Murdaugh: Death In The Family

There are no big surprises, no major secrets that subvert what you thought you knew, and the show is better for it: a precisely sketched, stomach-churning account of moral vacancy. .... The narrowness of focus is refreshing in our era of excessive therapyspeak.

Clarke and Arquette are a dynamic pair, portraying the dysfunction and denial that led to the tragic slayings. .... The first episode of “Death in the Family” starts out a bit slow and lays the colloquialisms a little too thick, but it leads to a captivating story that sheds new light on an oft-trod story.

The show is an engaging portrait of greed, cruelty and arrogance. The eight-episode series encapsulates what is so compelling about this particular family and why, ultimately, they self-immolated.

[Affords] a thorough and multifaceted portrait of the factors that made Alex commit his heinous deed, and a convincing and riveting performance from Jason Clarke that brings this tragedy, and the despicable man who caused it, to full-bodied life.

Murdaugh is more full-bodied and thoughtfully crafted than most true-crime stories, including the others on Hulu.

The acting often outshines the merely competent direction, editing, and melodramatic writing. By the time we get to Alex’s murder trial, we’ve grown tired of the whole rancid Murdaugh bunch.

The Murdaughs are atrocious in so many different ways, it’s difficult to maintain a useful understanding of all of them at once. However well made and performed Death in the Family is, it prompts the same question as so much other true-crime telly: why am I making myself watch?

The performances are superb, especially from Clarke. .... However, fantastic characters do not make for compelling drama without jeopardy and, even if you haven’t caught the reams of commentary on the case, it would help if its destination didn’t feel quite so obvious.

Creators Michael D. Fuller and Erin Lee Carr are, instead, most interested in how the Murdaughs found themselves here to begin with — specifically, in the toxic combination of privilege and desperation that propelled them. But if their exploration of that theme is thoughtful and thorough, it’s also one that, over eight moderately watchable hours, sticks to familiar territory rather than blazing new ground.

The show is pretty good, as these things go, mostly because of the cast.

We don’t think Murdaugh: Murder In The Family will add anything new to the copious amount of material already out there about the Alex Murdaugh case, despite the fine performances and uncluttered storytelling.

At eight episodes long, the story feels dragged out, weighed down by subplots that never quite seem to go anywhere. It’s hard to shake the feeling that this is the TV equivalent of a meeting that could have been an email.

The facts, as we know them, can only take up so many minutes, which means that the remainder has to be completed with scenes that border on melodrama at best and wild speculation at worst.