2024 Show
United States of America · English
Memory, and modern cameras, are unreliable in this two-time murder mystery
With the number of murder mysteries popping up since Knives Out, Death and Other Details can seem like a copy. However, the latest mystery show on Hulu has a few twists up its sleeve, as Detective Coteworth and Imogene Scott aim to solve two cases at once– the first, of course, being the luxury liner murder, and the second being the murder of Scott’s mother eighteen years ago. Because of this, the backstory has more personal stakes, as it puts into question human memory itself. While the balance between timelines sometimes falters, Death and Other Details has enough style to at least make the journey interesting.
How do you solve a murder in a post-fact world? Especially when sailing the Mediterranean on an ocean liner filled with the wealthy and powerful. Everyone on board is hiding something… but is one of them a killer? That’s what the world’s once greatest detective, Rufus Cotesworth, and his protégée, Imogene, aim to discover.
"Though Death and Other Details fails to maintain a balanced sharpness throughout, Patinkin and Beane work well as an unhinged duo determined to dig up the truth."
— Aramide Tinubu
After becoming the prime suspect of a luxury ocean liner murder mystery, Imogene Scott must partner with a man who failed to solve her mother’s murder, Detective Rufus Cotesworth.
What makes viewers divided over Death and Other Details is the way the said details are arranged and organized. With two separate cases, at two different times, the show can feel confusing when it jumps back and forth between cases. Usually, what’s shown on screen is the reality of the story, but showrunners Heidi Cole McAdams and Mike Weiss play with past and present by showing both at once. Even when showing events in the past, the present version of Scott pops up as is, immediately reacting to the memory as if she actually was there in the scene itself. This direction and editing can feel disorienting, but it’s a brilliant way to turn the camera as a mirror for Imogene Scott’s own memory. It makes Death and Other Details stand out in a detail-oriented, truth-obsessed genre.
Mandy Patinkin and Violett Beane are an excellent detective-protege duo.
Isabella Endrinal is a curator at A Good Movie to Watch. She's now free from the corporate night shift. Previous articles have been published in outlets such as NANG Magazine. She's currently catching up on some classic films… if she isn't coping with the fact that the Haikyu anime will end soon.
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