Death And Other Details review: Mandy Patinkin leads a frothy murder mystery

Death And Other Details has the right trappings for a typical murder mystery. Think of the Hulu drama, which premieres January 16, as a classic Agatha Christie page-turner—something the voiceover repeatedly suggests, referring to the viewer as a “reader.” This story has multiple deaths and red herrings, an astute old detective, a tenacious young woman seeking the truth, deception, and revenge. The best part? The dastardly crimes take place on a lavish Mediterranean cruise, trapping the wealthy passengers, and no amount of glamor and money can help them escape their past. Despite the perfect whodunit setup, though, the payoff here requires some patience.

Of course, no TV thriller is in a hurry to be solved. The fun partly lies in piecing clues together at a luxurious pace, examining and reexamining events from different perspectives until the overall puzzle fits and awes. In that regard, Death And Other Details excels. It deploys various POVs to justify (a few too many) plot twists to keep us on the edge of our seats. Episodes seven and eight, in particular, are the most enticing as they take visually bold risks. However, the script dawdles unnecessarily for a season with 10 almost hourlong installments (eight of which were screened for this review). Half the characters remain one-note, while some mysteries drag on to make their outcome foreseeable. And nothing kills a whodunit more than predictability.

Despite the uneven structure, though, Death And Other Details mostly fulfills its ultimate goal: to join TV’s increasing lineup of mainstream, fun, ensemble-driven murder mysteries like Poker Face and Only Murders In The Building. Co-creators Mike Weiss and Heidi Cole McAdams told Entertainment Weekly that they wanted to mesh Christie’s “intrigue” with the “modern-day world.” They harken back to her biggest characters, like Hercule Poirot, as well as other fictional detectives like Sherlock Holmes, Sam Spade, and Lieutenant Columbo. The result is formulaic, sure, but it’s the exact right amount for genre fans.

It helps that Death And Other Details has Mandy Patinkin suiting up as the suave protagonist. The actor is having a blast playing Rufus Cotesworth, a.k.a. the World’s Greatest Detective, doling out an accent, wearing fun suits on a fancy ship, and soothingly narrating a complex saga as he guides the suspense along. He may not be as eccentric as Sherlock or Poirot, but Patinkin’s character is properly peculiar—and it’s enough to make this a memorable, sweet performance. Once famous for his crime-solving skills, Rufus is now hanging on by a thread. His luck changes when a locked-room murder occurs on a cruise where hardly anyone is who they claim to be. It also reunites him with a former client, Imogene Scott (Violett Beane), who hates him with a passion for abandoning her decades ago.

Patinkin and Beane make for an unexpectedly terrific teacher-protégé duo. (OMITB’s pairing of Martin Short and Steve Martin with Selena Gomez for charming banter has clearly had ramifications in the casting world.) After relatively lackluster roles in The Flash and God Friended Me, Beane gets to shine, going toe-to-toe with her scene partner, as best evidenced in episode seven, “Memorable.” Patinkin’s Rufus isn’t wholly fleshed out beyond his detective abilities, so she successfully shoulders the show’s emotional burden. Unable to move on from witnessing her mother’s death as a child, Imogene is obsessed with finding the killer. Her need is fueled after reconnecting with Rufus, who seemingly walked away from the case years ago. With fresh murders taking place, they’re forced to team up upon realizing everything ties into their shared history.

What follows next sticks to a semi-traditional formula, except for some genre-bending twists sprinkled in. The roster of suspects includes a priest, a governor, the cruise’s staff, and, primarily, the Colliers, the wealthy family who took Imogene in as a kid. She’s torn between trusting Rufus or the people she grew up with, including her best friend, Anna (Lauren Patten). There’s a jarringly fast-moving love triangle that Imogene gets caught up in between the ship’s owner Sunil Bhandari (Rahul Kohli) and his security guard, Jules (Hugo Diego Garcia)—both dubious, of course. The biggest takeaway from this storyline is that resident Flanaverse star Kohli needs to star in more rom-coms, stat.

While the show explores Imogene’s internal dilemma and the central mystery well (aided by Angela Zhou, a great third wheel to Patinkin and Beane), it forgets to develop the remaining supporting characters, leaving actors like Jayne Atkinson, David Marshall Grant, Pardis Seremi, and Jere Burns to work with a half-baked narrative. Not even Linda Emond, who plays an Interpol officer with yet another fake accent, can elevate the material entirely. Still, don’t let that or its initial crawling momentum stop you from enjoying Death And Other Details. It eventually overcomes its flaws, delivering a vivid caper that feels both cozy and refreshing at the same time.

Death And Other Details premieres January 16 on Hulu