I am not sure that I liked what I saw in the first two episodes of the new FX miniseries A Murder at the End of the World. At first, it functions as a whodunnit, with the intention of turning the concept of films like Knives Out on its head. With its slow-burn pacing and a rather eerie atmosphere, it starts to borrow from films like The Others, but not the supernatural element. The enticing part of the series may seem to be the murder mystery aspect, but it’s the story of a girl who lives rather an unusual life in the series. Darby, a self-proclaimed cold case investigator, writes a book about her exploits and gets invited to a tech billionaire’s secret retreat out in the glacial wilderness. She wasn’t the only dignitary there. There was also Fangs, aka Bill, who ends up dead at the retreat, and only Darby seems to think that it was a murder and not a suicide. Some parts in the two episodes seemed like they had been deliberately slowed down to make you feel the uneasiness when a murder mystery doesn’t swiftly keep moving towards its resolution, but once Darby’s past is revealed, you start to get the feeling that it’s a show mimicking Darby’s life and her mindset.
Spoilers Ahead
How Did Darby Hack Into The Serial Killer’s House?
The show began with Darby attending the reading of her own book, a crime thriller non-fiction titled ‘The Silver Doe.’ The book was garnering a lot of acclaim, and she mentioned Lee Andersen, the great female hacker who had inspired her to become a hacker herself. Darby, however, used all her hacking skills for one purpose: to solve murder cases, with a specialization in those involving a serial killer. At the reading, she read the last chapter of her book to the audience. It turns out that Darby and a guy named Bill were working together on a case that involved a serial killer who was perhaps targeting women who wore silver jewelry. Through a year of investigation and hacking into the federal database, Darby and Bill found an address that they believed to be that of the serial killer. Darby used a technique made famous by Lee Andersen herself to access the security system that manned the garage door of any house. Bill and Darby located the house; she hacked into the security system, and voila, they got in. Darby wrote in her book that the killer arrived while they were unearthing the serial killer’s wife’s skeleton from his basement, but she and Bill somehow survived, although Bill was injured when the killer tried to shoot them, and that’s where Darby ended her read.
Who Were The Members At The Retreat?
The reading had gone pretty well, but Darby didn’t expect that she would get an invitation from Andy Ronson, the reclusive billionaire and tech giant. Her book was dedicated to Lee Andersen, who was now married to Andy. There was a man named Todd present at Darby’s reading who turned out to be Andy’s head of security. Perhaps Andy was scouting her, or it was just a coincidence. But whatever the case, Andy proved that he was a genius when he sent an invitation via a hologram of a man named Ray. Like an advanced version of Alexa, he was a vivid human form of the artificial intelligence created by Andy himself. Darby was skeptical about accepting the invitation, but no one else could have achieved this miraculous feat except Andy. So, she called her dad, informing him that she had accepted. Five attendees were invited by Andy herself, while four were Lee’s guests. Apart from Andy, the others were Dr. Sian Cruise, Lu Fei, Martin Mitchell, and David Alvarez. The retreat was in Iceland, in a place called the Fljot Valley, and the guests got ready for a chilling experience in subzero temperatures. Nobody knew who was invited by whom.
How Did Darby And Fangs Meet?
At the retreat, the remaining guests introduced themselves: Oliver, Zeba, Rohan, and Fangs. Darby was most affected by seeing Fangs, as he was none other than Bill Farah, with whom she had started her sleuthing journey in Iowa. They met seven years ago online while discussing a case about the unidentified body of a woman who wore unusually large silver earrings. A year later, they had solved the case of the Silver Doe and then mysteriously parted ways. Here he was now, known to the world as Fangs, the guerilla artist, who once also had an affair with Lee. Perhaps she invited him, not knowing that Darby was once his girlfriend. There is no clarity as to what exactly happened after the serial killer took a shot at Bill. Darby composed herself and had a chat with him, and he revealed that he’d abandoned her because he couldn’t meet her expectations of the bravery she was looking for in a man. The serial killer business was just too dangerous, and he thought that she was mad rather than brave.
Darby was having a surreal experience. She was at Andy’s resort in the middle of nowhere. Bill was there now, alongside her idol, Lee. It just seemed too good to be true. There arose an opportunity where old flames could be renewed as Bill offered Darby to come to his room, but she declined. When her mood changed, she decided to seek Bill out, but he was already overdosing on morphine. Darby couldn’t access the AI-controlled rooms and saw Bill gasping for air through the window. Darby called Sian and others for help, but it was too late.
Did Lee Kill Fangs?
Everybody behaved quite normally after hearing about the ‘suicide’. Andy revealed that Fangs had overdosed; hence, it was an accidental death, but he may have been perturbed by something. Andy spoke like an authority on the matter, telling others how both his biological parents were addicts and he understood the psychology of ‘users’. Fangs was apparently a longtime user, and yet Darby couldn’t digest the fact that he would commit suicide or even accidentally overdose himself. The others were free to leave if they wanted to, but Andy’s rousing speech about how Fangs would have wanted them to stay made it clear that Andy didn’t want anyone to leave.
Darby could take his smugness anymore. She tried to talk some sense into them as to why this wasn’t a suicide, but nobody was interested. So, she used all the tactics she had learned over the years as an amateur sleuth to get into Bill’s room. Bill was right-handed, and the needle marks found on his body were on his right arm. According to Ray, it was extremely rare that a person had injected a syringe in their dominant arm. And to add on to that suspicion, there were no fingerprints on the needle, meaning he had to have gloves on while he was injecting himself. Nothing made sense. Everything pointed to a murder. Someone didn’t want him alive. Lee came into his room as well, and it looked like she was searching for something. Darby had to confront her, but she immediately offered to help, indicating that she was truly distraught over Bill’s demise, and she in fact wanted Darby to use her hacking skills and access the doorbell camera to find out who entered Bill’s room last. There was Ray, the AI, to help, and soon Darby succeeded. Darby found that there was a masked person who came at the door, and perhaps he was Bill’s murderer. The small-town girl, who once had started a fairy tale of a love story with Bill, investigating crimes and hacking sites, was not going to give up so easily. The next episodes will bring her one inch closer to solving the mystery.
