Stevie Ray
Can You Dig It? SUCKA!
Let me tell you something brotha, that's one of the best baby face turns I've ever seen in this business. I knew that yak was gonna flip once that fruit booty accused their son.
The Undoing on HBO
- Thread starter Bigbigguy
- Start date
Verbal Kint
Superstar
That ending would've been ok had the show been a character study. But they presented it as a murder mystery. Even then it would've been ok if he was the killer, but he was literally the killer in the exact way it was presented from the 2nd episode on. No intrigue, no interesting reasoning, nothing.
Yeah from my skimming through the wiki, the book the show was based on is called "You Should Have Known" and the whole thing is an indictment on Grace for not knowing that her husband was a sociopath capable of murder, when she spent her entire career telling her clients they should have caught the signs. The husband isn't even in the book.
So Nicole Kidman and the writers obviously wanted the show to be more of a mystery than the book, when the actual story they adapted didn't really merit a "who dun it" focus.
Show would have been far stronger if it kept the focus from the book and made it a character study on Grace as a person and doctor, examining how her wealth, race, class privilege, and arrogance blinded her from the truth. They should have dropped pretense of the murderer being in doubt by the audience, which conditioned everyone to search for suspects while watching which left many feeling let down by the obvious/straightforward conclusion that made sense in the book but felt anticlimatic in the show.
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AnonymityX1000
Veteran
They did throw a lot of dialogue, people acting weird and other weird like flashbacks or imaginings to try and throw the audience off.
For example, when Hugh Grant leaves the party saying he has to help a patient they show a scene where he is talking to one of his patients using a grade A bedside manner and they muse about the patience chances of living. And it is filmed thru like a filter to insinuate someone is imagining it but not explicitly saying so. And the next scene is Hugh Grant getting in bed with Nicole Kidman all sad like that patient died. I poured over that in my mind more than a few times but in the end it amounted to 0 for the plot.
I stuck with Hugh Grant being the killer because they presented 0 hard evidence it could even possibility be anyone else. But by this thread you see a lot of soft evidence and the history of the mystery drama that 'the obvious perpetrator rarely does it' made people guess differently. It's like they subverted expectations by keeping it extremely simple/straightforward. That's actually kind of interesting, it used the audience expectations to cloud the story and not actual real information/evidence.
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Saysumthinfunnymike
VOTE!!!
The show would have likely been a little better (I still liked this show for what it is anyway) but I doubt it would have gained any real traction. The Undoing was trending all day today and a lot of it is tied to the "Who Dun It?" concept... you take away the mystery from the show and do more of a character study and I don't think nearly as many people get involved with it... so that's the tradeoff.
I feel if you are making that trade then the ending needs to be a little bit more exciting than the conclusion of him just getting arrested again. We already saw him taken away in handcuffs.
I do get this gripe. That's one thing I will say they dropped the ball on. They saw an easy out to drum up interest and social currency with presenting it as some Escape Room special type of shyt knowing it was really more of a case/character study which would not have gathered NEARLY as much interest otherwise. The show would not have been something to latch onto & promoting water cooler talk/word of mouth if it came straightforward with it.
I'm still not mad at it though, lol.
Not mad at the end 
really good series, acting and cinematography despite a weak-ish finale
i sorta wanted the kid to have been the killer
but damn the dad was an a$$hole Trynna pin it on his kid
I need more Elena and her t*ts on my screen
really good series, acting and cinematography despite a weak-ish finale i sorta wanted the kid to have been the killer
but damn the dad was an a$$hole Trynna pin it on his kid
I need more Elena and her t*ts on my screen
The axe murderer
For I am death and I ride on a pale horse
Father gotta be pissed he spent bail money on the scumbag son in law
Field Marshall Bradley
Veteran
Father gotta be pissed he spent bail money on the scumbag son in law
In real life he gets most of it back..... it was a cash bond I think.... Now them lawyer fees....
that's something totally different....Mission249
All Star
I think we wanted it to be a murder mystery more than they did. If I sat here and listed out all the evidence they presented against the husband - anyone would be insane to think anyone else did it but him.
The husband's mom was on video like "He killed his sister and showed no remorse! He's a psycopath!
" and we're still like "...I wonder if the little boy did it 
"In retrospect, we got played just like the wife got played. She wanted her husband to be romantic comedy Hugh Grant, and we wanted a murder mystery. It ended up being a character study.
Exactly. The shyt was straight forward from the jump. And typically in shows like this we're all like "How could the wife be so dumb!?" but none of us want to admit we got played ourselves. That's the most interesting thing they could do. Any other twist would've been some contrived M. Night Shyamalan shyt.
AnonymityX1000
Veteran
And you know what even the marketing of the show helped lead the audience on as well that's pretty dope, very subversive.I think we wanted it to be a murder mystery more than they did. If I sat here and listed out all the evidence they presented against the husband - anyone would be insane to think anyone else did it but him.
The husband's mom was on video like "He killed his sister and showed no remorse! He's a psycopath!
In retrospect, we got played just like the wife got played. She wanted her husband to be romantic comedy Hugh Grant, and we wanted a murder mystery. It ended up being a character study.
Exactly. The shyt was straight forward from the jump. And typically in shows like this we're all like "How could the wife be so dumb!?" but none of us want to admit we got played ourselves. That's the most interesting thing they could do. Any other twist would've been some contrived M. Night Shyamalan shyt.
I would of preferred if he beat the case and then they show Grace finding the murder weapon.
Cave Savage
Feminist
That was disappointing, I was hoping for it to be pretty much anyone but him. I thought the angle they were going for was "he is a scumbag but not a killer" yet he was just a straight up killer.
BUT it was still worth it to see Mathilda de Angelis butt naked, goddamn she's fine. And the cinematography was dope.
BUT it was still worth it to see Mathilda de Angelis butt naked, goddamn she's fine. And the cinematography was dope.
Cave Savage
Feminist
I thought it was gonna be a 10/10 show after episode 1.
Elena's titties are even better than that chick from The Wire.
Cave Savage
Feminist
My mom was telling me how Hugh Grant sunk his reputation back in the day after being caught with a prostitute
These days nobody would give a shyt
These days nobody would give a shyt