Category Archives: hulu

Death and Other Details S1 E2

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“Sordid”

I got a chance to watch episode two of the new Hulu series, Death and Other Details featuring Mandy Patinkin as one of the world’s great gentlemen detectives, Rufus Cotesworth. 

Rufus goes about interviewing all of the passengers on the ship about the murder of Keith, Rufus’s friend and assistant who was on the ship undercover. Keith had been playing a role as such a jerk on the ship and wound up being murdered. Or was it because of his jerk-ness or was it tied to the old case of the murder of Imogene’s mother?

Mandy Patinkin is always great and he is, at this point, the reason to be watching this. I am still feeling my way along on this show, hoping to get more enthralled with the mystery than what I have so far.

Rufus certainly has shaken up the rest of the passengers, looking to see what he can find.

Death and Other Details S1 E1

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As I was preparing to finish up A Murder at the End of the World on Hulu today, I happened across another series that dropped today called Death and Other Details. What drew my attention to this was the thumbnail that featured Mandy Patinkin.

I then read the synopsis and it told me that Patinkin was playing the world’s greatest detective, Rufus Cotesworth and that he was investigating a locked-room murder aboard a luxury ocean liner. 

That was enough for me. I do like murder mysteries and this had a bit of a combination of Adrian Monk and Benoit Blanc. Mandy Patinkin is always excellent and I was excited to see the show.

After watching the first episode, I can say that this is totally okay… and has a chance to be entertaining, even if the first episode may not have reached that level.

Rufus was on the liner investigating another case, and the story was being told in flashbacks about a case that he did not solve earlier in his career, A mother blew up in a car bomb in front of her young daughter, scarring the girl for life. This girl, now an adult, named Imogene Scott (Violett Beane), happened to be on the boat too, and had an interaction with the murder victim that made her look like a prime suspect. 

Not sure how much I liked Imogene and that was a drawback to the show. I hope that once I get connected to her more, I’ll enjoy the show more. It was okay. 

A Murder at the End of the World E4-E7

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I had said at one point that I would be very disappointed if Andy, as the guest of this trip, would turn out to be the killer because it was a boring, overused trope. For awhile, I was afraid that the show was absolutely heading in that direction.

Then it turned.

The show was very intense and powerful. I really enjoyed the mystery and I found Darby to be an outstanding protagonist. The other characters all were well done. There were a few of the other characters who were just there and were not involved in the main story that was being told, but that was alright.

Admittedly, the show did turn to another old trope a its solution. The renegade AI. 

The AI known as Ray was shown to be the reason why Bill was murdered, but it was a bit of a change. Ray did not go off on his own as all AIs are destined to do. Instead, he was following what he thought was an instruction from Andy during a rant over his anger. Andy was anything but innocent here. His temper and his violent streak certainly led to the beginning of the deaths that was going on.

However, the trick of making the little boy Zoomer the person who injected Bill with the killing dose of morpheme, because Zoomer was playing a game designed by Ray. A game of doctor, much like he did in the first episode. That was a clever twist that I did not see coming. I did think about Ray early on in the episodes, but I did not go any further.

This was an excellent limited series with a protagonist, played by Emma Corrin, that is awesome and fun to watch. I love smart when it comes to characters. And Darby was very smart.

A Murder at the End of the World E3

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“Chapter Three: Survivors”

I watched the third episode of the FX limited series A Murder at the End of the World on Hulu tonight. It continues to be engaging and mysterious.

Another murder happened in this episode, of one of the guests who had told Darby that he had information to share with her. Rohan had confirmed that he had been the man in the mask on the tape, but before he had a chance to tell the next piece of information, the sounds of Rohan being attacked crossed the phone.

This all happened after Andy told her that he wanted Darby to leave the site. He told her that the police had declared that Bill’s death was not a murder, but an overdose. Andy told Darby that she was grieving and needed to rest. He asked for her ring back.

Yes, he is a little suss with his statements. I certainly hope he does not turn out to be the killer, because that feels too obvious. Had they started it off like a Monk/Columbo show where we knew the killer, but just try and see our heroes find out how they did it, it would be one thing. But this started off as a mystery and the host being the killer is just too much of a trope.

There are just 4 more episodes of the limited series remaining. I am excited about finishing this up soon.

A Murder at the End of the World E1, E2

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“Chapter One: Homme Fatal”

“Chapter Two: The Silver Doe”

I was looking for something new to watch. I didn’t want to dive into more from Moonlighting or The X-Files, as I have done several of both of those series this weekend. Picket Fences is done. Fargo has one more episode. I have not been too enthralled with For All Mankind as of yet. I finished Murder House. I wanted something new.

I will be doing a Twin Peaks rewatch at some point, but this did not feel like the right time. There are several other great shows I love such as Monk, Castle but those are both multiple season runs and I am only in season 2 of a bunch of the X-Files. Having something that has an end in sight is always welcome.

So I went looking for other options, and eventually I worked around to Hulu. Hulu was being kind of wonky tonight (I think because of the frigid cold we have here right now), but I still came across A Murder at the End of the World.

I had seen this before and the concept intrigued me and I am always a fan of a good murder mystery. It is also only seven episodes, which is great. It feels like one of those shoes like Echo, The Body or Fall of the House of Usher that can be a quick, palate cleanser in-between the longer commitment of the multi-season re-watches.

I started the series hoping that it would be able to catch my attention. I will say it started a little slow, but my the end of episode one, everybody had arrived at the setting and the characters were introduced and the murder was in place. At that point, I was all in.

The basic plot is something that we have seen before. A group of people are invited to an isolated location and somebody is murdered. This trope is very common, but I did like the way this series set up the trope and tied it to our main protagonist’s background. 

Emma Corrin felt very familiar to me, but I did not recognize anything on her IMDB page (that I had watched, I mean… I recognized shows. I just never watched The Crown or Pennyworth). I enjoyed her portrayal of Darby Hart, an amateur sleuth/true crime writer who had been called the Gen Z Sherlock Holmes. She wound up being invited to a retreat with some of the big brains of the world and her former friend/love Bill Farrah (Harris Dickinson) was also in attendance, as one of the world’s aforementioned artists.

At the end of the first episode, Bill dies in front of Darby. It is believed that he O.D.’d, but Darby did not believe it. She knew something more was going on, and she sneaked into the crime scene to see what she could find.

The story is told with flashbacks back to Darby’s younger years, not only during the time she and Bill were in pursuit of the Silver Dove Killer, a serial killer obsessed with silver jewelry, but also to younger years yet, when Darby was with her policeman father, including at crime scenes he was investigating. Her observations helped him with his cases.

There are some interesting characters in the show, but there has not yet been too much development of any of the other invitees to the retreat. They have been touched on, but the depth is still to come, I expect.

There was a disturbing glance at a person in a mask on the video in Bill’s room when he died. It was a scary image and it was one that I did not expect.

The first two episodes were really good and, with only five more to go, it should not take too long to find out who the guilty party is. I hope it delivers in the long run.