Hulu’s Death and Other Details Is a Welcome Winter Mystery with Plenty of Drama

Rian Johnson, bless you. The huge success of his Knives Out (2019) ignited a resurgence in popularity for the frothy ensemble mystery, Agatha Christie style. The trend has since migrated to television (where it arguably most belongs), giving us hits like The White Lotus, Only Murders in the Building, and The Flight Attendant. The latest worthy entry into this club is Hulu’s Death and Other Details from Mike Weiss and Heidi Cole McAdams. Featuring a star-making turn by actress Violett Beane (God Friended Me, The Flash) and a charming grumpus turn by Mandy Patinkin as her sleuthing mentor, Death and Other Details is shaping up to be a clever, off-season sister series to Only Murders.

Aesthetically, the series is cribbing from other whodunnits, plucking formula features from recent hits—the color palette of Glass Onion and the crass luxury of The White Lotus, for example—and then gets more original with its generational murder mystery. And that unsolved case is one that has been languishing for two decades. Eighteen years ago, young Imogene’s (Beane) mother was killed in a car explosion on the wealthy Collier family’s grounds. Since she was a treasured employee of the company, the Collier’s adopt her now-orphaned daughter and hire the “world’s greatest detective,” Rufus Cotesworth (Patinkin), to get to the bottom of the tragedy… to no avail. The lack of resolution to the case means there’s plenty of resentment harbored by grown Imogene, as she’s never gotten closure on the event that shaped her whole life. 

Which brings us to the stage for this tale of woe as the Collier’s rent a lavishly-restored Mediterranean ocean liner for 10-days for their family and close colleagues—including potential business associates, the Chun family—to celebrate the retirement of family patriarch, Lawrence (David Marshall Grant). Imogene is now the personal assistant (and bestie) to the assumed next CEO, Anna Collier (Lauren Patten), so she joins them to soak up the sun on their dime. 

A stunner with a blonde blunt cut, Imogene is also a fiery advocate for fairness and those who aren’t rich (like her), so she has no problem standing up to terrible behavior. As such, she eviscerates the boorish potential Collier investor, Keith Tributsky (Michael Gladis), who screams at a waitress (Annie Q. Riegel) for spilling his drink. Unfortunately for her, Keith turns up dead the next morning and she becomes a primary suspect. And with that, the ship turns into a locked-room murder mystery with all of the players (including the surprise inclusion of detective Rufus Cotesworth), now potential suspects in a case that will expand into quite the twisted web of past and current sins.

Throughout the eight episodes provided for review, the series masterfully weaves car bombing-era flashbacks with the current mystery on the boat. The two cases most certainly inform one another, and provide a reason for the estranged Imogene and Rufus to reunite and then form a tentative partnership. They haven’t laid eyes on one another in all this time, so there’s plenty of tension still fresh between the two, which adds a nice bite to their rapport. As a big-personality detective, Patinkin does the de rigueur odd accent (think, sorta British) and the bluster to match any of his genre contemporaries like Benoit Blanc or Hercule Poirot. But he also brings a softness to the role that uniquely distinguishes the character, as he’s obviously very fond of Imogene’s smarts and tenacity, while being very aware of having failed her years before by not solving her mother’s case. As his partner in crime, Beane absolutely shines in a role that asks her to shift seamlessly from sexy ingenue to astute observer at any given moment. Imogene is relentless in so many ways, and unapologetic for her choices, which is refreshing. Placing the two together on a boat in the middle of the sea provides them both an opportunity for redemption, and to solve a case as partners. 

And boy do they have a motley collection of suspects to run through. The ensemble cast is full of excellent character actors from Rahul Kohli as Sunil, the ship’s owner; Teddy (Angela Zhou), Sunil’s salty operations officer; Jere Burns as the Collier’s long-time lawyer/fixer, Llewellyn Mathers; the always-exceptional Linda Emond as Interpol Agent Hilde Eriksen, and many more. There are no duds in this stacked cast, which means all of the various red herring side explorations and very spicy personal drama exploding for these messy, messy passengers makes for a well-distributed variety of plots to round-robin through. 

One of the biggest pitfalls for this genre of series is not enough story to fill the ten hours, resulting in filler episodes with less than compelling side stories. But thankfully, Death and Other Details doesn’t suffer from that affliction. Aside from a sojourn episode to Malta for two characters that feels pokey at best, Weiss and McAdams make the hours zip by with plenty of well-paced revelations, intriguing character moments, and even more murder. The best of the bunch, outside of the slick and breezy pilot, is Episode 7, “Memorable,” which makes great use of unreliable narrator tropes paired with excellent editing and needle drops that explore the foibles of memory in an adroit way. 

With a host of embargoed topics we can’t reveal, I can attest that Death and Other Details is more complex than expected and gets smarter and more clever as it goes along. Beane and Patinkin are an excellent entry into the pantheon of mystery duos, and I’m looking forward to seeing if they stick the landing in the final two installments. 

Death and Other Details Premieres January 16th on Hulu. 

Tara Bennett is a Los Angeles-based writer covering film, television and pop culture for publications such as SFX Magazine, NBC Insider, SYFY Wire and more. She’s also written official books on Sons of Anarchy, Outlander, Fringe, The Story of Marvel Studios and Avatar: The Way of Water. You can follow her on Twitter @TaraDBennett or Instagram @TaraDBen

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