Summary
Death and Other Details aligns with the recent undercooked murder mystery A Murder at the End of the World, where the script struggles to develop something worth investing yourself in.
With the rise of crime podcasts, we’ve seen an influx of movies and shows based on the world of murder mysteries. Recently, we had the FX series A Murder at the End of the World, the return of True Detective, and films like Boston Strangler and A Haunting In Venice. Hulu is entering the fold with the series Death and Other Details, created by the team that wrote the hit ABC show Stumptown. The series sees Violett Beane in the lead role of Imogene Scott, with veteran actor Mandy Patinkin starring opposite her as Rufus Cotesworth.
Death and Other Details follows the story of Imogene Scott, who is on a luxury cruise with her friends when she finds herself the main suspect in a murder that happened on the ship. She must work with someone from her past to help clear her name.
We meet our cast on board this lavish ship where we find out that the Colliers and Chun families are going to make a deal. While the business dealings will go down, Anna is expected to take over the company with her father stepping down, and Imogene, a family friend, is along for the ride. But things quickly go south when a man turns up dead on the ship.
Although she didn’t kill the man, Imogene was the last person seen in his room and finds herself front and center of the investigation. Shortly after this, we meet Rufus Cotesworth, who was hired to find out who killed Imogene’s mother when she was a little girl and is on board the cruise working for the Chun family. He is hired to take over the case and begins to question Imogene. They are forced to put the past behind them as they must work together to find the killer.
The most important thing about a whodunnit mystery is having a story worth investing in. Recently, A Murder at the End of the World reeled you in with a fascinating concept but failed to execute in the episodes that followed the pilot. Death and Other Details does a great job of reeling you in, but the unevenness of the story struggles to keep you invested for eight episodes. I wonder if these series would benefit from sticking to the more “limited” manner by being 4-6 episodes, allowing the story to come together a little tighter.
Within the show, we are trying to balance two intertwined stories. You have the murder of Imogene’s mother and the murder of Keith on the boat. Of course, the series follows the infamous trend of flashback sequences to solve the past and present murders, which struggle to assemble the pieces. It felt so overly dramatic in the flashback scenes that it would take me out of the show every time they came on.
Even with the unevenness, the one thing I will take away from my time with Death and Other Details is that I hope to see more of Violett Beane in future films and TV shows. This show would be a complete snoozefest if not for Beane’s ability to make Imogene worth investing in. It takes a particular type of talent to elevate a script that underwrote a character, and Beane has it. She’s still really new to the acting world with only a few credits under her belt, but she was fantastic opposite the uber-talented Mandy Patinkin.
Although Death and Other Details suffers from lackluster writing, I do give it a slight recommendation for several reasons.
First, I highly recommend binge-watching the show all at once when the series is over. With eight episodes, it overstays its welcome, but if you watch it over two or three sittings, it makes for a more interesting show instead of watching it week to week. Second, Violett Beane is a star, making the watch worth it. Lastly, the premise of being on a boat is cool to me, and we don’t get enough movies or shows set on cruises. Again, go in with the lower expectations, and you might walk away having enjoyed the series more than I did.
What did you think of Death and Other Details Season 1? Comment below.
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