The Undoing

HBO | Release Date: October 25, 2020

6.6	USER SCORE Generally favorable reviews based on 58 Ratings

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GlassoNov 30, 2020

If you watch this until the end you will know how truly terrible it actually is. Really poor quality television. Grant is pretty awful by the end, nothing more than a few eyebrow wobbles. Kidman is also dialling it in.

2 of 3 users found this helpful21

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OlivierPielNov 2, 2020

Pros: clearly money went into this: all technical aspects are super pro, esp. the photography, sets are lavish, and the actors are expensive
Cons: After 1 episode even if we don't know where this is going (whodunnit, dun dun dun), we knowPros: clearly money went into this: all technical aspects are super pro, esp. the photography, sets are lavish, and the actors are expensive
Cons: After 1 episode even if we don't know where this is going (whodunnit, dun dun dun), we know this is not going to be very satisfying what with the hamfisted whole haves/have nots trope, on-the-nose upper middle-class clichés and Hugh Grant playing basically himself (and not believeble as a neurosurgeon at all). I'm just glad I'm pirating this and not paying a subscription! Argh!… Expand

3 of 7 users found this helpful34

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AK_elChapoJan 2, 2021

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Blank actors. Plastic Kidman. NO TWIST or whatsoever. Alright for the 3 first episodes then just nothing but disappointing.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

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lipinoApr 16, 2022

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. This show accidentally almost became great, then didn’t.

I went into this show fresh, not knowing anything about it. Turned out to be a captivating murder mystery. When it looked like Grace might be the murderer, it was a great Gone Girl-esque twist. But it wasn’t for sure yet - there were still other clues, others with motive. And still the possibility that it was just a random attack, that sucked these people into a whirlwind of attention and suspicion that would expose their secrets. Brilliant!

Then the courtroom scenes started, and I raised an eyebrow. The worst courtroom depiction I’ve ever seen. The bad writing seemed out of place for such a clever show. The show started to drag.

Then the huge twist - it was the son! The one person I didn’t expect. I thought, what a twist, well done. I couldn’t wait to see how they would deal with that. Surely Grace would try to cover it up. They wouldn’t just leave her as a one-dimensional doll-like character - this would really challenge her and her father and reveal their true colors. And how would Jonathan deal with that? He was obviously a sociopath and completely self-interested, but on the other hand it was his son. Could the sociopath throw his son under the bus to save himself? What a dilemma. And then episode 6 happened. It was a possible ending that I had feared, hoped against. I know the trend in Hollywood. I know Gone Girl was an exception. I know it’s always the white man, in the end. I know the white women are perfect and infallible. As a reviewer on Vulture said in her negative review, “…a revenge fantasy…A trio of white women conspired to give a terrible white man his comeuppance.”

People who liked it say the show turned the audience into “the wife who stands by her man” and showed us all how easy it is to be duped. The problem is we don’t relate to Grace at all. There is nothing relatable about her, unless you have a vacation home in the Hamptons. We don’t like Jonathan either. We know he was faking emotion about his sister, we believe that he’s a sociopath. He had a baby with his mistress. We are not rooting for him. We take glee in seeing him go through this - this is his punishment. But just because he’s a sociopath doesn’t mean he’s a killer. I thought the final twist was that the son got the same gene, except he actually got violent.

Instead we got a bizarre ending. Shades of Bill Murray taking the groundhog hostage and driving off a cliff.

What really happened is the show’s creators accidentally stumbled onto something far better than what the show actually was. It was an accidentally great show, for a minute, in a genre it didn’t intend to be in. It almost became Knives Out.
And now the bad writing makes more sense. The worst courtroom scenes ever. A total mistrial. That didn’t make sense when I thought this was a smart show. It makes sense now. That is real twist.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

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