Review of 'The Undoing' Finale

So the ending of The Undoing turned out to be one grand hiding in plain site situation: Jonathan, who had been the first suspect, and whom so much of the previous narrative suggested was too obvious to be the killer -- and with more than a few plausible other suspects around, not convincing but not implausible --turns out to be the killer, after all.

My wife thought it was Jonathan. She kept coming back to why did he leave town if he wasn't reeling from the killing. But I bought his argument that he was traumatized by coming back and finding the bludgeoned body. That was close to the truth. Jonathan did try to leave after smacking Elena against a wall. And Elena ran after him with the anvil, and Jonathan took it from her and killed her. So Jonathan's story was close to the truth, except he left out the all-important fact that he killed her.

Although this ending was somewhat surprising, since Jonathan was presented as the obvious suspect, wrongly accused, I have to say that hinging the surprise a story on a murderer's convincing performance of innocence, in pretty much scene after scene, is not my favorite ending to a whodunnit. Maybe I don't get out enough in the world, but I find it a little hard to believe that Jonathan, any murderer, could have been so cool, upset, and convincing.

And one other nitpack: I thought that Haley, who had been shown as nothing but brilliant and tough up until that final court scene, got rolled over a little too easily. Wouldn't someone of her calibre had a least a few tricks up her sleeve when things started going so badly in the courtroom?

But all in all, a riveting little series, with tour de force performances by everyone, down to and especially in that last harrowing gambit on the road with father and son.