A Murder at the End of the World Enters Uncharted Territory With Its Online Love Story

Prolific co-creators Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij’s voices speak beyond generations, dimensions, and traditional storytelling with an ever-present element of complexity towards love and spirit, utilizing their work as an extremely intentional medium to touch people.

With a vast, non-conforming film and TV library under their belt, Marling and Batmanglij’s work tends to sharpen curious minds, bringing together one of the most genuine and devoted fan bases for their cult hit The OA. The devotion towards The OA is reminiscent of fan followings which existed online when cable TV was at its peak, and people would live-tweet their reactions to shows like American Horror Story, The 100, or Game of Thrones. They’ve created a powerful hive-mind of non-judgmental, loving followers who still haven’t given up on the beloved story of dimensional travel, invisible borders, and human understanding, all contained in online forums and across social platforms. 

The OA harnessed a vehement Reddit page, still active daily with over 60,000 users who still ‘leave their door open’ in hopes of the show being brought back to life from its disheartening cancellation in 2019, cut short from its five-season plan that the impassioned duo originally imagined. Consistent with their considerate preceding work, they bring people together towards psychologically stimulating consciousness, and cascade willful lengths to enter meaningful themes that are oft left unexplored. 

It only seems fitting that the pair would continue onwards to tell a story about a technologically advancing world and generation in their latest FX series A Murder at the End of the World. It’s rare for the truth of the Internet to really be seen by media producers, and even rarer for it to be reflected intentionally in media. The usual usage of Gen Z’s tether to social media in television or movies only extends as far as a surface level understanding, one that normally consists of outdated memes and texting lingo. If the information is current, it’s hardly ever presented without a layer of corniness masking it and forcing it to feel much more surreal and ironic than it might actually be. Unsurprisingly, Marling and Batmanglij seem to just get it. 

Not only does the duo exemplify a deep understanding of how my generation utilizes the Internet, but they simultaneously explore a complex online relationship, and therefore, the way that humans exist and react to loving one another. 

A Murder at the End of the World is a seven-episode limited series following a calculating female protagonist, hacker, and published true-crime author, invited to an Elon Musk-esque figure’s retreat. When her first love is mysteriously murdered by one of the other guests, it becomes her purpose to find out why. Impressive cool-girl and individualist Darby Hart (Emma Corrin) meets Bill Farrah (Harris Dickinson) on Reddit years prior to his death, while in the midst of pursuing an unsolved string of female serial murders. 

The two begin to develop a meaningful connection through all-night video calls and simply talking to one another across different physical areas in space. Their relationship prospers through these means, and strikingly rings true to my own lived experience. The majority of my upbringing was online, a member of Stan Twitter since fourth grade, substituting connection with online peers for where there was a lack in my daily life. Where I was absent in real life, there were pixels representative of my person inside of a secret, invisible room, where everybody else went when they logged on. I have never felt like the media’s representation of the Internet has come close to deciphering this feeling, or the complicated layers that are present in such an experience. 

Marling and Batmanglij seem to know what it consists of—it’s all words. It’s all talking and connecting, and not quite expecting anything more, until it does, ultimately, become more. They even understand the conflation it causes, to be so intertwined in the online world, yet live in a society where technology and the Internet are not always benefitting us. It makes us less human, removes us from the outside world, making it extremely hard to be present when there’s the awareness that there will always be a separate world inside your pocket calling you inside (and sometimes its lure is pure addiction). Technology serves as a tool we literally need to function. Yet, we’ve been able to find empathy and true feeling in it, redefining social borders and seeking affection in unlikely places.

Bill expresses the oppugnant clash of Internet-permanent existence in Episode 5 of A Murder during a car ride with Darby as they continue pursuing a mass murderer. He asks Darby why she first fell for him, and she blithely tells him that she isn’t playing that game, denying the chance to be affectionate—so he goes on. He tells her that the moment he first saw her in person, he felt like he would know her forever. Darby has her phone in her hand the whole time, growing slowly engulfed by a message online with new information regarding the murder mystery. When he asks her again, she says “what makes you think I’ve fallen for you?” It wipes the tender look from his face. It is obvious that she cares about him, yet she responds with a hallowed form of intimacy representative of her fear surrounding her own ability to express and accept love. When Bill removes himself from the vehicle (and the conversation), Darby joins him. He admits that he wants to throw his phone into the ocean, but she tells him: “a lot of people think that, but it isn’t a long-term solution, we do need them.” 

He keeps going, walking around his disgust for the addiction we have to our phones, and how they cause us to lose ourselves. Darby finally says “the first time I felt myself fall in love with you was on my phone.” This is the reality that we’re all grappling with. Perfectly represented by the couple’s intimate yet distant relationship, both cursed and blessed by current technology and social media (really, it’s a representation of an entire generation, not just an online world), A Murder at the End of the World conveys the impossibility brought on by our present day. It feels like a perfect reflection of our human nature, and where we’re at now: the hollow irony of how one thing can create such a lack of understanding and empathy, yet allow us to connect in ways we could never imagine. 

My idea of love and connection blossomed out of long distance friendship and taking the time to really know someone. I would rush through my responsibilities after a day of class and sit in front of a screen, perpetuating my exhaustion for the ability to talk to people half-way across the planet who I had met on Twitter, in a separate time-zone with a common loneliness and shared interest for whatever it was at the time (Fifth Harmony’s music, the Sims, or whatever new thing we could come together on, pretending that was the reason we got along; really, it was just the love inside our hearts—we were just happy to be in conversation). I would fall asleep on a video call, inside a sleepover that couldn’t exist in a physical way. Inside my phone, I found these deep relationships, too. 

And just like in A Murder at the End of the World, Darby and Bill’s dynamic felt familiar, Darby’s handling of intimacy ringing true to my own experience. Darby has connected deeply with Bill and is eventually devastated by his death, yet reacts to his love with distance and discomfort. She doesn’t really know how to love him, as much as she might want to; she was far more comfortable with a different type of intimacy. This form of love has been cultivated by Gen Z, a type of connection fostered by the digital age. 

There will always be problems in a generation, but this issue is so new that we are only just beginning to truly see the implications. A Murder questions the gray area presented to us by the Internet, and calls into question who among us might truly understand. While the murder is the focus of the series, the Internet-driven storytelling ultimately brings awareness to not only the conversation itself, but the effects of relationships fostered over wireless connection and differing time zones. 

The use of technology in A Murder at the End of the World brings these conversations to the forefront, questioning the future of human connection and spirituality when it’s tethered to fiber optic cables. It would be easy to reduce this series’ messaging to a damning critique of technology, but it is so much more than that. It’s a commentary on humanity becoming more and more removed from our ability to see each other and love. With Darby as the only young person at this retreat (and ultimately the only one willing to pursue Bill’s murder in an open-minded way), the series posits that the future is dependent on us, and how we might be able to enact the changes we so desire with the still-unknown effect of technology on our innate human nature. 

Brittany Deitch is a Philadelphia college graduate, house show enjoyer, and freelancer for Paste Magazine. Find her work online elsewhere via @brittanydeitch

For all the latest TV news, reviews, lists and features, follow @Paste_TV.