Review of 'The Undoing' 1.5

Well, the algorithm and the waiter were by no means the most important features of The Undoing 1.5, on HBO last night, but I didn't want to give away the main thing, actually two main things, in the subtitle, and the algorithm and the waiter were nice touches. Finding that Jonathan's attorney uses Amazon-level algorithms to get the crucial characteristics of the jurors, that was cool. (And Haley's one one outstanding lawyer, isn't she?) And the waiter constantly interrupting the meal that Jonathan, Grace, and Henry were trying to have in the restaurant -- that was a metaphor for this whole little series, being interrupted by all kinds of things, so that after five episodes, we still can't be sure whodunnit.

And that restaurant scene did lead to the two biggest developments in this episode. First, Jonathan at age fourteen was responsible for his little four-year-old sister's death, because he didn't keep a watchful eye on her. Jonathan's mother says he never felt any guilt for that -- which leads Grace's friend Sylvia to tell her that means Jonathan's a sociopath. But Jonathan sure expressed some powerful guilt to Grace in the restaurant about his sister's death, to the point that she comforted him.

But before the hour was out, Grace discovered another suspect. Henry. That hammer or anvil or whatever exactly that was could, I suppose, have been wielded by Henry to bludgeon Elena. We earlier learned that Henry knew about Jonathan and Elena -- he saw the way they were relating to each other in front of the school -- so there's your motive, right? I suppose Haley would be happy to have another suspect to throw at the jury, but Grace is horrified. And you know what? I still think it's not Henry, either. A little too soon, for one, with another episode (the finale) next week. And, what kind of psycho would Henry have to be to be so relatively calm after commiting for such a brutal murder?

So ... we'll find out next week (though my wife says all we may see is Jonathan acquitted, and never know who did it). But I'm thinking we will find out and ... the killer was Elena's husband Fernando.