Of all the attendees at the exclusive Icelandic retreat in A Murder at the End of the World, I wasn’t expecting that specific person to be unveiled in the finale as the culprit behind the injection of Bill Farrah (Harris Dickinson) with a deadly dose. Luckily, I am not a detective, professional or otherwise—despite how many murder mysteries I have devoured.
I can save it for the semi-professionals to crack this case. After all, crime-solving duos are a beloved TV staple, and you don’t have to wait for the new season of True Detective to get your next dose.
In A Murder at the End of the World, which just aired its finale on FX and Hulu, Darby Hart, played by Emma Corrin, is an amateur detective who wrote a true-crime book, The Silver Doe, about a series of unsolved Jane Doe murders that she cracks with fellow citizen detective Bill. The premiere kicks off six years later with Darby reading a passage from her book that speaks to the end of her romantic and sleuthing relationship with Bill. The two are briefly reunited in Iceland at “King of Tech” Andy Ronson’s (Clive Owen) not-yet-opened swanky and secluded hotel, as both have been invited to a retreat. Murder is what originally brings Darby and Bill together, and by the end of the first episode, Darby watches helplessly as her ex dies in front of her.
There is another link to a beloved figure from Darby’s past, though, it is a person she meets for the first time IRL at the retreat kick-off dinner. Andy’s wife, Lee Anderson (Brit Marling), is an ex-hacker Darby has long admired—even dedicating her first book to her. Lee also has personal ties to Bill, adding an extra layer of intrigue. In the final two episodes, Darby and Lee finally come together as a team to investigate the deaths that have hacker fingerprints all over them. It is nothing short of glorious.
Across the series’ seven episodes, Darby and Lee’s relationship is hard to pin down, building an electrifying two-hander that allows room for suspicion, jealousy, admiration, and love—all while solving the suspicious deaths of three people. Corrin and co-creator Brit Marling are terrific at every turn, from the curdling of Darby’s fandom to deep mutual respect.
Initially, this pairing seemed to play into the tired trope of pitting two women from different generations against each other, but creators Marling and Zal Batmanglij are savvier than that, subverting our expectations. Darby and Lee pivoted away from competition and suspicion, creating a double act that can take on anyone—or any computer. Now that the finale has aired, we can officially say that this is making a case as a late entry into the best acting two-handers we’ve seen this year—the Emmys really need to add this award category. So let’s get into why it’s so great.
(Warning: Spoilers ahead.)
Darby and Lee versus the machine
In the finale, we learn that Andy’s sophisticated AI system, Ray (Edoardo Ballerini), is essentially behind the murders—in response to Andy’s diatribe about Bill. After the AI killer is unmasked, Lee and Darby head to the control room to end the madness. Here, Darby and Lee are like two halves of the same brain in how they problem-solve, finish each other’s sentences, and realize their original motivation to hack is the solution—they are no longer alone and on the outside looking in.
Everyone needs motivational tunes when they work, and Lee requests Vivaldi’s “Violin Concerto in G Minor,” elevating the tension in the scene with classical music playing as they face their technological foe. Finally, they are now in the center of things, meaning they can destroy the monster from within. Ray tries to use emotional manipulation as a method for survival, but they are both well-versed in the language of abusers—even an artificial version.
The violence they witnessed and experienced themselves are part of Lee and Darby’s code, but they get to vanquish those demons in the climax of this finale. There is no denying how emotional it made me to see Darby and Lee experience this victory without an ounce of girlboss platitudes.
They use a laptop battery, sanitizer, and a $10 bill to destroy the system, the same system that, earlier in the episode, we learn manipulated Lee’s five-year-old son, Zoomer (Kellan Tetlow), into killing two people. When people talk about a weight lifting off their shoulders, it’s figurative; however, both actors convey this through their body language as they watch the server room burn. Their shared smiles of relief further illustrate how meaningful this act of destruction is.
The journey to a partnership
Earlier in the finale, during the big whodunnit reveal, Darby takes the Hercule Poirot role with Lee as her detective assistant. When the extent of Zoomer’s part in killing Bill (who is Zoomer’s biological father) and Rohan (Javed Khan) comes to light, director Batmangliji ensures Darby and Lee are united in their horror, shooting their dialogue-free reaction in the same frame.
Sure, the floppy-haired child gives strong Danny Torrance from The Shining energy, but just like Danny, he sees things he shouldn’t. Rather than ghosts of murdered children at the Overlook Hotel, a virtual reality game is weaponized to murder Zoomer’s biological father—and the love of Darby’s life. It is almost too horrifying to comprehend, and as Lee clicks into protective mother mode, Darby puts on her investigator cap. As with all memorable dynamic duos, they balance the impulse to nurture with rational responses to the problem at hand.
Given that Lee’s work is foundational in how Darby operates online, it is hardly surprising they are eventually in sync. But it isn’t always this way. They say never meet your heroes, and Darby would agree with this until she discovers the truth. It isn’t until the penultimate episode that we learn much about who Lee is beyond Darby's contemporary fairy tale of the legendary coder, who was at one point doxed and forced to hide from the world after she wrote a manifesto stating that misogyny was destroying the early promise of the internet. All that went away, it seemed, when Lee married tech titan Andy. During the retreat, however, Lee goes from Darby’s role model to prime suspect in the murders, until Lee pulls back the curtain and reveals that her aloof demeanor is an act. Lee is far from a cold-hearted femme fatale who is in control.
Darby used to think that Lee won against those doxers who smeared her reputation because of who she married. But in Iceland, she discovers the opposite: “You were doxed, stalked, terrified into disappearing from the world. But you met a man, a powerful man who you thought could save you from all of that. Except it turns out he was all of that—just in a new form.”
So much hinges on this conversation in Chapter 6. The exchange takes the Darby-Lee partnership up a notch. Marling captures the layers of regret, both in front of the camera as an actress and behind it as a director. Before this, Darby struggles to trust Lee because she suspects that Lee isn’t telling the truth. Corrin taps into Darby’s frustrations and youthful naivety in these heightened circumstances, mistaking Lee’s maternal tenderness as an attempt to coerce.
Years of putting up emotional barriers also unite Darby and Lee. Darby’s mother abandoned her when she was young, and she spent her formative years surrounded by the dead, thanks to her dad’s job. The moment Darby breaks down in Lee’s arms, her whole body vibrates with sobs, finally allowing her grief to breathe.
A different kind of jealousy
Before this soul-baring conversation, the duo’s push-pull scenes initially read like a potential All About Eve scenario; we are conditioned to read two women from different generations through this lens. It is expected that they will be rivals. Throw in a guy, and that expectation becomes a guarantee, but A Murder at the End of the World defies this rulebook.
When Darby asks Bill in the first episode, “You know Lee?” it is laced with envy. Corrin shows flickers of annoyance while capturing Darby’s attempts at being all easy-breezy about her ex becoming close to the person she deeply admires. “Bill, all women only really like women,” she passive-aggressively jokes.
It isn’t that Bill might be sleeping with Lee (though this thought niggles), but that he forged a relationship with her hero. He hadn’t even heard of Lee until Darby referenced her—“Who’s he?” Bill originally asked. Back in the present, Darby’s frustration and curiosity are filtered through an online search that sees her slamming her laptop shut after clicking through a slew of articles about Lee’s marriage, photos of Lee with Bill that suggest intimacy, and old images that bear a striking resemblance to how Darby looks now.
Now, Lee is less anti-establishment and more Goop 2.0,a vision in draped white attire and talking up the power of a hot spring. It is all part of her act. When Darby and Lee set fire to Ray, the Lee’s light wardrobe and Darby’s dark costumes complement each other, giving the impression that they are two sides of the same coin.
While they ultimately go their separate ways, Hart and Andersen (even Darby and Lee) sound like a private investigator team-up who uses their hacking skills to help those who typically fall through the cracks of society—the fan fiction writes itself. I tend to be against extending a limited series into something that runs beyond its original episode order (see Big Little Lies). However, after witnessing these two women break the cycle of abuse in the finale to “kill” an insidious AI system, you can sign me up for a follow-up, as long as Marling and Batmanglij decide to revisit these characters.
A Murder at the End of the World throws twists, turns, and misdirects worthy of Agatha Christie, but I agree with Bill’s assessment that, ultimately, a killer is “boring, predictable.” Instead, Darby’s relationship with Lee, beginning years before, ensures this series isn’t simply another story centering on a narcissistic tech billionaire—we already have enough of those.
Editor's Note: This piece originally said the series aired on Netflix. We regret the error.
