A Murder At The End Of The World recap: Darby drills down in the show’s best episode yet

[Editor’s note: This recap, like all recaps on The A.V. Club, contains spoilers.]

Shedding that extra weight has made A Murder At The End Of The World a nimble little mystery. Granted, it’s not that we’ve lost the flashbacks entirely, but they’ve drastically reduced, creating an economy of language in the present that makes the show more engaging and compelling. With “Family Secrets,” the show even finds new ways of telling its story, using the below-freezing temperatures to heighten the drama.

The first three days of Andy’s retreat are going south, literally. Another dead body turns up (R.I.P. Rohan, we hardly knew ye), and Todd whisks the guests into the basement. We land in a war room, where everyone, including Lee and Zoomer (but not Andy), says everything they know about pacemakers as quickly as possible. Darby, who in this episode is taking Lee’s advice of playing things a little dumber to heart, tries to downplay how likely it is that someone hacked Andy’s pacemaker. Being a teen coroner, she demands to see the body, which, obviously—who is she kidding?—is not happening. Todd brings everyone back to their rooms, stripping them of their electronics and keys until Andy can figure out what the hell’s going on. He doesn’t like losing control. Who does?

This very promising opening sequence takes Darby out of her element and challenges her noggin. It’s fun to watch her hack, but at this stage in the game, Marling and Batmanglij were wise to take her computer and get her out of her element. “Family Secrets” is a turning point for the character and a rejiggering of the show, expanding the scope beyond the hotel walls. We’ve spent a lot of time at this icy, cursed resort, and it’s already starting to feel like the show’s rhythm will be, “Okay, each episode, another guest will die.” The basement signaled a shift in our understanding of the whole place, like why was there a Stranglove-esque war room down there? What they do with it, though, is a bit hit-and-miss.

Sian isn’t going to let Andy imprison everyone in their rooms without the internet. She sneaks out the back door each hotel room has (apparently, Todd was not worried about this), grabs Darby, and the two head to the morgue, where Darby performs an impromptu autopsy and confirms that someone hacked the pacemaker because of Rohan’s incision scar. Darby also finds the red flashlight in Rohan’s pocket and has to tell Sian what’s going on. Because Sian failed the little “Are you a hacker” test (which is something like “hackersayswhat”), Darby is beginning to open up to her. Sian has long presented herself as an ally since the first episode, and Darby respects Sian and believes she can help her investigation. Credit to Corrin: You can see it all over Darby’s face as she considers whether Sian is trustworthy and decides in the affirmative. Luckily, Sian knows where they can find some climate suits and snowmobiles. They could leave and return before Andy knew they were gone and the imminent storm reached the hotel.

The storm put more pressure on the episode, even if it remains unclear how long these people can be out there without a climate suit. Still, futuristic garb added to the otherworldliness of the setting, like something from Interstellar, elevating the show’s sci-fi elements. The storm and Andy’s winter gear also gave us some ticking clock that would come into play in the episode’s tense climax. The environment around the hotel has been a presence, but this is the first time it’s felt like a threat. Here, it doesn’t matter who the killer is because if they don’t get back to the hotel in time, they’ll die.

Sian and Darby’s investigation fills in many gaps, like how Darby’s dad taught her Morse code (finally bringing that mystery to a close) and how David used to be Andy’s partner. David blames Lee for taking Andy’s focus from her, which tracks with the kind of dickhead David is. Moreover, Sian deduces that Rohan was signaling a third team member, saying something to the effect of, “The plan is still a go even with Bill dead.” At the shore, they find an inflatable raft, known as a zodiac, tied to a spike with a red flag on it. Sian theorizes that someone is traveling back and forth from the coast to a ship out at sea.

Sian finally remembers that there’s a storm coming, and the two jump on the snowmobile. Their journey goes awry, and they find themselves, somehow, in an SUV that Sian can hack with ease. Darby begins to regret telling her all those secrets, but Sian reciprocates by telling her that Andy is a doomsday prepper who believes climate catastrophe is closer than we think. He’s not sending anyone to space, which is what he hired Sian for, his space program. Instead, he’s building some apocalypse bomb shelter with an army of robot dogs out in the middle of Iceland because he doesn’t think he’ll be able to save everyone. But has Andy considered driving an electric car? Maybe Andy wanted all these people here so he had a nice smart crew to rebuild society with. Andy’s ark, if you will.

Again, Batmanglij, who directed the episode, uses the environment to his advantage. There’s enough reason to believe that an astronaut like Sian can handle the drive back to the hotel, but those cliffs aren’t looking any safer. “There’s a lot of black ice” is not something you want to hear anyone say while driving a car. That’s when the vehicle careens off the road.

We get our only flashback of the episode, and it’s a long one. At least this one is somewhat justified, filling in some lingering holes while Darby lies motionless in the snow. Picking up with the silver pin from last week, Darby and Bill find themselves successfully identifying another Jane Doe. To Darby, this is a bizarro Badlands adventure, where she and a mysterious older guy solving crimes (rather than shooting parents) sleep in the back of his El Camino and talk about what excellent taste in music her mom had. But does Bill feel the same way? He’s obviously very cool. This dude breaks into this hotel via the pool and gets them a free room. Sure, their romantic road trip is barreling toward its final body, but does he want to go all the way? After initially rejecting Darby, the answer is yes, he would like to have one sex, please.

Corrin and Dickinson were electric in these scenes, particularly the former, who has a tricky role. There’s a hopefulness to her younger Darby, an innocence that guides her attempts to woo Bill—gulping down as much liquid courage as possible before going in for the kiss. In those little moments, Darby laughing about breaking the bed and flirting with Bill, the show finally realizes this romance. Still, we know nothing about Bill or why this older guy with a sick car and cool tattoos is talking to teens online about serial killers. I’m not convinced Bill is innocent.

Darby awakes in the snow, with Sian hauling her back to camp. She was out for 25 minutes and is severely concussed, but you should see the other guy. Sian’s helmet malfunctions and cannot be removed, so we watch as her oxygen slowly depletes. (There’s that ticking clock again.) This was the show’s best sequence so far, layering on the exterior tension that’s been building all episode and bringing it back to the hotel. The countdown clock is running, and Sian only has a little oxygen left as a very angry and suspicious Andy attempts to drill her out of the helmet without stabbing her. He ultimately decides to do an emergency tracheotomy, and Darby faces the same type of syringe found beside Bill. Are they going to poison her too?

The whole sequence was such a change of pace from the rest of the show, and I was genuinely surprised when Sian didn’t eat it. Nevertheless, it was through this Batmanglij direction that the show could weaponize its mystery and turn it into suspense, something the series has been sorely missing. But the whole thing, with all its manic speedy surgery, was too much for Darby, who passes out only to wake up in an even worse reality: Based solely on the fact that Zoomer has autosomal dominant compelling helio-ophthalmic outburst (ACHOO syndrome), when the light changes, Darby believes Zoomer is Bill’s child.

Stray observations

• They almost lost me when they started talking about pacemakers. Thankfully, Joan Chen chimed in, “HeartFront, they make pacemakers.”
• The chain to the boat was marked with a red flag similar to the one in last week’s cold open. Is this a Bill thing?
• As prophesized, Bill had one child.
• More on Bill being weird: His questions for Darby about what serial killers do and how they act are incredibly suspicious, especially considering Darby’s analysis: “Serial killers start with someone they know.” It feels like the show is telegraphing where the mystery is heading.
• That said, I hope Bill isn’t the killer or anything like that. Those who read my recaps probably know that if I can predict what’s going to happen, the show isn’t working hard enough.

A Murder At The End Of The World is available to stream now on Hulu.