Now that Obsession is streaming on Peacock, I have to vent about my biggest qualm with this hit horror movie: The death of Bear’s cat in Obsession makes absolutely no sense.

Written and directed by Curry Barker, Obsession stars Michael Johnston as a young romantic named Bear, who works at a music shop alongside his childhood bestie and longtime crush, Nikki (break-out star Inde Navarrette). In order to help us feel sympathy for Bear—and to help create a ominous, horror movie mood that foreshadows the violence to come—Bear’s cat, Sandy, dies in one of the first scenes of the film. How? By consuming prescription pain killers, aka OxyContin.

Here’s how it happens: Bear comes home and finds Sandy’s stiff, dead body on his kitchen floor. We see the open bottle of OxyContin pills (labeled “Do Not Eat!!!”, which is bizarre, because how else do you take a pill?) spilled among an open bag of dry cat food, and cans of wet cat food with the lids peeled back part way. I have more than a few problems with this. First of all, are we supposed to believe the cat peeled back those cans of wet food? Curry Barker knows that cats don’t have opposable thumbs, right?

Second, I understand that Bear is living in the house of his recently deceased grandmother, and that the pills were prescribed to her. Fine. I also understand that—based on a shot soon after the cat’s death—the medicine cabinet in Bear’s bathroom doesn’t stay closed. But the inclusion of that medicine cabinet shot seems to imply the cat some how got into the cabinet, retrieved the bottle of pills, spilled it on the floor, mixed it in with the cat food, and then ate the pills. That… makes zero sense.

Let’s consider another, more generous interpretation. Grandma died recently. Her OxyContin was still on the kitchen table, or something. Maybe the child-proof lid was loose. Maybe Bear is a drug addict, and he’s been helping himself to some of Grandma’s pills. Maybe he’s the one that wrote “Do Not Eat!!!” on the bottle, as a reminder to himself. Sure!

But even with all those generous assumptions, I still don’t believe that cat would eat those pills.

Listen. Have you ever tried to get a cat to take a pill? Because I have. It’s a very difficult task. Cats do not want to eat pills. They eat around them. They spit them out. They lick off all the cream cheese you coated the pill in, and look at you with disdain. The pill that Sandy ate, OxyContin, has a very bitter taste. That’s why humans swallow those pills whole, instead of chewing them. Even if that cat was starving—which we know it was not, since it seems to have plenty of food, plus the magical ability to open wet food cans on its own—I think the cat would avoid those pills like the plague.

Some people on the internet have come up with elaborate theories that Bear killed the cat on purpose, or that Nikki was possessed by the spirit of the cat. That’s a fun idea. In actuality, I think the cat death in Obsession was a hasty writing and directing choice from Barker that he simply did not think through. The cat death hits an emotional beat to help set up Bear’s character, and the horror tone of the movie. But logically, it just doesn’t track.

Maybe Barker or others involved in Obsession did question the cat’s death as unbelievable, but figured audiences would be willing to overlook it. After all, this is a movie about a magic stick that grants you wishes. (But that magic makes sense within the rules of this supernatural universe! The cat death does not!) Well, that might be true of most, but it’s not true of me. I’m not letting this one go. Justice for Bear’s cat. And also for Sarah.