A Murder at the End of the World

A massive puzzle of a series, the beauty and innovation of “A Murder at the End of the World” is its ability to merge two starkly different environments and, with it, two contrasting versions of Darby. There’s the 18-year-old who was slowly coming into herself and the 24-year-old woman determined to expose the truth no matter how sinister it may be. While the mystery is a central component of the story, Marling and Batmanglij’s latest spellbinding series is all about power.

Marling and Batmanglij's latest collaboration is a thought-provoking, twisty mystery that's even better when you're not trying to guess where it's headed.

It’s really not hard to imagine a series of Darby Hart mysteries, as she’s that compelling a character, and Corrin is remarkably skilled at taking all of her quirks and synthesizing them into a relatable, memorable whole.

A Murder at the End of the World is genuinely suspenseful and delightfully gripping, eliciting gasps and squirms in equal measure. It’s a show that understands the importance of coherence, retaining its slow drip of secrets to become one of the best mystery series in recent memory.

Aan absorbing, eerie brain twister that delivers a shocking denouement. (I’m sworn to secrecy). For mystery lovers, it doesn’t get much better than this.

A Murder at the End of the World is here for your wintertime whodunit watching, with a terrific lead performance from Emma Corrin, a strong cast throughout – while they’re still living, anyway! – and layers of forward-looking tech and classic mystery elements to pick at and peel.

It’s a clever, luxe puzzle show, a highly polished tin man endowed with a beating heart by Emma Corrin’s performance as its main character.

It turns out that Marling and Batmanglij can play straight very well. By the end of that first scene, I was as engaged with the story as Darby’s audience, and stayed that way throughout most of the seven episodes.

The seven-part series leans very heavily on the talented Corrin, who can convey multitudes with just a furrowed brow or the flicker of a shy glance. They are in virtually every scene, but they are more than capable of shouldering the burden.

A Murder at the End of the World is a gripping, pacy thriller. It navigates its way through a century of detective influences, from Conan Doyle to Gillian Flynn, with an agility that leaves it never less than wholly watchable.

Corrin and Dickinson are outstanding and carry the story on their shoulders. It takes on a lot, thematically, but I admire the big swings. This is a tech-centred story and its big appetite for interconnected ideas feels very online. It may not be flawless, but I found myself completely seduced by it.

While the mystery plot is solid, and the red herrings work for the most part, and the action sequences are compelling, they’re all wound tightly into broader questions about the way we live our lives online, the corruption of power, and the insidiousness of misogyny.

Like The OA, Murder could use a dash of humor to vary the somber tone. But these are small complaints when Marling and Batmanglij have so thoughtfully built an inquiry into the consequences of AI and surveillance capitalism within the framework of a whodunit, yielding a mystery both current and timeless.

A Murder at the End of the World may not crack the universe open like The OA did, but it does signal something more exciting—-Marling and Batmanglij will keep on crafting gems for a long time to come.

“A Murder at the End of the World,” for the most part, makes sure we remember who matters — while still keeping us guessing to the very end.

"Murder" ends up being a rather satisfying if occasionally slow whodunit, anchored by a talented cast including Emma Corrin ("The Crown"), Clive Owen, Harris Dickinson ("Triangle of Sadness") and Brit Marling ("The OA").

For all the cunning plot twists and story machinations—and it does ultimately conclude in a way that’s both clever and surprising—it’s the flashbacks to Darby and Bill’s earlier investigation where A Murder at the End of the World feels most alive.

The present-day whodunit isn’t especially inventive, but Corrin carries the story with a nervy, febrile performance that invests Darby with the life that the dialogue sometimes fails to provide.

Parts of the present-day story are thin. There are too many characters to adequately define and develop, and so many competing themes that the series starts to reproduce some of the same shallow, wheel-spinning discourse Ronson’s “luminaries” regale him with at dinner. As a whodunit, however, “A Murder at the End of the World” holds its own — all while enacting some heart-rending correctives to the genre’s bloodthirsty tendencies.

If you want a grown-up murder mystery to watch as the winter nights draw in, it's an enticing choice. But if you're hoping for a successor to The OA — or a tech thriller with a meaningful grasp on the industry — you should probably temper your expectations.

It’s a tricky needle to thread, trying to construct a whodunit that deprioritizes the who in favor of the people behind the it; mileage will vary on how successfully you think it’s pulled off. At its worst, the series moves the way Andy’s titans talk, circling its gloomy central concerns without seeming to get much of anywhere for long periods of time. But at its best, it channels Darby’s anguish over existing in a world that can feel unbearably beautiful in one moment and intolerably painful in the next.

When the story remains in Iceland, exploring the whodunnit of the murders that occur at the retreat, “Murder” entertains. But inevitably the show segues to the overlong Darby-and-Bill flashbacks that, while they do serve to inform elements of the Iceland story, ramble on and on.

Beware: it’s grindingly slow, uneven (most of the retreat group members are barely pencilled in), and the overall atmosphere is so oppressive that you find yourself hoping for another brutal murder to lift the mood. For all that, I felt compelled to watch to the end: it’s beautifully acted (Owen is downright unnerving), and the story, while conducted at a maddening pace, is atmospheric and deeply intriguing.

Few of the suspects and/or victims are fully developed, and Murder exhibits streaming bloat, with several episodes going past the hour mark. Yet there is considerable tension waiting for the next snowshoe to drop and the denouement is ingenious. [27 Nov - 17 Dec 2023, p.7]

A Murder at the End of the World may tackle climate change, technoethics, misogyny, and true crime, but it feels lackluster thanks to overlong, navel-gazing episodes.

It’s definitely a lot, and whether the show works for you ultimately depends on how you feel about the whole Marling-Batmanglij Experience.

This thriller is Marling/Batmanglij at their most accessible, if at the expense of surprise. It’s another showcase for Corrin, an actor who only gets more interesting.

Riffing on the idea that the culprit is never obvious, it culminates in a genuinely surprising reveal. It often grips, but if you miss it the world won’t end.

This 7-part series is undeniably ambitious in the unique manner in which it tackles “end of the world” concerns, but it sags narratively far too often, content to spin its wheels instead of filling out a potentially fascinating cast of characters.

Dressing up an old Agatha Christie-style mystery with modern trappings certainly worked for “Knives Out” but does considerably less in “A Murder at the End of the World.” Created by the team behind “The OA,” the Hulu limited series sequesters its characters in the snowy wilds of Iceland, while stumbling through its whodunit with bloated episodes and prolonged flashbacks.

Two episodes in, and it’s starting to feel like this show would’ve been much better as a two-hour movie, where we, theoretically, move things along a little bit. [The score is the average of grades for the first two episodes.]