A Murder at the End of the World (AMATEOTW)
FX has released the first two episodes of a new mini-series by collaborators Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij. If you are familiar with the cancelled show The OA, you already have an inkling of this duo's storytelling style and are no doubt assembling theories as we speak.
AMATEOTW: Cast Highlights
See our upcoming posts for recaps but for now, let’s take a look at some of the cast.
Darby Hart, played with restraint and vulnerability by Emma Corrin, is dubbed the Gen Z Sherlock Holmes. Cringe. But accurate, perhaps. At times, we catch Corrin “acting young” but generally their acting style is naturalistic and believable. Darby has just released a book on her journey with then-boyfriend Bill Farrer in search of a serial killer. She’s an amateur sleuth and tech-head who, in her own words, isn’t squeamish about dead bodies thanks to her childhood as the daughter of the county coroner in Lost Nation, Iowa. Yes, that’s a real place. I checked.
Bill and Darby have lost touch over the years and he’s now known as the artist Fangs. Again, cringe. Bill and Darby seem to speak to each other in an otherworldly fashion, as if they are from another era or are both aliens approximating human speech, I'm not sure. I liked the scene where they are singing in the car but most of their dialogue is again, cringeworthy. If you’ve ever read or watched an interview with Marling and Batmanglij, you see why this may be so but it’s distracting.
Harris Dickinson is not on my radar as an actor and I am holding my impressions until the series is over. He may have been directed to behave in the somnolent manner that’s so off-putting so I’ll reserve judgment on that. But I will say, for now, it feels like the dialogue is written for an audience of 14yr olds. Even so, Emma clearly is the better actor of the two.
Moving on. Darby gets invited to an exclusive, secretive group-think retreat by tech mogul Andy Ronson, who is married to one of her hacking idols, Lee Anderson. And here’s even more tech stuff. We see a long sequence of how Darby gets invited by AI character, Ray. I’ve only seen this actor, Edoardo Ballerini, in one other role and he was hilarious. (Romeo Must Die, if you must know)
Once on the private plane, we meet a few other characters, all invited to the retreat. It feels like The Westing Game up in here. Remember that book?
Here we have: gorgeous Joan Chen, as Lu Mei. Brings her own security and drugs. A note here: is it a generational thing that someone would just take pills from a stranger and not ask what they are or anything? Yikes. Joan Chen is one of my favorite Chinese actresses and I’ve seen many many of her films. Just look her up on IMDB and pick any one of them. She’s amazing. Her character says she designs smart cities in China. Look these up! It’s a real thing!
We also meet Alice Braga, another gorgeous talented actress as Sian, close friend of host Ronson, former doctor now researching how to colonize the moon. And finally, Jermaine Fowler as Martin, a famed film director who just so happens to be reading Darby’s book on the plane.
Once we reach the destination, Iceland, we meet:
Clive Owen as host Andy Ronson, tech guru
Brit Marling as Lee, his wife and former hacker extraordinaire
concierge Marius played by Christopher Gurr
Raul Esparza as David, venture capitalist
Ryan Haddad as Oliver, messing around with deep fakes at the dinner table and into robotics
Pegah Ferydoni as Ziba, expert activist and deeply interested in Bill or rather Fangs.
Javed Khan as Rohan. I really only know that he carries a duffel bag instead of fancy luggage. I think he is a climatist. He didn't travel by plane.
We also meet Andy and Lee’s son, Zoomer. Cringe again. But we’ll get into that in our recap and theories episodes.
So that’s the background info on the new sci fi show A Murder at the End of the World. I saw the trailer and thought, ooo another murder mystery in a forbidding, isolated landscape. But that was before I knew who created it. So now I know it will be much more than that. I don’t want to pre-judge since I’ve only seen two episodes but I will say I’m seeing the same kind of storytelling issues I disliked in The OE. For now, I'm sticking with it!
Be sure to check out our recaps and theories as we get further into this show. Share your theories!