A Murder At the End of the World
Created by Brit Marling & Zal Batmanglij
Starring
Emma Corrin
Brit Marling
Harris Dickinson
Alice Braga
Joan Chen
Raúl Esparza
Jermaine Fowler
Ryan J. Haddad
Pegah Ferydoni
Javed Khan
Louis Cancelmi
Edoardo Ballerini
Clive Owen
Composers Danny Bensi & Saunder Jurriaans
No. of episodes 7
Production
Executive producers Brit Marling, Zal Batmanglij, Andrea Sperling, Melanie Marnich, & Nicki Paluga
Producer Deb Dyer
Cinematography Charlotte Bruus Christensen
Editors Dylan Tichenor, Chris Patterson, & Lana Wolverton
Running time 42–72 minutes
Production companies Mysterium Valley & FXP
Network FX on Hulu Release November 14 – December 19, 2023
Darby Hart (Emma-Louise Corrin) is the daughter of a mortician who has realized that the dead can speak to her. Not literally, of course. Dead is dead. But she has an innate gift for going beyond the superficial forensics in a mysterious death and getting a sense of what the departed might have been thinking and feeling at the time. So, not surprisingly, she becomes an amateur detective who involves herself in murder mysteries and serial killings.
She is also a computer hacker, and through her blog attracts a group of like-minded followers who help glean leads and clues. One of those is Bill Farrah (Harris Dickinson), and they get together to try and solve a series of murders where the only real clue is an antique silver ring. They get in a romantic relationship, but end up going their separate ways. Bill drops from sight, and Darby writes a book about the silver ring case which becomes a best-seller.
Six years later, she is shocked to be invited to a best-and-brightest seminar at a high-tech hotel located quite literally at the end of the world—in northern Iceland. It’s about as remote as you can get outside of possibly Antarctica, although Iceland does have a much nicer climate. (The volcanoes are all to the south of the island, as well.) The host is a tech bro, a billionaire entrepreneur named Andy Ronson (Clive Owen) and his wife, Lee (Brit Marling, who also co-wrote and co-produced the show), who is also a computer genius.
Curious, Darby attends, and receives a second shock when she finds herself seated at the opening dinner across from Bill. The reunion is a bit strained, but no worries; Bill turns up dead by the end of the first episode. Spoiler: it wasn’t Darby.
Andy wants to talk about AI and how it might help humanity, or at least an elite portion of it, survive the threats of climate change, nuclear war, and AI. Giving “at the end of the world” a double meaning.
Andy has a darker agenda, though. Among other things, the “hotel” is also a vast, plush underground apocalypse bunker. As with a lot of our real plutocrats, he envisioning a world destroyed by capitalism, factionalism and war, and wants a select few of the right people to join him and his elite family.
But then others of his invitees start dying. It’s obvious someone is murdering them. Yes, it’s a good old-fashioned locked-room murder mystery with hi tech and billionaire hackers.
The murderer is discovered by the final episode, and while the denouement is a bit unconvincing (a vast bank of computers in a halon-extinguishing chamber is destroyed by the fire from a lithium battery in a laptop) that only slightly detracts from the overall brilliance of the series. Good acting, a solid plot, and a marvelous backdrop all contribute to a ripping good story, and it’s well worth the watch.
Now available on Hulu and FX.