‘Death and Other Details’ Review: Hulu Stumbles With Forgettable, Generic, Overlong Whodunit
When you go to a burger stand, you want a burger. And when you watch a locked-room mystery about the “world’s greatest detective,” you want the familiar genre tropes and pleasures that come with the territory. You were in the mood for a burger, you know?
But “Death and Other Details,” from showrunners Mike Weiss and Heidi Cole McAdams (“Stumptown”), coasts on nothing but familiarity. It’s a frustrating, even cynical amalgamation of our pop culture’s current obsession with detective revivalism (“Poker Face,” “The Afterparty,” Kenneth Branagh’s Hercule Poirot movies) and eat-the-rich comedy thrillers (“The Menu,” “Triangle of Sadness,” “Search Party”). Heck, it even throws in some tasteless ripped-from-the-headlines symbols as a kind of crass seasoning salt on the tepidly cooked meat. But nothing helps this fast food settle in your stomach.
Imogene Scott (Violett Beane) is smart, sharp and a bit of a freeloader. She’s onboard a luxury liner chartered in whole by the mega-wealthy Collier family, with whom she’s had a lifelong relationship. And what should happen on this locked-off cruise ship but a dang murder! And who should be conveniently on this ship but the globe’s greatest gumshoe, Rufus Cotesworth (Mandy Patinkin)! And wouldn’t you know it, Rufus and Imogene have a past involving the unsolved death of Imogene’s mom! Will the two solve the case, put aside their pasts, and find some closure for everyone on board?
Twists and turns, confessions and double-crosses, all kinds of unsavory characters — you are writing a version of this show in your head, and the actual show has no intention of beating it. The competent ensemble cast delivers pilfered-from-Twitter dialogue as best they can, its style aggressively reheated from summaries of culture rather than invoking an original take within its guideposts. The pilot alone uses both “garbage person” and “dumpster fire,” and one underwritten character is a Gen Z kid (Sincere Wilbert) who livestreams “content” to his “followers,” and those are the only “buzzwords” he is allowed to “say.”
When the stakes are raised and the characters start accusing and betraying, the dialogue washes itself with swear words and soap, giving the actors no chance to find any nuance or intrigue. Lauren Patten (“Blue Bloods”), as Collier daughter/“Succession” archetype Anna, bears the unfortunate brunt of these moments, spitting and contorting out unsubtle insults with too much practice and not enough humanity. Stretching this mode of communication over 10 episodes (of which eight were provided for this review) dulls any chance of surprise or impact, turning too quickly into one-note filler.
Visually, there are some pleasures to find in “Death and Other Details.” Marc Webb (“500 Days of Summer”) directs the pilot with verve and invention, blueprinting a welcome filmmaking style for the rest of the show. As Rufus’ voiceover warns us of the temptations of falling for illusions, the image of the sky ripples and reveals itself to be a reflection on water. As flashbacks fill us up to speed, transitions seamlessly pass us through time while characters from the present literally wander through their past regrets.
And the production and costume design (from James Philpott and Mandi Line, respectively) are splendid to behold, evoking feelings of aspiration and lust that become queasy and complicated when contrasted with the grim goings-ons of the plot. It’s a welcome sensation of cognitive dissonance not always achieved by the plot itself.
Weiss and McAdams’ writers’ room tries to find these itchy, irresistible layers of complication, to be sure. They just land with thuds, in one of two directions. Either: the scripts resort to didactic screams of themes, especially in the season’s back half, playing like America Ferrara’s “Barbie” speech with less pathos and more cringe-rage (did y’all know that rich people are mean? Good, you don’t have to watch the show any more).
Or: attempts at inventions beyond the surface continue to remind us of superior versions of this story — again, made within, like, the past three years. Rufus intones that the truth is hidden in plain sight? “Glass Onion” did it better. A present-day character speaks to their inner child, physicalized by an actor, to heal trauma? “The Flight Attendant” did it better. An episode steps away from the season’s formula for an experiment involving character POV? “Only Murders in the Building” did it better. And when it comes to the nuts and bolts of the pulpy mystery’s resolutions, I hate to be redundant, but …
To invoke “The Menu” just once more, I do so love a burger. When I order one, I don’t want to be served an alien-looking salad. There are just so many better burgers out there, ones that simultaneously remind and surprise us. “Death and Other Details,” like its title cheekily suggests, yadda-yadda’s away the juicy stuff that makes a dish shine, presenting bland forgetability. It doesn’t cut through the noise, and it won’t cut through your palate.
“Death and Other Details” premieres Tuesday, Jan. 16, on Hulu.
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