HBO miniseries The undoWith Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant as a wealthy couple in Manhattan in great legal trouble, it's over. After six episodes of the Internet throwing up endless theories about who murdered Elena Alves and why, we finally learned the killer's identity in Sunday's final episode, The Bloody Truth. But that doesn't mean that every question raised by the thriller has been answered unequivocally.
Let's put on our flowing Stevie Nicks-style coats, stroll through (strangely empty) Central Park and dive in, right?
Warning: major, major spoilers ahead. How really, really big, including the biggest in the whole series.
Who Killed Elena Alves?
The audience had all kinds of ideas, but in the end the answer was right under our noses. The killer was Grace's husband, Jonathan Fraser, the pediatric oncologist on trial for the murder of his lover. She was the mother of his former patient Miguel - and his own young daughter.
The revelation that he killed Alves after an argument unfolded in flashbacks and proved as obvious as it was shocking. It also cemented the show as a psychological thriller more than the twisted crime thriller that many viewers expect from mysteries.
"I love that we're all so used as an audience to deal with wild twists and turns." A viewer tweeted. "All The Undoing had to do to fool us was shoot straight."
And, of course, you drop a constant stream of red herrings, suggesting the killer could be Grace or Grace's father Franklin (Donald Sutherland) or son (Noah Jupe) or girlfriend Sylvia (Lily Rabe). (There were just so many recordings of her that seemed to say, "Look at me! I'm a hint!" I fell for it, lesson learned.)
"In creating the episodes, we invited people to play with their prejudice, curiosity, and version of the truth," executive producer David E. Kelley told TVLine. "There were scenes with Sylvia that were intentionally cryptic, but having her as part of the crime was never part of the master plan."
I apologize to Sylvia, Elena's husband, Franklin, and Henry ... in that order. #TheUndoing
- spottieottiedopaliscious angel (@trill_linaa) November 30, 2020
The undo is based on Jean Hanff Korelitz 'You should have known. And from that title alone, it's easy now to look back and think we should have it. Why didn't we do that? And...
Why was Gracefulness so blind to the truth?
Deep, deep, oh so deep denial. While she was a Harvard-trained clinical psychologist who considered herself adept at reading people, it was just too staggering for her to see the mounting evidence that her beloved husband was a sociopath (including the most noticeable, the Revelation That he showed no grief when he showed no grief), could fully absorb his little sister tragically died all those years ago). To protect herself, her marriage, her son, and her beliefs about people and pretty much the whole world, Grace holds herself in a state of denial - until she just can't anymore.
The show's strength is that viewers are just as reluctant to face the truth about Jonathan as Grace is - and we're not even married to the guy.
Hugh Grant murders the mother of his cancer patient with whom he has a baby from an adulterous relationship while accusing his own child of murdering her and ruining countless lives at every turn, and I'm like ...#TheUndoing pic.twitter.com/PdRSdLWxi9
- Matt Skiles (@ MattSkiles2) November 30, 2020
Nobody wants to believe that someone who has devoted their life to healing can take a life so ruthlessly and brutally. And, as Grace suggests to more than one patient, the mind can go to great lengths to deny information that conflicts with truths we do not want to see, especially when those truths concern loved ones.
And let's be honest. Hugh Grant's masterfully manipulative Jonathan also brings the awww-shucks charm to the head in this special way, Hugh Grant-ey, head-hungry and romantic. The charming British accent probably didn't hurt either. Until the last 10 or 15 minutes of the finale, it was still easy to believe that Jonathan had been falsely accused - until he embarked on the scariest father-son road trip ever with Henry, and with every deviation in the family, the SUV went insane.
What finally wakes Grace up?
In the final episode, watch closely as Jonathan suggests that son Henry might have killed Elena to keep his broken family together, and you can see a subtle change in Grace. She may not know her husband the way she thought, but she definitely knows her son. And she is absolutely certain that he is a good kid. He may be tough in leaving his violin out of the suitcase (bad idea), but he certainly isn't in beating a woman to death.
It is shortly after that crucial moment that Grace calls her friend Sylvia, a lawyer, and says she needs to talk. We are not familiar with what they discuss during their morning walk. Presumably, however, Sylvia advises Grace to take a careful stand and involve her deceitful narcissist of a husband who is likely to be acquitted at this point in the trial.
What does "undo" refer to?
There are several ways to interpret the show's title as life, marriages, and long-cherished narratives are undone. Undo is in particular also a psychological term for a "defense mechanism in which a person tries to reverse or eliminate an unhealthy, destructive or otherwise threatening thought or action by behaving in the opposite direction". It seems that Grace's initial propensity to believe in her husband's innocence is her defense against the horrific reality she knows deep down.
"Don't tell patients," asks District Attorney Grace during cross-examination, "that sometimes they want to believe in their partners so badly that they choose not to know things? Not to see things? That sometimes the truth about it, who and what. " Getting married is distorted by desperation, what do you want to be married to? "
Review and review.
Will there be a season 2?
HBO has significantly angled The Undoing as a limited series, making a second season unlikely. However, both Kelley and director Susanne Bier have made comments that leave the door open at least a tiny splinter. "Of course, you're wondering what's next. We joked about it on set," Bier told OprahMag.com. When asked about the possibility of another season, she said: "I will not rule it out. But it is not in the concrete work."
While Kelley insisted that a second season was never intended, she teased what could concern her.
"Susanne Bier and I both loved the part of the book Grace rebuilt after her world fell apart. This run, however, was more about the thriller aspect," he told the New York Times. "Who knows? If we were to lead Grace Fraser's extended life beyond this season of The Undoing, maybe we'd get into that part of the rebuilding."
PS What about Franklin's eyebrows?
A wealthy, influential man like Franklin apparently needs wealthy, influential eyebrows. It was hard to miss the pointy, cantilevered brows that quickly made social media its own character.
"I can't believe Donald Sutherland's eyebrows don't get a separate cast in The Undoing." A Twitter user wrote.
Wrote each other "Are we sure the killer wasn't Donald Sutherland's eyebrows ?!"
