The Undoing Review: Do No Harm (Season 1 Episode 3)
As the episode title suggests, a physician’s ethical need to do no harm falls squarely on Jonathan as he finds himself running out of options.
The Undoing Season 1 Episode 3, “Do No Harm,” is powerful through its precise performances and its feeling of the walls closing in. While it’s still a little muddled exactly where the show’s intent is going, of whether or not Grace has a memory gap of some sort, it’s working with its level of fear and paranoia.
The immense pressure placed on top of Grace is crushing, and even as she tries to help, it doesn’t feel like things are breaking her way. More and more secrets and revelations are hurting her theories, especially at the very end of the episode, but maybe the simplest explanation is the most obvious.
Let’s assume Jonathan is guilty (and he very likely is). There have been storytelling beats that hint at fractured memories for Grace, and it’s currently difficult to interpret if they are indeed memories, or what she thinks Jonathan gets up to at work.
There’s one instance during the pilot where Grace walks into frame during one of these scenes, but otherwise they are singular moments. There’s also one where Fernando, Elena’s husband, watches from afar as Jonathan and Elena have sex, which could be interpreted as Grace’s thoughts or the show giving a hint to his knowledge.
We just don’t know yet, but there’s a possibility that the show is holding back on us. The opening credits do hint at a sudden shift with blood during the presumable childhood scenes of Grace at play, so maybe there are memory gaps she isn’t aware of or something to that effect.
A lot of scenes start with Grace walking into them without a ton of context, and Mendoza does trap her in the questioning about what she’s doing walking near the crime scene that night. Maybe those close-ups of Grace’s eyes over these three episodes aren’t the fear we expected, but her searching for gaps.
That’s entirely speculation, however. It’s possible The Undoing could go down that avenue, and maybe that speaks more to her paranoia at the beach house, but that also makes her an unreliable point of view, giving us a lot of storytelling problems to work out after the fact that could turn messy.
There would need a lot more telegraphing to make that work.
The cop side of things feels like endless fishing and entrapment, not exactly painting them in the best light but rather as dogs with a bone looking for a place to bury it. They look to be fine with tying up Grace and Jonathan as best they can and calling it a day.
Maybe they do believe Grace is in on it, but they’re going about it in a way that’s all about scoring gotcha moments that don’t go beyond shock value. It’s a lose-lose situation for Grace, since her attempts at being honest are only being used against her, even while they demand she be more transparent.
Mendoza and his partner are fishing, and as Jonathan’s potential new lawyer Haley Fitzgerald says, the prosecution and police mess up their cases more than they don’t.
Which brings us to a larger thought: what if Grace is only incriminating herself more by digging for her husband? Going around and asking questions is turning all of the blame on Elena, the victim, though she may not realize that yet.
But it’s also drawing more attention to herself, trying to look for anything to clear Jonathan’s name. There’s a possibility all of these people will incriminate her as attempts to dig or silence them.
Noah Jupe, as Henry, stands out especially during the visiting time scene, where going in there’s this feeling of calm and acceptance, and then it switches to a judgment and accusatory nature.
Henry has been fairly level-headed so far, despite everything he must be facing both at school, the constant media barrage, and with Grace trying to get a read on him. But here, and the way the scene builds and builds its emotions, Jupe captures something else: frustration.
It’s a quiet frustration, to be sure, but his questions are blunt and to the point: he wants the truth. It catches Grace (and us) by surprise, and disarms Jonathan, cutting deep as he realizes he may have lost his son.
But just like before, Jonathan is careful to skirt the exact moment of Elena’s murder. He cuts off his story to Henry right as he’s confronting Elena, rather than mentioning that he runs away from the scene, like he has to Grace. Is this his story changing, or simply the pressure leaving things out?
Jonathan’s turn to violence on the man who is very clearly a snitch (he should basically have a sign around him) is a sign that Jonathan can become violent, but under such a high pressure situation, it’s difficult to read if it’s a sign of a pattern or desperation.
Hugh Grant plays to that desperation incredibly well, making Jonathan Fraser into this compromised man looking for any way to convince those he loves. But there’s a layer of uncertainty that Grant also keeps, where there’s an intelligence underneath it all that gives you pause.
Nicole Kidman matches that just as well with her quiet fury, where Grace is looking to take back the narrative and the direction of things for herself. It’s a determined and commanding performance that only grows stronger by the episode.
There are some questions to be made by episode’s end of Franklin’s involvement, Grace’s father. He hands over a vast amount of money to Jonathan and holds some guilt over that, but he also pays a visit to Fernando, and only after that does Fernando visit Grace.
It may be too obvious for Franklin to be the culprit of everything, to have paid for the murder and to see it as a way to free his daughter from a poisoned marriage, but it’s something to watch going forward. Donald Sutherland is playing the part with an air of confidence, and that’s usually the one to watch out for.
What did you think of this episode of The Undoing? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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The Undoing airs Sundays at 9/8c on HBO.
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Kevin Lever
Kevin Lever has been following television closely for most of his life, but in starting to cover it, he has grown a further appreciation. He strives to give the blockbusters their due, and give the lesser known shows a spotlight to find more fans.