Death and Other Details Season 1 Episode 3 Review: Troublesome
Is it time to send out an SOS? Rufus and Imogene’s investigation is barely underway and the show is already treading water on Death and Other Details Season 1 Episode 3, “Troublesome.”
Written by Nick Bragg and directed by Alrick Riley, Episode 3 continues to lob twists and turns at the audience, but it’s starting to seem like that may not be enough to sustain the show. The glitz and glamour are still there, but the seams are showing on the mystery holding everything together.
The cast may just be too big to make you care about the characters. And instead of focusing on a handful and developing them, everyone gets a bite of the plot.
Don’t get me wrong, if the show is going to add in gratuitous nudity featuring its younger female leads it only seems fair that the older cast also gets a steamy love scene. Still, do we need to know Katherine Collier is having an affair with Father Toby?
How many times does Anna need to exclaim she can’t find Llewellyn before viewers finally learn what’s going on with him (they’re all on one ship!)? The references to Tripp’s anger management classes or Leila’s fondness for knives scream “red herring” so loudly that even a novice to the mystery genre could pick them out.
Moving from red to blue, the discovery of a shipment invoice of a banned blue pigment seems too random to be a misdirect, but the clues still don’t add up. You don’t want to solve a mystery on Episode 3, but you at least want to feel like you’re onto something!
The idea that everyone has a secret is a tried and true trope of the detective genre for a reason, but when there are this many people to keep track of it becomes more messy than thrilling. Maybe if Death and Other Details focused on making Imogene multidimensional, the scene where Rufus calls her out for being blinded by her obsession would hit a little harder.
It’s hard to blame her for only caring about solving her mother’s murder when it seems like she has nothing else going on in her life. Even the flashback we get on this episode is more focused on Anna, and her backstory with Eleanor than it is on Imogene.
If your main character feels like window dressing with a really immaculate bob, that is a problem. At least Beane and Kohli’s chemistry still works as a bright spot in the otherwise lack of cohesion in the cast.
The introduction of Agent Hilde Eriksen (Linda Emond) should add some spice but it adds more convolution to the busy plot and stuffed cast. Rufus is too busy covering for Imogene to really show off his skills which makes what should be a fun team-up feel facile.
At least they can both bond over having very poor attempts at foreign accents (or maybe very good attempts at inscrutable accents). Hopefully, the world’s greatest detective gets more to do on the coming episodes than gaslight INTERPOL and berate his protege.
The ending twist of Jules having a fake identity, and Imogene seemingly caught in his clutches, is just barely enough to drag the audience along to the next episode. Death and Other Details needs more than last-minute cliffhangers though if it wants to remain sustainable over 10 episodes.
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Death and Other Details airs Tuesdays on Hulu.
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Breeze Riley
Breeze Riley is a pop culture enthusiast who decided to turn her love of watching too much TV into a hobby writing about it. Although she's a convention-going sci-fi and fantasy nerd, she's just as likely to be watching an off-beat comedy or period drama. She is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic.