A Murder at the End of the World - Season 1

A strong cast, and decent setup, but slow execution. A Murder at the End of the World could have been more, but is still an interesting watch.

A mix of scifi and murder mystery, with some serious social critique; A Murder at the End of the World is a TV show that knows what it wants to tell you. When tech giant Andy Ronson (Clive Owen, American Crime Story) gathers some of the greatest present-day minds together for an exclusive retreat in the middle of nowhere in Iceland, one of the guests dies. Darby (Emma Corrin, The Crown), an amateur sleuth, who has solved a series of crimes together with Bill Farah (Harris Dickinson, Trust) in the past and has published a book about this adventure, decides to try and figure out what has happened here.

Each episode interweaves the past and the present. Darby tries to solve the murder in Iceland as we learn more about how she met Bill, how their relationship evolved, and how they found a serial killer. As the series progresses, the mood at the retreat deteriorates, while the past has its own ups and downs. This all happens against the beautiful backdrop of snowy Iceland and sunny (but somehow also a bit depressing) dessert roads. The series also does not shy away from critiquing society: for how it reacts to murder, to (powerful) women, to climate change, and to technology. These are all the ingredients needed for a great show.



Yet, A Murder at the End of the World starts off painstakingly slow. As the episodes each differ significantly in length, I assume the producers (who are the same ones as of The OA) had some freedom in episode length. So why did they deliberately choose to make the first two episodes so insanely slow? Luckily, after a while, the pacing picks up as events start to follow each other more quickly.

Besides pacing, the different retreat guests (also known as: suspects) are sometimes only marginally explored. Some really would have done well with some more depth. Part of what makes the classic murder mystery so fun is that we get to know all people present, and that they all have a motive. While some of them do in A Murder at the End of the World, some have no motive, or are only briefly part of the story. Instead, only a few characters are deepened out. The ones that are covered, are deepened out well, at least.

Rather than a 'murder mystery', this is a tragic love story with social commentary

A lot of these weaker points, however, are to an extent compensated by the mix between the present and the past. Corrin and Dickinson are absolutely amazing in their roles in the past. Their joys and pains are brought beautifully to the screen, which alone makes this show worth a watch. In that sense, ‘murder mystery’ might not be the best characterization of this series; rather, calling it a tragic love story mixed with social commentary might be more accurate. It is about people lost in the modern world finding each other, only to lose each other again*.



The ending of the show is not completely unexpected. Nonetheless, overall (once I got past the first two episodes), I’d recommend this show. Note that it is one of the more depressing murder mysteries out there. Do not expect lighthearted jokes or endings. But this darkness is precisely what might make it worth a watch, if you can move past the slow start and somewhat predictable ending.

It seems that there will not be a second season. This seems fitting: the story that was supposed to be told has been told. Producers Batmanglij and Marling probably have more stories to tell, but a new cast and setting are probably more suited for that.

*which is not really a spoiler, as this much becomes obvious in the first episode. Knowing how the past is going to end is what makes it all the more tragic.