the return of the sun and life itself. I view Remmick’s death as a reflection of this festival (& other Irish pagan festivals) and his return to his ancestors after finally embracing the sun once more (just like how Annie said vampires are cut off from this connection, he is finally free to have it once more). Below is a picture I took at Bealtaine that I think looks very similar to Remmick’s fire in the movie.

Sinners is a movie about what happens when you allow hate to walk right through your door and how it isolates you from everything you hold dear. When Mary and Stack speak with an older Sammy, Stack mentions how the music hasn’t felt ‘real’ since that night, having lost the connection that living and dying gives to the evolution of his people.

Setting aside Remmick, I still absolutely loved this film, and he is by no means it’s major highlight. The way Coogler depicts Black American culture, its beauty, tenderness, and relation to music is masterful and I sincerely hope this film gets all the awards it deserves. I won’t go deep into his depiction of Black Americans and Black American culture because it is not my culture to speak on, and this analysis is already way too long. I will say though that this film is a masterclass in how culture and community relate to characters and their motivations. I think it’ll go down as one of the best horror films of the genre and I can’t wait to see what else Ryan Coogler and everyone who worked on this film makes.

[a-crippled-creature]

reading the analysis of Sinners is like realizing that a movie about the forced gentrification & assimilation of Black, Brown, and other PoCs & yet yt fucks chose not to decenter themselves from the narrative that's not even fucking about them & actively side with the villains

im so done

[altered-corp]

I keep thinking about Stack asking Smoke if he's gonna let Annie come in between them again. Because of you think about it: Stack had Mary, but not in the way that Smoke had Annie.

Which made me realize: Stack feels for Annie, the way Smoke feels for Mary. That is to say, they don't like the other. The only reason Smoke didn't drag Mary out of the juke joint after the flower conversation was because he knew Stack liked her, and wanted to give him the opportunity to handle it. And when Mary was turned, she only cared for Annie, not Smoke. She told Annie that after they kill everyone, they'll have heaven on earth. Stack was focused on Smoke, but wanted Annie to turn as well.

We see in Smoke's flashback that Stack was nice to Annie. He didn't hate her. Just didn't like that she got between him and his brother. Like he can understand wanting to be with someone else, but to go as far as (possibly marrying) them and having a child with them; well that's just taking it too far.

Stack didn't love Mary. Or if you think he did, it still doesn't change anything. He would never choose Mary over Smoke. Not like how Smoke chose Annie over him.

I wonder what it was like when Smoke and Annie got together. How Stack reacted to the baby, and her death. Do you think he was ever mean to her? Like, sutbly? Did they have to go through a period of getting used to each other before they liked each other? We know Stack loves her like family, he wouldn't have been so upset that Smoke killed her, otherwise. But that line just makes me think of all the ups and down the three of them possibly went through before they got to how they were in the movie.

Also, side note: do you think Annie had a mojo bag for Stack? Do we even know how he feels about hoodoo? We know Smoke doesn't believe in it, but still wears the bag. I wonder if Annie offered, but Stack refused. Which lead Annie to make a bag that protects the both of them. Or if she just never offered.