Christine was working at Nick's club as a waitress even before he signs up with CRS. After many viewings, it's weird I never saw this plot point before. She spilt iced tea on the tablecloth while Conrad and Nick are talking about the CRS gift card.
"'Extremely High Voltage.' Well, I don't need safety gloves, because I'm Homer Sim--" - Frank Grimes
She was probably there to test his reaction to a 'clumsy' waitress. This would help her plan for what she would do later, when the 'game' was actually on.
shareConrad had already put him in the game before they met for lunch.
shareI can't see how Conrad could have put him in the game prior to Nick's signing up and taking all the tests and physicals. What makes you say that? Sounds illegal without Nick's signature and agreement.
"'Extremely High Voltage.' Well, I don't need safety gloves, because I'm Homer Sim--" - Frank Grimes
(A) Spilling iced tea on someone is a pretty trivial action, so it doesn't seem implausible that CRS performs some pre-formal sign-up testing/investigation of the subject.
(B) CRS does a bunch of things that almost certainly would be illegal in real life even with Nick's prior consent (e.g., dumping him into the river while trapped in the cab; taking him to Mexico without going through proper immigration procedures; etc.), so protesting that any given thing CRS does would be illegal isn't really a very good critique. Either you accept that the legal system is different in the film's reality or you accept that "there are different laws for rich and poor" as the saying goes and that CRS has the clout to make legal inquiries go away.
>Sounds illegal without Nick's signature and agreement.
That only formalized it. The entire business office he goes to was set up for his game, so for that reason alone you can deduce his game was already afoot.
Perhaps had he not consented at that point they would have stopped, but they were already manipulating him before he signed those papers.
No, Connie didn't put Nick in the game, Nick did. All Connie did at lunch was give him the gift cert.
shareIt's totally feasible that the way this almost science-fictional company works is that when someone buys a CRS Game gift certificate. they have to register the person they're giving it to, and CRS starts doing preliminary prep in anticipation that the person who receives the gift will very very likely want to play.
shareWhen Christine spills stuff on Nick he mentions that she did the same thing to him a month earlier, so she must've been working there before he signed with CRS.
shareI thought he said “last week.” He was already in the game when they met for lunch. Christine is planted early because that way Nick will never question whether she’s a part of it. “Well I met her before I signed up so she couldn’t possibly be.”
share