The Undoing offers up answers but not enough resolution in a car chase-filled finale
TV Reviews Recap
Sometimes, it turns out that the incredibly obvious explanation for what happened is the actual explanation of what happened, apparently. The man who had the affair and was seen near the scene of the crime and then tried to run away from said crime is the one who did the crime.
By the end of The Undoing’s final episode, Jonathan has become such a cartoonish villain that any satisfaction that might have been provided by the pivot to the original suspect is gone. There’s a way to have executed the big reveal that he actually killed Elena that would not have involved making Hugh Grant angrily mutter about fried clams while a series of helicopters chased him. But that was never the way of The Undoing, a show that was a murder mystery, or a story about a woman coming to grips about who her husband really was, or a story about the way wealth and power insulate people from the consequences of their actions. Any of those might have been fine focuses for the show, but the scattershot approach to all of them meant that it was virtually impossible to pinpoint which of them was the actual point of the show.
But for all that the very end got extremely dramatic, a lot of the rest of the finale is a bit slow. The show seemed to have used up all of its twists by the time it got to the big finish, leaving the apparent reveals to land with a thud. So, yep, Grace had Sylvia help her set up the dramatic testimony about Jonathan’s past, a double cross that would have been significantly more compelling if there was any kind of meaningful interaction between her and Jonathan to make the moment sizzle. Or if we had any indication that Sylvia was anything other than Grace’s good friend who’s looking out for her. And yeah, obviously Henry had the hammer because he wanted to protect his dad, an effort that results in what is in retrospect a truly gross scene in which Jonathan tries to suggest that Henry did it, but which isn’t really used to push the narrative that Grace was ready to flip on him. And that doesn’t even get into how bizarre it was for an allegedly smart guy who was on the run from his actions to put the murder weapon in a paper bag on his own property.
And the court scenes, which one might expect from a David E. Kelley show to really jump off the screen, never really rose above a lot of sneering back and forth. The prosecutor isn’t actually that good at her job, and frankly neither is Haley, despite the fact that we’re supposed to think they’re both sharks. Why did the prosecutor keep showing an entire courtroom a profoundly grisly picture of a dead woman without warning anyone? Why did Miguel admit he’d told his teacher that he was afraid of his parents fighting if there was no effort to follow up the lead with that teacher? Why did Mendoza stand around the courtroom glowering significantly on the final day if not to actually do anything? It was like we were being offered a buffet of information that never even rose to the level of a red herring.
All of this could have pulled together into a fascinating study of how one woman could have been so fooled by her own husband, and how much her own elite surroundings contributed to her inability to believe the worst of him. But it just never became that show. Instead, the couple of lower-income characters remained completely two-dimensional, and there was never any particular indictment of the milieu in which Jonathan lived. If anything, wealth and power as contributing factors are dropped completely after the revelation from Jonathan’s mother that he’s always lacked a conscience. It may have been a slam dunk for the prosecutor to use in her case, but it also absolves the show of having to provide any commentary on its high society characters, who spent the first episode or two being nasty to Elena and then Grace before disappearing altogether.
The most frustrating aspect of all may have been how unsatisfactory the eventual flip from Grace was. If this is, ultimately, the story of a woman getting the veil lifted on what a monster her husband is, and then making a conscious choice to do what she can to get him locked up in prison for the rest of his life, there’s almost no narrative moment that lands this pivot. The show has to jump so quickly to the suspenseful chase that we never get to sit with Grace’s actions. It’s an oddly abrupt ending for a show that otherwise spent so much time with her.
Ultimately, The Undoing ends up an impressively pedigreed muddle with a lot more ideas than skill to say something meaningful about them. It had its fun points, but could never quite pull the pieces together into something whole.
Stray observations
- That has to be the most threatening conversation about clams I’ve ever seen.
- OK, I resisted bringing this up earlier, but what was going on with everyone’s accents? All three lawyers plus Nicole Kidman seemed to be struggling to sound American.
- I would actually like a spinoff that is just Haley rolling her eyes about how much she regretted taking this whole case on.
- Why did we hear a pundit say a “doctor” had given some kind of primetime interview that made Jonathan look bad? What in the world did the doctor say? It’s not like there was newly relevant medical information about him.
- Also, I’m no HIPAA expert, but could Haley and Jonathan really reveal health details about Miguel, a minor child, in a courtroom packed with members of the media?
- I find it slightly hard to believe that Henry could run a sledgehammer through the dishwasher twice without anyone noticing. Did he do it in the middle of the night?
- At least we’ll always have the stylish coats.
174 Comments
I feel like if you go to your beachfront property to hide a hammer, and you’re choosing between the big, wide, expansive ocean where a hammer will pretty definitely sink, and the fireplace in your backyard, one of those is an obvious choice, and one is kind of lazy writing.
Or since he was driving back from Georgia without seemingly any way to track him (he hadn’t brought his phone) he could have hid it anywhere during that road trip.
I heard Lake George, not Georgia, as the place he hid out in that first night. But either way, he made the effort to stop along the way to drop off his bloddy tux at a random dry cleaner but decided to keep the murder weapon with him until he got back to a place that could be easily traced to him? Uh, no.
Lake George, I believe, but still.
well if they didn’t do this, they wouldn’t have been able to crowbar in one last red herring that maybe the kid did it (which I never bought because he’s a 12 year old boy, but as you said, lazy writing)
But . . . the ocean is so big. What if he needed it later? You know, for a plot device.
Amazing how they basically call that out through the Defense attorney. Not was only stupid of “him” it was incredibly stupid of the writers.
This is what I’ve tried to explain to my sister, who likes to just watch something and not be critical. There were SO many red herrings. The other affair, who was that? Why bring it up if it doesn’t mean anything? Her father standing outside Elena’s apt in the middle of the night. Getting rid of the murder weapon. Chekov’s head would explode if he read this script. And why reveal Jonathan was the main suspect, then try to make us think he really didn’t do it. How big a stooge is Grace? Husband having a year or longer affair, unemployed, and no clue. Did she just stop seeing all her patients? And why didn’t the school set up a barricade to keep the press away from the front of the school. I don’t recall the press harassing OJ Simpson’s younger children or Nicole’s parents if they dropped them off, during the trial. Maybe they did, but it seems small kids would be left alone. I’m sure they had to go to school, too. Maybe Grace, while staying with her father, could have had his chauffeur take Henry to school. And have a security person escort him in. Also, who in God’s name walks around NYC late at night in her fancy coat and gown, or runs home in her pajamas. You have a driver FFS!!! I walk all the time but this was ridiculous. Blech.
I liked having Jonathan as the culprit in the end, just made you realize how deep in denial people are willing to go when their loved one is accused of something like that. I think Grace more or less always knew he did it. But that last episode was just a disaster lol, and so much was introduced for no reason, including Grace’s own past.
The best part of the last episode IMO, was the scene in the car with Jonathan ranting and Henry begging him to stop. As dumb as the whole series was, from start to finish, other than knowing they wouldn’t hurt Henry, I wasn’t sure how it would end.Where the fuck did Franklin get a helicopter and how was he allowed to go on a police chase? I guess Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul have spoiled me, but this was some of the laziest writing I have ever witnessed from a so called A list television writer. I expected so much more from Kelley and from this cast.
Yeah, I mentioned this after the reveal last episode, like wouldn’t the bottom of the Hudson River be a better hiding place? But I guess I enjoyed this for what it was, although I was afraid that if Jonathan did it, this would be a very roundabout way of telling a very straight forward story. Glad they didn’t drag this out any longer though, since this could’ve been a 2-hour movie that I never would’ve watched.
He could have burned the handle and thrown the head in the sea.I liked the show but sometimes it did some very dumb things.
The copter/car chase was just a bridge too far I cannot deny — a near miss with a truck, dodging cars along the way all of it terrible That Sutherland and Kidman were included in a police copter chase didn’t help either. Honestly if the show ended with a domestic confrontation with Jonathan threatening harm to his son would have at least have been a pressure cooker situation in that cavernous apartment of Sutherland’s ending as many do, on his knees in cowardice and feeling sorry for himself, with no consideration of the emotional bludgeoning to his family’s psyche. But before the chase. I did see the pieces lock into place. Consistent with her love for her son, when Jonathan dared suggest Henry culpable, Grace found her spine and set in play the sting. Further the courtroom scene did work for me because of Noma Dumezweni. Calling Miguel to the stand, you could see how far she was capable of going. Hell the stupid hiding of the hammer got a fantastic payoff with her telling off Jonathan at the end. A solid series, beautifully shot and directed with a really stupid final act.
I assumed it was Donald Sutherland’s helicopter he used to skip rush hour on the way to the lake house from time to time, and they were more going rogue tagging along than they were part of the search. Also looked like there were two helicopters right there moving in tandem when they were closing in.
when you’re rich you use your helicopter to fly away from messy situations, like your sociopath murderer husband’s arrest as a fugitive before he can possibly drag your son off the bridge with him.
Hugh Grant killed Elena because she came at him with a sledge hammer so it was all really self-defense? And then she says ” please ” before he actually does it so it may even have been Elena suicide? I didn’t see that coming.
So, so bad.
Can’t be self defense if her caved her skull in after multiple hits. It would have been self defense if he hits her once and immediately calls the police. Instead she was still alive, pleading for her life and he decides to kill her.
I don’t see how you could read it as a suicide. She’s begging for her life.Also hitting someone in the head with a hammer 11 times after you incapacitated her half hearted attack on you is not self defense.
As in “Please kill me”. Her husband was beating up on her because of the little girl, then Hugh started beating up on her as well and all the women at the meeting ignored her ( except Nicole. I though that there was a lot more to their relationship then what was shown). It was an very ambiguous scene to come at the end of the series.
Thinking she meant “please kill me” is… a real stretch. Not sure how you’re getting that.
Breakout star of the series: Noma Dumezweni. This mini-series could have been a backdoor pilot for the continuing legal adventures of Hailey. I’d watch that.I thought this a fantastic finale, actually. I’m so glad they didn’t go for a last-minute twist. Too many shows do, just for the shock value, without considering if it’s right for the story.The chase was very well done. It was believable as the last act of a desperate man. What felt rushed was Jonathan turning on Elena with violence. My read of his character was he was primarily a self-hating man. Being reminded of his shame when Elena tells him she wants to befriend Grace, he lashes out too quickly, when we haven’t seen violence in him before. I don’t disagree that Jonathan is a narcissist, though I question how he could have raised a well-adjusted son if he were that bad a human being. I’m glad he wasn’t one-dimensional evil. But give Hugh Grant an Emmy, in a terrific performance subverting his usual roles that made him a star.The series didn’t do anything original, not have insights into its worlds, but it was simply, in my opinion, a well-told tale, expertly made. That’s enough.
I believe there’s a prisoner that might disagree with the “not a violent person” characterization. And since it happened in jail, and the guards knew about it, why wasn’t this brought up at trial? Kinda shoots the “empathetic, gentle man” narrative right to hell, doesn’t it? But like so many other things in this series, it happened, and was never brought up again.
This is one of the reasons I watch extended series like THE UNDOING: to discover an actor who is unknown to me just break out with a stunning performance. And Noma Demuzweni knocked it out of the park. Checking her acting bio I found out that she was the actor who caused somewhat of a kerfluffle when she was cast as Hermione Grainger in the play HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD in London (and then repeated in NYC).
are you Noma’s agent?
Motive was a problem throughout.
Not sure if you are the director or we just watched different shows. This one, the one I watched, was a complete pile of trash.
I liked the aesthetics and filmmaking. I see the problems in the writing. Jonathan didn’t make much sense. We needed more time with him to understand how he suddenly turned murderous. The reveal of his sister’s death and his reaction should have come earlier in the series. As is, he wasn’t plausible as a good husband and father if he had such a dark side, especially being able to fool a clinical psychologist, no matter how badly she wanted to believe in him. For that flaw, we needed more time with her.But the second episode ending with the a missing Grant surprising Kidman at the cottage, I thought was masterfully done. The show was a predictable courtroom drama but I thought visually good.
Hey, at least I’m not defending the Ready Player One/Two books.
Yeah, I don’t necessarily disagree with all the criticism here, but in spite of all of that I thought it was a really fun watch. And I liked that they didn’t go for a twist ending, and the person who killed her was just the married lover who was at her studio that night and ran away the next day. Not the main character in a fugue state, or the 12-year-old boy trying to keep his family together, or his other lover, or her other lover. Just exactly who you would have always thought it’d be if this happened in real life. I didn’t see Jonathan as self-loathing, though. I saw him as someone who values being seen as a selfless hero doctor above literally anything else, and being exposed as a cheater was so unacceptable to him that committing murder (in a super gross and violent way) was absolutely worth it to protect his reputation.
If anything, wealth and power as contributing factors are dropped completely after the revelation from Jonathan’s mother that he’s always lacked a conscience. I still don’t buy how this part of that story that paints Jonathan as some sort of monster, and was half expecting someone from his family to become a suspect as the case played out. Now if he were a Gen-Zer with helicopter parents I’d buy that part of the story, but at his age it just doesn’t add up. Have we all collectively forgotten that kids weren’t on a leash 24/7 back in the day?
Haha helicopter parents! She’s actually chasing after her kid in her daddy’s helicopter!
Why was Annaleigh Ashford in this show for one single scene?Why was there a scene of Donald Sutherland ominously watching Fernando and the baby through their window?
lol idk I feel some stuff got chopped by those helicopter blades.
Maybe they filmed right around the corner of one of her Broadway shows and she just walked right into the set? lol
Little Blonde Herring!
So many questions. The real cliffhanger is did the betting markets for the trial ever reopen after the final status update we received around minute 45?
Hey- work’s work. Mama needs to get paid.
C’mon now they need to get six episodes out of this.Also why did Donna Moss show up for only the first two episodes?
She is so amazingly talented that when I saw her in that episode I was really excited about what she might get to do. Then…absolutely nothing. They wasted Lily Rabe, too.
I kept hoping Donald was the killer all along who was eliminating a threat to his daughter/family!!! I wanted Hugh to go down for it and then Donald to reveal some minor detail so we/Nicole would know it was him but it could never be blamed on him.
You can tell the defense lawyer is good because she gets visibly exasperated when her objection is overruled – all three times she raises it – then sits back down in a huff.What a steaming pile of trash this series turned out to be.
Maybe the worst written court room scenes of all time.
When you need to follow up the trial scene with two minutes of a news report offering exposition about what was so dramatic about the trial, you’ve written a bad courtroom scene
I don’t know, I think the gold standard for worst written (but also most entertaining) is still A Few Good Men. However, I’m married to a lawyer so that does affect my judgment.
At least in A Few Good Men Kaffee still rightfully calls out Galloway for her “strenuous objection.” Here the defense attorney does it three times after having just reiterated to the Frasers the need to be steadfast and calm. Just awful.
The courtroom scene in Duck Soup was more realistic.
I swear, I’m going to have to go back and rewatch the courtroom scene from Chernobyl just to get the bad taste of out my mouth.
After her whole briefing about ‘Show no emotion,’ she’s a frantic psycho by the 10th OBJECTION OBJECTION OBJECTION!!! She should have just screamed “But he’s exposing my client’s guilt your honor!!”
I just watched this again. Never a better ass kick (and also love letter) to every courtroom drama trope.
Even if Nicole Kidman hadn’t done the ol’ double cross, Haley’s decision to put her on the stand was inexcusable. What was the master plan for that witness? Have her set forth her “expert” opinion on Hugh Grant’s character? How much of an expert could she be when she had zero knowledge of his infidelity? Did she ever examine him in a professional setting? Haley had raised enough doubt with Hugh Grant and the little kid’s testimony to possibly get an acquittal, and then gambles it all on the wife who’s been cheated on…Dumb as shit.
Could not agree with you more. Haley has been super sharp up until this point. It was incredibly stupid for her to put Grace on the stand.
I did enjoy the review of “exceptions to hearsay” that they introduced here–always a fascinating topic in law school.
But she repeatedly used the “Declaration against interest” exception which was the wrong one to use! A “declaration against interest” is “a statement made by a declarant who is unavailable that is against the declarant’s pecuniary, proprietary, or penal interest when it was made.”Nicole Kidman is the “declarant” here. The “statements” are the 911 call and her statements to her friend. Here, the declarant was on the stand (so not “unavailable”) and the statement was not against her interest (she wasn’t incriminating herself), but against Hugh Grant’s interest.The prosecutor should have used the “prior inconsistent statement” exception, and also could have used the “excited utterance” exception for the 911 call.
I wondered about that too, I assumed the prosecutor was impliedly arguing that Hugh Grant’s inculpation would be against her interest because it’s her husband (i.e. she wouldn’t want her husband to go to jail)?
Yeah that’s the best explanation I could come up with too…but the biggest problem was simply that Nicole Kidman was on the stand. “Declaration against interest” can only apply when the declarant is unavailable for cross examination.I guess in a way it was fitting with the prosecutor’s character in this show as a terrible trial lawyer to have her just blindly throw out hearsay exceptions hoping they stick.
which is too bad, because as someone else pointed out, the defense attorney was otherwise a pretty great character, I’d be happy to watch her in something else, except now it seems like the writers will bend the law to suit their dramatic interests and make her look like an idiot. (Which I guess can be said for any legal drama, but I thought Perry Mason did a better job of avoiding that.)
Just an awful show that not only wastes most of its 6 episodes pointlessly misleading the audience with red herrings, but wastes an opportunity to be a thoughtful indictment on the wealthy. Immediately forgettable climax.
It wastes an opportunity to be about…literally anything.
I mean yeah it wasted its opportunity to be an entertaining courtroom drama and/or mystery. But at least we got to hear Nicole Kidman sing every week!
I haaaaaated that song and her singing. Hated it. Had to dive for the remote to mute it every week.
Are we going to retire the “Fuck you, The Killing” memes and replacing it with “Fuck you, The Undoing” memes?
I don’t think so because at least The Undoing had an ending. The Killing didn’t because Veena Sud couldn’t tell the difference between ‘an ambiguous ending’ and ‘no ending at all’
I’m not a lawyer, but Haley’s explanation of why she was not ethically and legally obligated to reveal the physical evidence that she was aware of sounded a bit thin.
Also not a lawyer and one is free to chime in, I’m pretty sure that’s an ethical violation lol.
Also not a lawyer (my thoughts are what I learned from obsessively watching 20 years of LAW & ORDER on first run and now in repeats all over TV) but I think the hearsay exception is narrowly drawn and I don’t think the prosecutor could have gotten away with more than the first one or two questions. So Jonathan doesn’t have to worry. His conviction is going to be tossed on appeal.
Great review, this finale was total crap.The moment that I thought was the most stupid out of all the stupid was when the defense attorney agreed to just sit on the hammer and turn a blind eye as the family destroyed a major piece of evidence.Why the hell would she risk her entire career on this one case and one client? Insanity.
I felt bad for Haley, which goes to show how strong that character was. And I wasn’t entirely sure til they revealed in the flashback that Grant did it that he did, in fact, do it. I was varying degrees of sure most of the time but seeing it still served a purpose.That being said … what was the point of Nicole Kidman’s spacey nature if she had nothing to do with it? Why was she walking so close to the studio? What were the hints of attraction to Elena about?The most well-done character of the show was probably Donald Sutherland, begging his daughter to see beyond the artifice of his marriage. All that constant staring at paintings and playing piano could have underscored the point even more, but it never quite got there because Grant’s mom had to spell out for her that he is a sociopath. And even then she didn’t really help her son detach from his idealization of his dad, with nearly tragic consequences. “Let’s find a productive way to say goodbye to Dad for right now” seems like a safer move as a parent-therapist than “I just want you to be happy. Please continue to freely stream news coverage about the trial and text your desperate father that we both know is a murderous narcissist.” You could argue it’s supposed to be a critique of a therapist who is sitting at a distance from the dysfunction in her own life, but we didn’t really see enough of her in that role to get a great feel for that.It would have been cliche for Sofie Gråbøl to pull the truth out of her in cross. Yet as Gråbøl reminded us (and Kidman), she was terrified of him! He had put his hands on her! I liked the call from the mom (ham-fisted as Katie the Kitten and its cover-up story was) because it was suspenseful and satisfying. But too much of this show was built around the suspense of whether Kidman would ever put things together at all.I enjoyed the tone, the mood and of course, the coats, but it feels like it went for psychological thriller and missed on the psychology part.
I haven’t seen the finale yet (it airs tonight here in the UK) so I’ve scrolled past this article just to comment that: my problem with this show is that no-one, not one person, talks or acts like a human being. Not Hugh, or Nicole, or their son, or the dead girl with the boobs, or the smouldering Latin husband, or their son, or the blonde friend, or the smouldering Latin police officer, or the badass lawyer, or Donald Sutherland.I just saw The Killing of a Sacred Deer, and in that film neither Nicole Kidman nor Colin Farrell no Alicia Silverstone nor any of the kids spoke or acted like human beings, but that was intentional. It made sense in the context of that film, but so far in the Undoing I just find it jarring.Anyway, I’m looking forward to this finale. Fingers crossed it will contain *some* resolution, and not just be a setup for another season of … all this!
wait until you hear them say “neither guilt nor grief” 36 times
Felt like I was rewatching the end of Trapped with Kevin Bacon and Courtney Love lol. Odd ending for certain.I do think Grace always knew he did it, but not much was revealed about her fainting spells and references to her as a child etc. Oh well, I adore Kidman and she was great to watch.
It was such a cheesy potboiler they could have called it The Fondueing.
Even though this series hasn’t really worked, I fully welcome anything that increases the power of Hugh Grant 2.0
Hugh Grant 2.0 is vastly superior to his original version. I like to think he was born when old Grant’s mind shattered during production of Cloud Atlas (with the “Hugh Grant as a cannibal” sequence permanently killing the bland rom-com version of him).I hope we can all agree that Hugh Grant 2.0’s greatest accomplishment is Paddington 2, but he generally does good work consistently now.
Everyone talks about the Mcconaissance but Hugh Grant did the rom-com to drama transition before him.
Hugh Grant seems to enjoy himself a lot more than Matthew Mconaughey. Grant looked like he was having the time of his life in The Gentlemen, as compared to Mconaughey who just kind of glowered his way through it.
And Hugh Grant was already leaning into his more nasty side already in Bridget Jones diary.
Hugh Grant in CLOUD ATLAS ( a movie I love, what can I say?) stunned me. It wasn’t just as the cannibal but the different (nasty) personas he became. Particularly the one who put his own brother in a nursing home to steal the entire family fortune. That was the one that repelled me and, strangely, turned me into a fan. And, as an aside, Jim Broadbent is the most amazing chameleon of an actor on this planet.
I had completely forgotten that Grant was in that film. I really liked it, but I can see now why I had forgotten. Agree. Broadbent is amazing.
Hugh Grant in CLOUD ATLAS ( a movie I love, what can I say?) stunned me. It wasn’t just as the cannibal but the different (nasty) personas he became. Particularly the one who put his own brother in a nursing home to steal the entire family fortune. That was the one that repelled me and, strangely, turned me into a fan. And, as an aside, Jim Broadbent is the most amazing chameleon of an actor on this planet.
I love his performance in Paddington 2. He said at some point that it’s his favorite movie he’s ever done and that makes me like it even more. The Paddington movies are one of the few children’s book movie adaptations that really get what’s appealing about the source material and roll with it, even adding some contrived “good vs. evil” plots without ruining the spirit.
Coincidentally, Nicole Kidman is very good in the Paddington movies as well. She should do more villain roles.
That’s right, I forgot she was in the first one! She was great too. I think it’s a little silly having villianious plots in the Paddington movies but I guess they’ve got to inject some drama somehow. And the whole sequence of Paddington going to jail int he second one is just so delightful
I read a hysterical interview to promote The Undoing where Grant jokes that he and Kidman immediately bonded as husband and wife because they’ve both tried to kill Paddington Bear. Then Grant suggested that you could just watch The Undoing and pretend it’s an origin story for two Paddington Bear villains.
If you haven’t seen A Very English Scandal, I’d definitely recommend it as peak Hugh Grant 2.0 especially in terms of subverting his old Rom Com personality.
Well Paddington 2 is Humanity’s finest achievement it would make sense that it would also be 2Hugh.0’s as well
the last thing i remember hugh from was notting hill. i thought he was a scrawny little dude. hugh 2 looks jacked.
I have a hard time getting how a jury would use the information of Jonathan’s dead sister to convict him of Elena’s murder. What does one have to do with another? It doesn’t prove he swung the hammer. Doesn’t even prove him capable of it since his sister didn’t die by violence at his hand. Grace even says he’s not violent/never seen him be violent then excused his violent outburst against her at the beach by claiming to be terrified, but not specifically of him. I think it’s all a reach and a bit muddled in the scripting. Also, Sutherland’s character has f**k you money to spare.
I took it as Grace covering her own ass, playing a role of supportive unaware but scared wife and allowing the prosecutor to create the narrative that Jonathan is prone to violence and a sociopath who didn’t even feel guilty about his sister being killed in a hit and run.
Yes, agree. But A doesn’t equal B to meet the burden of proof. Could he? Sure. Did he? Unsure.
There was plenty of evidence that Jonathan was the murderer; his defense was relying on the jury’s reaction to him as a person in order to cast doubt. Their defense was “This particular person wouldn’t commit murder” while implying that the victim’s husband was the sort of person who would. The fact that the two people who know him best, his mother and wife, are both calling him a sociopath heavily undermines that argument.
True, but I kept thinking that the jury would have recoiled had they met the mother and wouldn’t believe anything she said. So what that he didn’t cry when his sister died. He was young and traumatized. The English would keep a stiff upper lip. And why should he show regret when it wasn’t his fault? That was a guilt trip this family laid on him.
Could he do it? Sure.Did he do it? Unsure, which would not meet the burden of proof.
Why would they be unsure? There was plenty of evidence that he did it.
But we’re never told how Sutherland made his fortune …
Now that’s really f**k you $$!!!
I had pretty much convinced myself that Donald Sutherland’s character had killed Elena.Burst in, called himself a cocksucker and bashed her head in.
Lily Rabe’s character was a big nothing and it’s funny to me how she’s been promoting the show discussing her character as if the role had depth.
while watching Hugh Grant lose it during the car chase, did anyone else get a sense of deja vu comparing that to watching Trump mentally circle the drain the last few weeks? When reality comes crashing in on a narcissist and they can’t cope with it? In that sense I found these scenes immensely satisfying.
this could have been an even better condemnation of how the rich and charming can get out of anything, and in that scene where all the characters gathered to talk about the murder weapon, I thought that’s where they would go—Hugh Grant gets acquitted (AFTER trying to blame the kid, which was an especially nice touch), and the kid turns into a sociopath, and they all (including the lawyer) have to live with the guilt and knowledge that the kid will probably do something equally evil when he grows up. Alas, the primary suspect was the killer! Who could have seen that coming?
It seems to break the primary rule of whodunnits: if it’s obvious who done it, don’t write it as a whodunnit. If your finale is just to reveal what everybody already guessed, then you’ve been wasting your time – you may as well make the guilt clear from the beginning (or near the beginning) and focus on something else (why they did it, the consequences of doing it, how someone catches them, etc). [alternative options are: make them look innocent; find a different culprit; or leave the truth ambiguous with the audience never having their guess definitively confirmed]
normally I would agree but I liked the overarching points this movie made about (1) the destructiveness of narcissists and how persuasive they can be (especially important in the age of Trump) and (2) in line with Malcolm Gladwell’s recent book, how easy it can be to ignore the reality that’s smacking you in the face–sometimes the person that looks and acts like a “bad guy” is doing so because they’re “bad guys”.
hey WTF happened to Edgar Ramirez? I guess the writers held it against him for perjuring himself in the last show and just let him stand there in the courtroom for no apparent reason in the finale? What a waste of a good actor, and again, I just don’t know what purpose he served other than to drop provocative bits of information at opportune times to arouse suspicions and that’s it.
That’s Detective Swarthy to you
I prefer “Detective Swarthy McSmirkface”
Well that was a waste of 6 hours of my time
For all of its faults, I’ll give The Undoing this: I watched until the last moment and never lost interest.Also, I think it bears mentioning that confirmation bias worked its magic on Hugh Grant, at least for me. I didn’t want it to be him! Come on, the dithering charming dork who loved Julia Roberts?But this trick will only work once. Now I’ll always think he’ll murder everyone in the future. 😁
We ended up exactly where we started. So really, this show could’ve been 1.5-2hrs long. Absolute waste of time. Wheel spinning at its finest.
Nicole Kidman is a great actress and gorgeous woman, but that photo makes her look far too much like Weird Al.
Her face lately looks much more masculine than I remembered. Her jawbone seems much more prominent and her lips look carved out. And her skin seems to have the appearance of freshly molded wax that is beginning to dry and harden. She didn’t have those facial features when she was in Moulin Rouge (which is the last thing I think I remember seeing her in). She was a lithe delicately-boned woman at that time.Why do these women believe that constant plastic surgery improves their looks when it clearly has the opposite effect?
1. If it wasn’t for the pandemic and the lockdown and the lack of series to watch, I would had stopped watching after episode 2.
It started promising and then went downhill. I do not think this story had more material than 2-3 episodes.
2. The cast was great the acting not really, but that is probably cause the material was weak and the direction was also not good.
3. Court scenes and the lawyers were for laughs. I am not a lawyer, hell I am not even American, but wasn’t it obvious that the prosecution was working with the defense witness in order to trap the accused? There was no other way for the DA to know what Jonathon’s mother said to Grace and what Grace said to her friend Sylvia. Isn’t this a cause for mistrial? Any lawyer here to tell us?
4. So the super rich and powerful father and daughter never thought to have someone watching over the son, especially after they plotted to put guilty hubby in jail for good?
5. wasn’t poor Helena the most unsympathetic murder victim?
6. Not that we had anyone to root for, except for the kids, Miguel and Henry, everyone else was really annoying or idiot or both.
I am really tired of “serious” series that are incapable or they simply do not want to give us any likable characters. In our case they weren’t even interesting.
I could not care less about Grace starting her life again. Although it would be really interesting to see if any logical human being would willing to do any psychotherapy with her.
Your last sentence of point 1) is the original sin, I think. Someone explain to me why this wouldn’t be better as a 2-hour movie. In addition to unnecessary padding and red herrings to stretch out the material, the unnecessary length exacerbates point 6): two hours of generally unlikable characters is one this, but 6 over six weeks? It’s too much.
It needed to be either a two-hour movie that cut nearly all the trial stuff and almost all the side characters, or a lengthier series that really delved into the victim and who she was outside of the main couple. Instead it’s some weird mishmash that feels both needlessly stretched out and underdeveloped.
Yes, it seems to be colluding with the Kidman character is cause for a mistrial. There’s also the tenet that wives cannot testify against their husband (spouse to spouse). Kidman was called by the Defense, but she conspired with the Prosecution.
And I don’t understand why the defense attorney couldn’t easily neuter the revelations about his stoic behavior;
“Thank you for pointing out that in SPITE of that tragedy and family breakdown, my client went on to complete med school and had a successful 35 years as an empathetic pediatric oncologist without any trouble. Thank you for bringing this up. Since this was setup by my client’s own wife in league with the Prosecution, maybe this is a blatant attempt by her to deflect guilt from herself?”
Bam. Instant very reasonable doubt and a win.
Instead, the writers have his Stone Cold Steve Austin lawyer inexplicably lose her mind one scene after telling Grace not to show ANY emotion. Garbage writing. (With a non-sensical shot of the detective thrown in for no reason.)
So………… what was with Hugh Grant’s fake medical conference? That was planned before the murder happened. Was this premeditated? Did he just happen to be faking a conference the same time he impulsively killed his lover?
Excellent review. It was nice to read an honest accounting after seeing a few of these reviewers resort to fanboy gushing no matter how poor the production. So much material trash in this dumpster fire. In no particular order:
Any killer would have been covered in blood, brains, an bone bits, but the writing was too lazy to address getting away with that condition in the middle of NYC with doormen, and cameras everywhere, so they just punted.
The Prosecutor has to be one of the worst acted / worst cast parts in many years. I understand she is Danish and a respected talent, but her struggling to affect an American accent was terrible. It further destroyed some of the worst written courtroom scenes in cinematc history. If you can’t handle the language, don’t do the role, or don’t cast them. I think this is a case Euro stunt casting. It seems every American production is 70% foreign talent now, trying to pretend to be American. In a country full of immigrants we can handle a prosecutor with an accent. Just be Hugh Grant. We can handle it. Just read your lines believably with your accent – although it would still be a distraction. Are we that short on talent here?
Hiding the murder weapon on the property? Really? With the ocean 20 yards away? This was the DUMBEST contrivance. Then the boy surreptitiously washes it (twice) AND KEEPS IT? Incredibly stupid writing, oddly called out BY the defense attorney in the climax. It’s almost like someone in production was pissed off about the inanity of it all and slipped that in there.
A helicopter car chase. Really? Enough said…..
He’s on the bridge feigning suicide and the cops let HER run through and just stand there while he marches down threateningly on her and the boy. What if he pulled a knife or a gun?
As for him being the killer; four five hours the story did nothing but paint him as an empathic cancer-curing victim of a misunderstanding. It revealed NOTHING about his anti-dad character until it became a plot armor device during a car chase. The story provided no interesting or clever Chekov Guns that made any sense to this resolve. That is crap writing. Frankly, I expected it to be the boy, with a convoluted HBO resolve for that scenario as to how he actually did it, but that would have been better than this waste of time.
I can’t say a bad word for Sofie Grabol (and Forbrydelsen is one of the best things ever created for TV, its whodunnit revelation one of the chilliest tv moments) but I totally agree with you, the “american” accent was distracting and unnecessary. Although what annoyed me more was that stupid triumphant smile towards the jury after she ended cross examining Grace. Urgh!
She seems like a great actress, but I couldn’t get around her accent coming and going, especially as she became agitated.
I picked Forbrydelsen up and accidentally spoiled myself googling something about it. Is it still worth watching? It’s just soooo many episodes, though I do love Grabol.
For me is really top TV, especially the first season (and has nothing to do with the horrible American version of it). 2nd season is ok, 3rd argh..I hated the finale..
I absolutely recommend first season.
Mind you the 1st season sometimes was shown in two parts, 10 episodes each, so in some cases there is a confusion that the 1st crime/ark covered 2 seasons. Anyway the whole 1st season is 20 episodes.
I felt like she held it together for the most part but clearly struggled in scenes with Hugh Grant, I assume because it’s harder to maintain your fake American accent when faced with a completely different one that’s still not your own. But I’ll have to check out Forbrydelsen because I thought she was captivating even though her part wasn’t the best written.
You have to check Forbrydelsen. It is in her native language so no problems with accent 🙂
I honestly don’t think she was trying to do an American accent. The natural Danish accent is already very close to an American one (hard r’s and all), so I can see how one could believe she was going for that. I just think she was speaking her normal voice, along with every other international actor. Canadians! Brits! Aussies! Danes! Venezuelans! Italians!
I couldn’t handle the accent work on this show. I have an accent and it’s consistent; I’m not drifting in and out of it every other sentence.
The accent work was so so so bad. Like, inconceivably bad. I have an ear for accents so I admit that I’m really picky about them, but I think even less perceptive viewers were likely to be distracted. I don’t know why anyone lets Nicole Kidman try an American accent. Her vowels are so slippy. One time they’re American, one time they’re Aussie, one time they’re British. She had the same problem on Big Little Lies. Why don’t shows just let her be Aussie? The rest of the cast were a mess. Honestly, the only convincing Brit/Euro doing an American accent was the kid, Noah Jupe. He was really good. But Sophie Grabol was a mess. She’s a great actress in her native language, but she’s not solid enough in an American accent to pull off New York City prosecutor with all those talky talky scenes. Douglas Hodge was like something straight out of Guys and Dolls. And Noma Dumezweni lost the accent so often it was distracting. What I was left wondering was…why? This was not a show that required any stunt casting. Do we not have enough actors in New York to cast these roles? Why cast a bunch of actors with disparate accents who might not be able to get the accent to settle enough to convince native listener?
Excellent review of the review, imho. Just wanted to add the infuriating detail they did include about Hugh Grants apparently blood and brain soaked tux going to dry cleaners… which nothing is ever done with. I guess dry cleaners are protected by client confidentiality? Who knew!
i loved the cops on the bridge half-heartedly looking at her running towards them saying “no ma’am you can’t go out there-” and just kind of watching as she jogs past about a dozen of them.“Hey tell your hub not to jump when you get there, would ya?”
and why weren’t the cops doing anything?! Isn’t it their job to protect the kid?! This guy might hurt him.
And then they just fly away with the boy. “Excuse me, we have a few ques…..”
casting director: we’ve got money for both donald sutherland and nicole kidman!Producer: woohoo! whats left in the budget for writers?executive producer: $57.23, but KIDMAN & SUTHERLAND! WOOOO!
I feel you on the lame writing, but one of the biggest names in TV in the last few decades, David E. Kelley, was the creator/producer and sole writing credit for all episodes of The Undoing. But he really shit the bed here.
I honestly don’t get why Kelley is such a big name in writing anymore. He’s…not great. The first season of Big Little Lies is decent but built on a solid platform with the source material. Kelley didn’t have to do a whole lot of adapting. The second season of Big Little Lies is an irredeemable mess, and it almost all lies at the feet of Kelley. I know there was drama over the directing and editing of the series, but honestly, it should never have been made as written. The scripts were bad. Coherent directing would only have made it marginally better. Overall, I find Kelley’s portfolio of work, while chock full of credits, to be incredibly mediocre. He rarely elevates the material.
The episode should have ended at the court case exactly before the unnecessary car chase. It sucked the weight out of Grace’s sly FU to her husband. Overall, the series was good but at certain points raised more questions that had to do less with the plot and more about production choices that were unclear or baffling.
I really had higher hopes for this show. I was convinced that the ultimate twist was that Sylvia was going to be the killer. We had that whole pointless scene where Jonathan tells Haley that his infidelity happened once before and Haley asked for the woman’s name, but we cut away before they revealed it, seemingly setting up for another big reveal. Tie that into the breadcrumbs early on with Sylvia secretly representing/advising Jonathan once in the past with his Hospital Lawsuit, and her freak out in the early episodes where Sylvia is talking on the phone and hisses “It’s always the F&%cking Husband!” and I thought the narrative was going to be the two of them had the affair, Sylvia fell in love, Jonathan ended things, so when Sylvia discovered he was cheating again, she snapped. Would it have been a little problematic having Jonathan be such a great lover that he sends two women into psychotic rages when he doesn’t want to be with them? Absolutely. But at least it would’ve provided a better setup and payoff because as of now, that finale is super anti-climactic. In that little “Behind the Scenes” video at the end of the episode, Nicole Kidman said while they were writing it, they didn’t know exactly what the ending was going to be. And it shows.
I loved evil Hugh Grant. Because in the back of my mind I was like- of course he didn’t do it- he’s Hugh Grant! So charming❤❤. Brilliant casting. ALSO did anyone notice we got one more beautiful coat for Ms. Kidman? Thank you Wardrobe, well done! I know it seemed like – okay we only have 80 minutes- WRAP IT UP!! So it definitely could have been a better finale. But I enjoyed the ride. Oh Hugh Grant you can bludgeon someone to death and then take me out for a drink ANY TIME (giggle swoon)..
Ok, I have been reading these types of comments about Mr. Grant for weeks now, and I do not honestly get it at all! What am I not getting? He looks so old, so old. Old, wrinkled old. His eyes look tired, watery and red. He looks spent and old. OLD. I see zero charm. zero. What am I missing? Charming British accent?
He DOES look old. But he hasn’t fucked with his face. He doesn’t seem to be wearing girdles. He is old. He is owning it. He is playing bad guys. And he is great at it! I guess I’m just really enjoying this version of Hugh Grant. And I love the fact the he started out so dashing and charming (well to me anyway) in this so it really feels like- well it CAN’T be him- it must be Sylvia. Or Donald Sutherland. But it was Hugh Grant! So proud of him. And yes I adore the accent. That’s probably a big part of it.
Thank you! I appreciate your explanation and it does makes sense, yes. Incidentally, doesn’t it show you? Men really don’t have to “fuck with their faces” to continue being charming and in demand, women, though…. Poor Kidman, idk, I feel sorry for her. What the hell did she do to her face? She looks like a statue from a wax museum. And she also must be really starving herself to look so thin. I feel nothing but pity for those who have to live like that. But I digress…
So it seems like Nicole Kidman’s thing is appearing in limited series that are about nothing until the absolutely insane last two episodes (BLL season 2, not one)
Kidman was an Exec Producer on this with David E Kelley. I get the impression that after the success of Big Little Lies HBO threw a bunch of money at them and told them to do whatever they wanted. This very much felt like a vanity project for both of them, with little quality control because nobody was going to say no to them.
Eggzakly. Also, throw in the singing over the intro and the incessant close ups. She’s talented and wealthy enough to not do this crap. but money is money. (It’s all relative I guess. I’m a rich man in he eyes of the Salvadoran guy selling flowers in the median for $10 a day. I always remember those guys when I’m feeling sorry for myself.) No more HBO Star-Vehicle Series for me until they’ve run their course I see the reviews first. I’m tired of investing all the required time for little return.
I’m with you on the HBO vanity series; moody, unstructured star-based semi-mysteries seems to be the strategy for their highbrow stuff lately and it’s just not working. I do think the network’s future is in shortform series (Succession, I think, is the end of the Oz/The Sopranos lineage), but they need to take the sort of risks they used to take with their programming. Chernobyl was brilliant, but they haven’t tried anything like that since.
And Chernobyl was brilliantly cast, but was not a star vehicle, so there is hope, but it’s declining year by year.
The Undoing was a trashy B movie melodrama with A-list stars that was nowhere near trashy enough to be enjoyable. Who knew it would end up trying to be a “character study”? There were so many holes in the plot. The two big ones for me: 1) Grant’s character was clearly empathetic with his patients yet declared a psycho because he didn’t cry as a child? 2) Why would the defense lawyer ever put Kidman on the stand for a totally unnecessary testimony when the case was already won?
“Grant’s character was clearly empathetic with his patients yet declared a psycho because he didn’t cry as a child?”you clearly are either too young or just unaware of how psychopaths operate. just google it
very disappointed that (1) we didn’t find out who else Jonathan had an affair with—I was betting the farm it was Grace’s blond attorney friend; (2) Grace’s different colored coats didn’t apparently have any significance other than an off-hand reminder that she’s wealthy; and (3) apparently they only kept Annaleigh Ashford around for that excellent eyeroll, which as with Edgar Ramirez was a waste of a good actor.
The finale was unsatisfying. If the story was about how seemingly good people can really be horrible people, then series needed to focus on that (e.g. the gradual uncovering of the lies, the affair, the love child, the financial issues, the job loss, the dead sister, the lack of empathy). Instead the series kept throwing hints of “well, what if [someone not the husband] did it”. Frankly, I think that would have made for a more interesting story (e.g. maybe the father did it to frame Hugh Grant; maybe Nicole Kidman did it and despite being a shrink suffers from her own horrible dissociative mental issues; maybe Kidman’s blonde friend did it because she was the other woman Hugh Grant had the first affair with and was madly jealous of the dead woman). Any of those would have been more interesting than the actual conclusion.
No, none of those would have been more interesting, because the show is not about whodunit mystery. It’s about a psychopathy and how it affects and thrives and fools families. In that regard, the show sort of redeemed itself somehow, but they should have stuck with the book – oh wait, but then, there would have been nothing for the “charming” Grant to do, since in the book, the charmer disappears in act one.
[I have not read the book and am only talking about the show] I agree with you given the ending that it WAS a show about psychopathy. But the “whodunit” tangents that they went off on distracted from that (IMHO). Perhaps it would have been a stronger show if they had done away with those tangents and focused on the psychopathy. I think they built it up for the audience to expect some sort of twist at the end and then there was none which I found unsatisfying. Or (and I realize this wouldn’t have been faithful to the book) gone the other way and made it “whodunit” with a twist at the end (e.g. it was the wife’s friend or something).
“But the “whodunit” tangents that they went off on distracted from that (IMHO)“ —TOTALLY! That is what was wrong with the whole way they did it. There was a “twist” of sorts though as everyone expected a twist and there was none – twist of a twist. Occam’s razor. The simplest explanation is the right one. Also, if they made the wife’s friend or somebody else to have done it as everyone expected, then there was no point in even saying it was based on the book “You Should Have Known” as then, there would have been nothing from the book in there.
It’s surprising that no one has mentioned Nicole Kidman’s obvious and awful cosmetic surgery. It was a constant distraction through the entire series. I felt like I was watching either a CGI version of Nicole kidman, or an actor wearing a Nicole Kidman mask. When will actors get it through their thick heads that face lifts don’ t make you look younger or better, just weird and creepy.
Literally, EVERYONE has been talking about it since ep. 1
That was so disappointing. Guy on trial is found guilty. Overthinkers are punished for watching and trying to figure it out. Meh. I think I saw an old Perry Mason that was made better: guy originally is the main suspect, but the red herrings are put out to get him off for about 45 minutes, someone else is put on trial, then Perry discovers that the original guy actually did it. You’d think that the detectives would have gotten a search warrant for the beach house, knowing that their main suspect was there, and possibly the murder weapon is there.
I enjoyed it, even if it was ridiculous! Yes, lots of non-US people on show here, with only Hugh Grant playing his own accent. Nicole Kidman’s barely concealed Aussie twang is always there. Director Susanne Bier brought in fellow Dane the brilliant Sofie Gråbøl while stage adult Hermione Granger from HP and the Cursed Child, Noma Dumezweni who is S African born, British raised. I thought they were all great but it seemed quite obvious after Nicole and her green coat went for a walk with Lily Rabe we couldn’t listen in on that she was about to double cross the sneaky Hugh!
Don’t forget Det. Ramirez’s accent! Am I just ignorant or do foreigners not typically get into law enforcement in the US?
If you’re a US citizen you can become a police officer. That seems to be the general rule.
What is this obsession with accents? I do not get it. I just watch a show, and I understand the words that are coming out of their mouths… what is this accent hating about???
Honestly, I just had a serious problem with Nicole Kidman’s face – it is granite.
My grip about the New York in this show. The utter lack of SCAFFOLDINGS! You can’t call it Manhattan without those dreadful under constructions erected everywhere.
OMG after the finale I actually started watching the How To With John Wilson episode about scaffolding in NYC. It’s hilarious!
Ha ha so true! I lived in NYC for 2 years and it was just constant never ending thing everywhere 🙂
There were also several scenes where Nicole Kidman is walking through an empty Central Park. Not a single jogger, cyclist, or dogwalker in sight. That…stretched credulity.
I meant to add in my other post that the disclosures from his mother to Grace didn’t even speak to his eventual psychopathic rage directed at Elena. He was as stoic 14 yr old who accidently helped get his little sister killed by a car. HE didn’t push in front of the car, so ‘exposing’ all of that at trial SHOULD have been a simple rebuttal for the Defense by saying, “So after tall of that childhood trauma and separation from his family, he managed to go onto become world famous pediatric oncologist. Sounds very well adjusted and stable of mind. Thanks for bringing all of this up. Where’s the relevance?” Instead they have the Ice Queen Defense Attorney completely lose her shit out-of-character as if to say, “Not fair! Now they KNOW he’s really guilty your honor!” So the major plot points in this debacle were hiding the hammer in a fireplace 20 yards from the ocean, and announcing he was a stoic 14 yr old after his sister was killed – and he handled that well enough to be come a doctor. Who wrote this?
“stoic 14 yr old after his sister was killed”you must read up on psychopathy
He went on to become a successful doctor and lived around 40-45 years without a hint of a problem – and you say that it’s OBVIOUS that his behavior from that age predicted murdering someone? The story didn’t develop crap about him hiding being a psycho. THAT would have been a better story. As in my example you could easily turn that around and defeat it in three sentences for the Defense- and they hung the entire case and mini-series on that point. And the y destroyed the Defense Attorney character in the process. If they were going to spend six weeks on this, then develop the story that he was hiding his psychopathy and her discovering that fact. There was a story to be had there, but the TV writers blew it.
“There was a story to be had there, but the TV writers blew it.” – totally agreed. they should have stuck to the book as it really, as you said, developed and built up the story “about him hiding being a psycho”.as for “He went on to become a successful doctor and lived around 40-45 years without a hint of a problem” -this is pretty much how psychopaths are – charming, successful professionals that fool their colleagues, friends and spouses for years.
If you can believe it, the book had even less of a plot than the show.
How disappointing!! I had lots of possible endings in my brain and all of them were better than the one they went with, LOL!!!
these may have been the WORST 2 lawyers in the history of courtrooms, I couldn’t stop laughing at ANYTHING tthey both said to the point where my wife had to pause the show and order me to “get it together” so we could watch them laughingly ruin the last 30 mins of a 7 hr series.It was…uh…not good.“OBJECTION! GOES TO IMPEACHING THE WITNESS! Your honor-
I’ll allow it!”Once Detective Swarthy started sneering at her about things…just things, he really didn’t say anything of any meaning, at any point- I was done.
And let’s back up a little bit; what in the hell was with Elena’s seductive painting of Grace? Why were they so familiar in the locker room? Why did Elena put her bush a foot from Grace’s face? Did they edit out an entire plot point about an lesbian affair at the studio? Early on I thought Sunderland did it to protect his daughter and get rid of his lousy son-in-law. THAT would have made for a better story. Or he son discovers Elena is sleeping with BOTH his parents and trashing his family, so HE did it. THAT would have been a better story. But, no. Hugh Grant ranting about clams in an idiotic copter chase.
In a running time 15 minutes less than this treacly conclusion to an execrable series, the night before, SNL’s 10pm slot aired a rerun that, get this….began with a sketch in which OJ Simpson, played by Tim Meadows, accidentally admitted he was guilty. The episode was hosted by…get this, the great Phil Hartman, who ended his opening monologue with a loving thank you to his beautiful wife Brynn…who murdered him a year and a half later before turning the gun to herself. That SNL gave me chills, but the red herring feast of “The Undoing,” trying so hard to thwart Occam’s Razor, left me cold. Hugh Grant was very good, given the silly material. I have no way of evaluating Nicole Kidman’s performance, other than her “eye acting” was okay, since her face, unwrinkled and either Botoxed or now a #23 in some plastic surgeon’s face catalog, seemed unable to move. A low point for “prestige TV,” thankfully this was only a limited series. But when you kill the most potentially intriguing, exciting and conflicted character in the first episode, I guess that’s what you get?
The title of the show should be Witless for the Prosecution.Basically, all clues point at someone for committing the crime—and he did!Luckily, Nicole Kidman’s character got to kiss the Elena character so… umm no I guess that never came to anything. Wouldn’t it have been better if Kidman were hiding an affair with Elena and that’s why her ex-lover, Grant, killed her? Or if Grant got off, and then Kidman discovered the hammer? (Although that’s a little too close to Sharp Objects—another HBO show that should have been a 2-hour movie, but was stretched into a miniseries for no good reason.)
Also, I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that I don’t think that kid knows how to use a dishwasher.
can anyone explain the scene where the defense lawyer was talking herself into Hugh Grant testifying and she got right in his face like she was going to kiss him and then backed off? What the hell was that?