The second episode of The Undoing is called, “The Missing,” and with good reason: Hugh Grant’s Jonathan is both the man of the hour and offscreen for almost the entire episode. And with each passing minute, his guilt seems to become more apparent.
As an exercise in tension building, the episode is hit or miss. While some of the revelations are legitimately surprising—Jonathan having secretly lost his job months earlier was not a development I saw coming—the method by which they’re delivered is often distracting. Edgar Ramirez’s Detective Mendoza is so oddly heavy-handed in his treatment of Grace that his scenes with her are occasionally disorienting, and not just because of her bewilderment about what’s happening. His entire interrogation of her is built around an apparent assumption that she knows everything that’s been going on with her husband, even though it’s plainly obvious that she doesn’t. The moment where he asks her if she knows why her husband was fired is especially confusing—if she knew he was fired in the first place, wouldn’t she know why? And if she didn’t know he was fired, why frame the question as though she does? It’s a clunky line of dialogue, and even if you can accept that it’s all in service of an effort to put her off balance enough to reveal something, his complete 180 when he encounters her later at the search of the home makes even less sense.
There’s also just a lot of hand-waving over what’s happening in the investigation. The doctor Jonathan worked with couldn’t tell Grace what had happened because of the “strict terms,” but the detectives reveal the details of his termination quite quickly. Even if Elena doesn’t have rights anymore, isn’t the agreement between Jonathan and the hospital where he worked? The detectives also seem to be spending all the time they’re not interrogating Grace loitering at a children’s private school, which also seems bizarre. Elena wasn’t murdered there—if the police aren’t collecting evidence, wouldn’t the school kick them out? It’s like the show wants the school to be relevant to what happened, even though nothing about what’s been revealed so far suggests a crime in any way connected to the school beyond the fact that Elena’s son attends. And no one actually officially informs Grace that her husband is a suspect, nor is there any kind of suggestion that there’s a warrant out for his arrest. When the police tell her menacingly that now would be the right time to talk to them, are they suggesting she could be arrested for aiding and abetting? What is the actual threat?
Part of the issue is that the story is unfolding from Grace’s perspective throughout the episode, so when she doesn’t know something, we don’t know it, either. But there are points where this feels like disorientation for disorientation’s sake. Why not tell her, and us, that Jonathan is officially a suspect, and explain how the police zeroed in on him? They seem to target Grace from the beginning of their investigation, but it’s never clear why. Did Elena’s husband tell them his wife had had an affair with Jonathan?
The parts that do work, however, are casting Nicole Kidman. Even if she occasionally has to work harder than she needs to in order to sell some policework, her isolation feels real and profound. Amongst the dark jackets and blonde hair of the other moms, her red hair and emerald green jacket set her off, and she’s often filmed throughout the episode either alone, or alone in the frame. Only one of the moms seems to actually care about her enough to tell her what she’s heard, and Sylvia goes above and beyond by telling her things that might help her understand what’s going on. But beyond Sylvia, Grace has a notable lack of confidants. She talks to her father, but she doesn’t rush to him to tell him what’s going on, and she’s careful to be honest but not reveal too much about her own suspicions to Henry.
And then Jonathan returns, with a defense that sounds like the excuse of every man who’s been caught in an affair ever. Elena was irrational, obsessive. She had taken an interest in Grace. He’s acted poorly, but he didn’t kill anyone. There are signs he might not be completely lying about this—Elena behaves pretty erratically in the premiere, after all. But if he didn’t hurt her, who’s the new suspect?
Stray observations
- Given that Annaleigh Ashford is a Name, I assume we’ll see more of her anxious mom, but the face she made when the other mom cut her out of the crew to spill her gossip was very funny. Good face work in a limited scene.
- I have roughly one million more questions about the various police tactics used here, but wouldn’t Jonathan have to consent to the paternity test?
- The brief shot where you can see Jonathan in the house while Grace and Henry were eating was so creepy! You really don’t know what he’s going to do.
- Was Jonathan’s colleague lying about Grace’s assistant not calling him, or does Grace have a terrible assistant?
- For the purposes of dramatic tension, I have to assume Jonathan will have a somewhat convincing alibi to make Grace reconsider whether she believes him or not, but what was the initial purpose of the fake Cleveland trip? It doesn’t seem like he would have urgently needed to pretend to be out of town until after he was already supposed to be on the trip.
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That was a fantastic episode. Bier can direct Kafka. I wonder if the source novel was influenced by The Trial. Superb visual and moody ways of depicting Grace’s increasing disorientation and Twilight Zone unraveling shock. And using the pathetic fallacy of the weather. Then the last act becomes kind of an Others reference. This episode was a better horror movie than the director’s Bird Box. The title sequence is now brutally ironic, showing a happy Grace as a child. Kidman here was terrific. I did have the same complaint of Ramirez’s cop treating her unduly harshly when the filmmaking was so good in clearly showing her gut punch of terrible revelations. But I can dismiss it by imagining Ramirez was performing losing his temper, being unprofessional, to make sure Grace wasn’t lying.Seeing the “Nudity” rating tag at the beginning, I was dreading the gross idea that we’d see nudity from a dead woman, but they handled that tastefully and the brutal end of the scene made me recoil back in my chair.Poor, poor Henry. Wonderful scene in the beginning when he was comforting his mother. Who’s going to now comfort him? I hope we get an episode from his point of view. Noah Jupe is a good actor.Hugh Grant was just a boy, standing in front of a girl (his wife), asking her not to believe that he killed his mistress.
I could not disagree more with this review save for how great Nicole Kidman’s performance is This was an A grade onion and with each layer being peeled away I thought the reveals were very much earned. The reviewer’s issue with the physician at the hospital not being able to speak to her is the case against her husband is still active and possibly NDAs are in effect. And as for Edgar Ramirez interrogation, yes the scenes are cut for maximum disorientation which is intentional. Step back and you see clearly his assumption that she had to know about her husband was completely legitimate. Detectives have a job and the great ones know how to handle persons of interest. His candor in revealing her husband hasn’t been employed is a bombshell I did not see coming and (certainly for Grace) and it was terrific. Her reaction told him volumes.But the biggest shock for me was just how fast Grace called the police while Jonathon was hugging their child. I was thrilled this did not go the route of the protective wife…….. one of so many potential cliches that in two episodes this series has smartly avoided. To my mind this show is delivering on all cylinders ( god is beautifully shot and directed) and I can’t wait to see what happens in the episodes to follow.
I forgot to mention in my post how much I loved the ending. Wonderful character progression, meticulously put down from the beginning, going from worried wife to completely disillusioned and betrayed partner by the end. I’m glad she called the police. It was the right thing to do if he’s actually innocent.
You might like this interview which talks about that last scene and how it was filmed in a mere half an hour:https://tvline.com/2020/11/01/the-undoing-recap-episode-2-the-missing-nicole-kidman/
Thanks. Like her final response about only wanting to do “true work.” She’s a phenomenal actress who I think is underrated as one because she’s so prolific. Terrence Malick should cast her in a film.
Absolutely – I think it’s clear that it’s disorienting because she’s got some role in it and they know that. And I think her calling the cops so quickly at the end the the pitched tone of her voice about being scared – she’s not innocent.
Yes, I think the show is doing a wonderful job at just how disorienting finding out your husband is quite possibly a murderer really is, I’m enjoying things being revealed slowly, it gives us as the audience time to process things too.
She just doesn’t strike me as much of a psychiatrist if she can’t figure those cops out, or any of the rest of it. Not even a student psychiatrist. Did the writer pick that job by throwing darts at the wall?
she seems effective with patients and has true moments of clarity, but I feel like I’d be just as disoriented finding out my partner likely murdered someone.
“His entire interrogation of her is built around an apparent assumption that she knows everything that’s been going on with her husband, even though it’s plainly obvious that she doesn’t”I believe this is an interrogation method.“The doctor Jonathan worked with couldn’t tell Grace what had happened because of the “strict terms,” but the detectives reveal the details of his termination quite quickly”The doctor may have been part of the investigation and signed an NDA with respect to the dismissal (already noted above in another comment).“It’s like the show wants the school to be relevant to what happened, even though nothing about what’s been revealed so far suggests a crime in any way connected to the school beyond the fact that Elena’s son attends”I think his father works there as well.“I have roughly one million more questions about the various police tactics used here, but wouldn’t Jonathan have to consent to the paternity test?”They can use Elena’s husband in a paternity test to rule out he’s the father. From there they probably have just cause to force Jonathon into taking one as well.“but what was the initial purpose of the fake Cleveland trip? “I’m guessing a job interview elsewhere.
You guys Hugh Grant is SO GOOD in this! I did not think he had this kind of character in him and I am LOVING IT. I really liked this episode. Excited to see the next one! Also her green coat was divine.
First off, I love your name. Second, I became a Hugh Grant fan after watching CLOUD ATLAS. Like most of the cast in that movie, he plays several different (and differing) characters and he displayed a range I didn’t know he had. I’m not crazy about THE UNDOING but Grant is doing a wonderful job using his considerable charm in an extremely dark way.
Yes. I’ve loved Hugh Grant since Four Weddings and a funeral, so basically forever, and it’s great watching him nail this kind of roles. At this point, I’m here for him more than for the show, which I find just fine for now. And given the preview for next week, we’re going to see more of Grant in uncharted territory.
I only really know how interrogations go from TV, thank God, but nothing about the detectives’ treatment of Kidman rang false or unprofessional to me. Obviously they thought she knew more than she did and were trying to get her to stumble. I mean, why would any seasoned detective assume she’d be in the dark about Grant being fired three months earlier? That’s actually pretty unbelievable especially if they share finances.
Yes, even the part when they ask her if she knows why her husband was fired…that sort of question could be an easy way to trip her up if she were lying about not knowing why her husband was fired. Like psychological tests, a lot of interrogation techniques involve asking the same question multiple ways.
The parts that do work, however, are casting Nicole Kidman.I disagree. Her overacting here was ridiculous. It screams “award bait”.
The questioning from the detective makes perfect sense. Have you not seen actual interrogation videos from true crime documentaries? They’re gotcha questions with the sole purpose of getting a soundbite worthy of probable cause and/or leverage. I can make the easy assumption that after the questioning, he went to the doctor she spoke to earlier (whom she did mention during her interrogation) and he probably confirmed that she did ask him about a nonexistent conference . What I didnt buy was someone as wealthy, educated, and sophisticated as she is not lawyering up IMMEDIATELY. She knows the two prong test for when Miranda rights are mandatory (custody + interrogation) but doesn’t think she needs a lawyer??I agree with the others, this was a B+ at worst.
Just a theory but I think Grace has dissociative identity disorder and that part of her knows about the affair and her husband losing his job, that she followed him after he left the fundraiser, saw them banging at her studio, and killed Elena after he left. The image she saw at the bus stop of Elena getting that first blow to the face was so vivid it seemed more like a suppressed memory to me. She’s become unraveled so quickly it makes me wonder if there was some baseline mental instability already at play.
my wife brought up this possibility too (she also nailed that the baby was maybe Hugh Grant’s) but I don’t know, the weird flashbacks she’s having I *think* are just what she thinks happens, the way you might imagine what it was like when you find out your spouse was having an affair—your mind fills in the blanks whether you want it or not, and it’s always really bad. I feel like a major psychiatric disorder would be hinted at some way at some point in the beginning; I feel like that would be a big copout here. I wish it were just that Hugh Grant killed her and then lied about it because he’s a pathological liar.
Yeah but if Jonathan did it then this story would be a whole lotta fluff for a pretty straight forward case. There has to be more to it. Like maybe even Jonathan knows that Grace did it, maybe he saw her killing Elena when he returned, and knowing that she’s unstable or even has DID, knew she’d forget about it afterwards, or doped her up with dome ketamine or something. And he had to leave town anyway to maintain his original story. I’m enjoying it so far. I don’t really like the cops’ angle of pestering her when she’s obviously oblivious, and occupying the school as if that was a productive choice in any way. But whatever, it’s still quite good so far.
See, I think she did it but not suffering from DID or other mental issues other than homicidal rage. We’re seeing her interactions with other people from her perspective only, but she’s an unreliable narrator.
Ah, so she knows she did it, she’s just not letting us know that she knows she did it. Could be! She still would’ve had to follow Jonathan to the studio to know where they went, but that still tracks…
another thing I’m enjoying immensely is the thought there will most likely (barring a really irritating cliffhanger or ambiguous ending) a resolution before I have a birthday. I gave up on both Lovecraft Country and The Vow before the endings because they were both so fucking long and I just lost interest. I have a feeling when this is all said and done we’ll look back and say it could have been compressed into 2-3 episodes but 6 is tolerable, and I know HBO has to get some recompense for Kidman, Grant, Sutherland, the cost of filming in NYC, etc.
Try The Third Day on HBO! It’s short and weird and culty.
I thought about this but dismissed it as being very hacky and lazy, not keeping with the quality we’ve seen so far. Would be a great disappointment if the show went down that path.
The weird flashbacks definitely open up the possibility that she is the murderer. And as for “what she thinks happened” her “visions” of the crime scene match the actual crime scene (recall we saw the son discover the mom). So either the director is making some very weird decisions with the “flashbacks” (visions? memories?) she (Kidman) has actually seen those things.
I’m like 100 percent certain the twist will be that she did it, but they might not even need to do the DID thing since she’s proven to be an unreliable narrator within the show. She might have done it and knows she did it but the show is just kind of fucking with us on how its portraying her behavior.
Yeah I’m 100% certain she’s the killer. I’m 70% certain that the police suspect this and she’s the person of interest. I’m also 70% sure this is going to be another ‘big on mood, low on storytelling’ HBO short series.
With a to be filmed a 100% unnecessary sequel 🙄
I hope at least HBO’s learned a lesson from its Big Little Lies 2 debacle.
It would HAVE to be that, or it makes no sense for her to have spent so much time acting shocked and bewildered when she is all alone. But I wouldn’t rule out HBO screwing with us again.
Yeah, I definitely think that they’re going with the Psychologist Is Mentally Unstable route. (Which sort of makes me roll my eyes but a local psychologist just murdered her son and then killed herself, so it’s not a cliche without some real life basis) She jumped way too quickly from “husband left his phone alone” to “husband is lying about being in Cleveland” along with the Crazy Eyes for her to be totally stable.
I really like Nicole Kidman in her long green jacket, but my wife thinks she looks like a witch, which I also see but I don’t think this necessarily detracts from the overall effect. Also it seems like she might finally be “aging into” her plastic surgery, which 5-10 years seemed kinda freakish and extreme, but now looks almost normal. Almost. Hugh Grant on the other hand does not really look 60, more like a 60 year old smoker perhaps, but wow does he look wrinkly. After hearing about his “dogging” joke that made Nicole Kidman blush, I still want to party with him.
The coat and hair just seem like odd choices for a NYC socialite type woman. She doesn’t look IMO as good as she did in Big Little Lies. The Botox mask is much more obvious here. And I notice she always does this little puffing thing with her lips when she’s trying to portray her character’s frustration. How out of touch is she that she doesn’t know her husband hasn’t worked in three months?? Do married people not talk, like ever? I work for a small family owned company and the managing partner’s wife works here as well. He will come up to me and ask me if I know if she’s coming in or where she is. I don’t know where she is but I want to say to him “she’s YOUR wife!! You don’t know where she is?”Of course he has done some biz deals he didn’t tell her about, nothing shady, just invested in properties and didn’t tell her and when she found out all hell broke loose, because she is controlling AF. Example: she won’t let him subscribe to HBO because it’s $15 a month, but the guy is worth several million. Marriage seems like a lot of fun!!!
I do hope they drill into these aspects of their marriage because they are good points that are universally applicable, and may even end up being the crux of this whole show (“how well do YOU know your spouse???”). I kept going back to: what was he doing to keep money in their account to afford living in that gigantic “apartment” in NYC, paying 50k/year for private school, etc.?I won’t even get into marriage as a whole because that’s not a can of worms, it’s a 55 gallon drum. Suffice to say, I have been married for a while and I think most marriages are not a perfect match of personalities because people are complex, but more like a melding or fusing (?) of personalities that may be imperfect but if you’re committed to the marriage, can be very supportive at times. Other times it can be absolutely infuriating.I do really like the trend in society for people to marry later in life, or not at all, and for couples to do with their marriages what they feel like doing and not let society dictate what that entails, e.g. with swinging or polyamory. I’m not interested in either one but I don’t think you should be judged for engaging in either one if both people want to do it.
I agree marriage later in life may be a better choice, people rarely are the person they become until they reach 30 or so. You just change so much and your world view matures, etc. Not that if you are under 30 you aren’t mature, but I think emotional needs change. I wouldn’t give my ex husband the time of day now but when I was in my early 20s I thought he was the be all and end all.
I only saw about the first 15 min, up to when the other doctor wouldn’t tell Grace where Jonathan was. Is it appropriate for a mother to freak out like that in front of her child? Wouldn’t she be more pissed off than scared? My sister’s husband travels all the time and if he left his phone at home and she couldn’t reach him, she would be furious long before she’d be worried. Is Nicole’s wig representative of her mood? This episode the curly wig was dialed up to eleven. And that long green velvet coat? I love Nicole but she looked like she was doing Stevie Nicks cosplay. I expected her to whip out a tambourine and start singing Edge of Seventeen.
I also can’t help thinking Donald Sutherland knows something; it seems like more than just a coincidence that he would push her to leave town and go to the beach house (which BTW would serve as a very effective setting for The Others Part 2, on a crappy rock beach no less in the winter) where Hugh Grant was lurking.
This seems consistent with Donald Sutherland knowing that his daughter has mental problems, right? Like maybe he suspects that she did it? If he thought Hugh Grant did it, why send her somewhere he might go? Why not send her to a hotel upstate or something? Seems like he is putting her in harms way if he thinks Hugh is the murderer.
the way he panicked when they were told the police were downstairs made me suspect of him. also the opening theme of Grace has a child makes me wonder what sort of past she had that she may have blocked out.
He has to. But that’s the problem with getting big names as seemingly secondary players. I mean, this is Donald Sutherland. I’d be surprised if he didn’t know anything.
I feel the same. Though there is precedent in hiring famous elderly actors to play thankless parent roles and not doing anything with them.
good point, you wouldn’t hire Donald Sutherland to play “supportive father”. I assumed he was there because part of the big finale would be that he did the same kind of shit to his wife (her mom) at some point that Hugh Grant is now doing to Nicole Kidman, i.e. all rich men in NYC are sociopathic assholes.
Look. Getting an even half-decent lawyer isn’t too expense. You can literally go to 1-800-lawyers and shit like that. For someone of her ilk, and especially, wealth, AND HER FUCKING FATHER, there’s ZERO ZERO ZERO ZERO PERCENT chance she’d breathe in front of the police without a lawyer. And an amazing one at that. None. Zero. They wouldn’t talk to anyone without a lawyer. It’s plain stupid, lazy, and just crazy-land dumb. Second, the same thinking about goes with her talking to her “lawyer friend”. Her husband retained her. SHE DID NOT. She has NO privilege with that lawyer friend. 100% can be used against her, though she did state she’s repping her hubs. This was a much better ep than the first, but man, fucking lazy writing and thinking, not to mention the stalking in front of the GOSSIP GIRL HIGH SCHOOL!
am I the only person who also thinks Nicole Kidman’s blonde lawyer friend who briefly represented Hugh Grant is going to fuck her over at some point (and possibly fucked Hugh Grant, period)?
I do not trust her at all.
well, second epp and the book is out the window. SPOILERin the book, Jonathan never returned and he totally did it, and Grace kept finding out psycho shit about him… in this show, she did it? weird way to “adapt” a novel but ok
This show is very bad…I’m confused who thinks this is good. It’s along the same lines as grey’s anatomy and the daytime soap passions.
Awful show. It feels like HBO needed something to shove into the schedule and because production has been down in the pandemic, this was the best they had. And unless we’re viewing events unfold from her character’s perspective, there’s no real excuse for the odd behavior of the police, or the parents at the school, etc. And the “good friend” from The West Wing? I suspect her too, because all characters behave suspicously – even the son, who seems preternaturally sensitive/inquisitive/comforting for a boy his age. As for Nicole Kidman’s “radiance” that I keep seeing in the comments, it looks like the result of a #9 and a #27 at the plastic surgeon’s. She’s beginning to have one of Michael Jackson’s later noses, as most of her original face has been stretched and maneuvered into something resembling Nicole Kidman.