Review: A Murder At The End Of The World, "Chapter 3: Survivors"
The single best thing about episode three of A Murder At The End Of The World (aside from the episode-ending event really pushing this story into overdrive) is how smartly and clearly it depicts what would happen in real life if someone tried to play Poirot with a bunch of people they barely knew, right after processing a horrific death in a remote location. Namely, everyone else would back the hell away from that person, trust the authority in charge, and alternate between pity and unease every time the accusing party walked into the room. Weirdos, right?
Truly, now is when it becomes clear that no one (save Martin, Lee, and the late, lamented Bill) has read Darby’s book—and they certainly don’t think she’s in the proper frame of mind to grieve. And what compounds her frustration—nailed with dead-eyed accuracy by the show—is how the others layer on patronizing sympathy, condescension, and good-old-fashioned sexism to push their understanding of her loss into “nothing she says or does can be considered rational” territory. Patriarchy is the smog we all breathe, and seeing how it slides into everyone’s reactions to her questions—even Rohan’s (at first)—feels deeply real. But also, to be fair, she’s firing questions at people who don’t know her from Adam—that is an awkward situation even without the unconscious biases rolling out their red-carpet dismissal of Darby.
“Survivors” takes the who-can-you-trust uncertainty of the last episode and pushes it forward, away from caution and into more aggressive places. Darby’s no longer defensively, quietly maneuvering herself into positions to learn what she wants—she’s forcefully going after leads and suspects, even when those moves almost kill her with hypothermia. And by the end, she has alienated everyone but Lee; at least, right up until the moment Rohan decides to trust her. Which, of course, is when he’s presumably murdered for that decision. If whoever is behind this hadn’t previously known Darby was coming for them—if her one advantage, as Lee and Darby acidly note, is that “no one sees a 24-year-old girl coming”—that advantage appears to be gone.
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