Culprits’ Nathan Stewart-Jarrett and Creator J Blakeson Talk Story’s ‘Emotional Backbone’ and Big Finale Death
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Be a dead man and lose his family, or kill his former boss and get his life back. Decisions, decisions.
In the series finale of Hulu’s Culprits, Joe (aka David and Muscle) was stuck between a rock and a hard place. After being ordered by billionaire Vincent Hawkes (Eddie Izzard) — the man the crew stole from who ordered the contract killer — to retrieve the crypto key from Dianne, Joe’s intentions were murky at best. Although he said he was done killing, would he take one more life if it meant protecting his family? According to Dianne, the money they snatched was just a drop in the bucket. A majority of Hawkes’ cash exists in crypto, and Dianne stole the key to a box which accesses his crypto wallet.
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But Joe’s dilemma became even more complicated when he learned that Dianne’s sister, brother-in-law and niece were killed in a crash that involved a faulty car. The company responsible knew about the issue and voted to recall, but the decision was overruled by one man who owns 52% of the company. You guessed it: Hawkes. Dianne’s goal had always been to steal Hawkes’ billions to destroy him once and for all. But when they finally accessed the box in an abandoned tube station, Joe ordered Dianne to fork over the key at gunpoint. He then flipped the script on everyone, destroying the key so that no one could have Hawkes’ treasure. He did allow Dianne her sweet revenge, however, and the woman proceeded to shoot Vincent dead. The evildoer’s crony then called off his men in exchange for her life, leaving Joe’s family safe at last.
But why didn’t Joe just take the money and run? That was a lot of scratch!
“Money is what the series is about,” says Nathan Stewart-Jarrett (Joe). “Everything the money touches, it taints. It taints every person. We know about absolute power. We know money corrupts. If he didn’t destroy that, if he or someone else was to take it, it would corrupt them. It was, in a sense, like a virus. He had to destroy it to end the cycle.”
But shortly after the Big Bad had been dispensed with, Azar pulled an audible and shot Officer (Kirby) dead (just as she was about to reveal her real name!) as payback for betraying her now-deceased dad and grandfather. Poor Joe is devastated over the loss of what Stewart-Jarrett calls a newfound brother/sister relationship.
“I think that the sibling elements of their relationship are really interesting,” he says. “Officer is able to get David to open up, to cut through. She’s so [makes hyperactive noises] and he’s so held that she shakes him. I’ve been around people like that, where even if you’re just in a funny mood and someone’s a bit of a clown, you’re like, “Oh, OK.” Eventually, you open up. To do that over a long period of time, he warmed to her. She knows him. She knows an essence of him that maybe other people didn’t get. She does seem to crack him open slowly throughout the course of the series.”
“She’s always needling him because he’s very taciturn and straight-laced and trying to do the job,” adds creator, writer/director and executive producer J Blakeson. “She likes messing about and getting a rise out of him. The more she chips at him, the more that he gives stuff away without wanting to. There’s a lot of affection between the two of them. You see that he needs a friend in this crew. He feels very much like the outsider when he gets brought in and she proves that she is his friend. He saves her [from dying in the heist], so she feels indebted to him. They have this close bond and friendship, which for me is one of the emotional backbones of the story. And it’s quite rare to see platonic male/female relationships on screen that are just about doing a job and being friends, so it was nice to explore that.”
But when Officer was offed, Joe wasn’t the only one emotionally torn up. (Who wasn’t shocked at that ending?!) So what led to this curveball in some of the series’ final moments?
“Everybody was on the table to be killed,” says Blakeson. “There was no expectation of a second season so we could do whatever we wanted. We could kill whoever we wanted — we could kill everybody if we wanted — which is really good freedom. It was more about the trajectory of the character who kills her. But they’d all done this bad thing and in a way, she’s the price they all pay. She’s the price David pays for saying yes to this thing in the first place.”
Were you satisfied that Joe got his family back? Still mourning Officer’s death? Grade the episode and season below, then tell us all of your thoughts in the comments.
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