S01.E06: The Bloody Truth

[Irlandesa]

6 minutes ago, DakotaLavender said:

How is a suspect in a murder trial even allowed to walk out of the court and be expected to return to hear the verdict especially if it appears he will be found guilty? Isn't bail usually until a trial begins? 

Bail is good until the verdict and it's sometimes even extended until sentencing in certain instances like non-violent crimes.

Bail can be revoked if the defendant does something that makes a judge think it needs to be revoked like commit another crime or attempt to flee. 

[Aqua]

32 minutes ago, aghst said:

They managed to stretch it, with a nice cliffhanger at the end of the penultimate episode.  

To find out at the beginning of this episode that last episode's cliffhanger was totally bogus seemed like a cheap trick, IMO.

[RealReality]

I was fine with the ending.  Jonathan was such an obvious suspect that I assumed he didn't do it.  But, I think it was kinda weight to paint Grace as a) relatable in any way to the average person and b) an "expert" for the jury on Johnathan because of her education.  Like girl, you were still happily married to him for what, a decade, and had no idea......I just dont think you're the brilliant authority on the subject.  She clearly doesn't have the superpowers everyone painted her as having. 

I also have a hard time believing that Haley would agree to put her on the stand, she knew exactly how shaky Grace was.  Why risk a good position to put someone on the stand who, at best, was either blind or incompetent and couldnt see, even with her training, that she was married to a liar and a cheat who was having an affair right under her nose with a woman at her sons school.  Realistically, what was the best Hayley was going to get out of Grace "I know my man, and he'd never do this, trust me, I have no selfish motive here"

But, I thought it was overall, a good roller coaster ride, I thought the acting was good, and I'm happy that Donald Sutherland's character didn't do it.  It would have been very law and order if he had.  

1 minute ago, ReviewX said:

To find out at the beginning of this episode that last episode's cliffhanger was totally bogus seemed like a cheap trick, IMO.

It was.  But I wasn't sold.  

I couldn't find my remote, but did anyone explain why Henry was riffling through an outdoor fireplace as soon as he got to the beachhouse?  Seems like a good place to encounter an angry raccoon family.  

[Aqua]

1 hour ago, Milburn Stone said:

Glad you brought that up, because it was the only part I didn't understand. Or maybe I did but I'm not sure. Is Haley saying, "If Grace never found the hammer in Henry's violin case, Grace would have stayed in your corner"? 

Yeah I think she's saying you didn't cover your tracks and that's why Grace suspects you now.

[Razzberry]

Yeah, putting the defendant's wife on the stand just to say "I don't believe he could kill anyone" was so dumb.  News at 11, wife thinks he's innocent.

I was annoyed at the kid for hiding the hammer from his mother.  He'd seen the crime photos, yet he still wanted Dad around?  Donald Sutherland had him nailed.

[Irlandesa]

9 minutes ago, DakotaLavender said:

Didn't Haley have an obligation to disclose they found the murder weapon? Otherwise it is hiding evidence and she could be charged. 

In theory, yes, but she explained that away as there was no definitive proof that this was the murder weapon and there was no way to prove it now that it had been washed twice in the dishwasher.

I also have a question that just occurred to me.  While she was on the stand, Grace said that she and her husband met in 2002 while at Harvard University.  So just how old are we supposed to believe these people are?  I know they're probably younger than their ages but 17 years ago (or 18) Hugh Grant was 42 and Nicole Kidman was 35. Even if we're generous to assume they meant grand school, that would mean that Nicole is playing at least 10 years younger than she is and Hugh between 15 and 20 years younger.

[Vella]

Terrible. That was a really bloated C grade Law&Order:SVU/Criminal Minds episode.  I still cannot believe they took what was, at best, a 2 hour show and made it go on for SIX EPISODES. Ridiculous. Wasting Donald Sutherland, wasting Lily Rabe, wasting so much and so much potential. 

Quite frankly, the only thing that genuinely bothered me was that a female character of color, the victim, was repeatedly shown on screen being beaten to death throughout the series.  Apparently, the audience needed to see her pleading, needed to see the brutal first blow, needed to see the graphic attack in its entirety.  I find it more and more disturbing when showrunners feel the pathological need to SHOW the violence.

And really, what was the point of the full frontal nudity? To show that Elena was offbeat, unashamed and whatever? And the only way to show this is to have an actress who received no more than 20 lines overall and a shell of a character strip down? The overall laziness to communicate stuff to the audience was just disappointing.

But I did laugh at Grace being so stupid and so self-involved that after fucking over her murderous husband she then doesn't take her son's phone away so said husband can't use the boy against her and instead sends the son to school, alone, on the day his father will surely be convicted of murder so what, she can swan into the courtroom with her dad on her arm? I mean, for a moment, I thought the show had perked up for a second to showcase how deeply narcissistic Grace was, but no, it was just a lazy segue into thriller of the week time.

[Cheezwiz]

17 minutes ago, RealReality said:

did anyone explain why Henry was riffling through an outdoor fireplace as soon as he got to the beachhouse?  Seems like a good place to encounter an angry raccoon family.  

That did seem strange, and I was hoping they'd address it, but they never did. Like why would you go poking around in the outdoor fireplace upon immediate arrival at your family beach cottage in the dead of winter when no one would be sitting outside? The story had more dropped threads and gaping holes than one of my pitiful knitting attempts.

[ECM1231]

Does anyone know who sings the opening song? It sure sounds like Nicole Kidman to me.

[Cheezwiz]

4 minutes ago, ECM1231 said:

Does anyone know who sings the opening song? It sure sounds like Nicole Kidman to me.

Yep, it's Nicole singing over the opening title sequence.

[WaltersHair]

I'm a little miffed that Jonathan said his legacy was Grace, Henry and his cancer kids. Dude, you have a daughter too.  Cemented the idea that Elena was nothing to him.

[tennisgurl]

A part of me is annoyed that the ending was so simple and even straight forward, but the other part respects the series going with the most logical ending. All of the evidence pointed to Jonathan and...the evidence was right and it was Jonathan all along. The red herrings were all just red herrings, no one had a split personality or anything, no last minute plot twists, it was just what it seemed like all along. 

Who knew that Hugh Grant could be so damn scary? Once his charmingly British Hugh Grant charm started to give way to his increased desperation, he actually did seem truly unhinged and dangerous. I really did think he was going to drive his car off the bridge and take Henry with him. Its really did feel like he was peeling off layers of the personality he created for himself and was showing his true self. Like it was being...undone?

Edited November 30, 2020 by tennisgurl

[MBayGal]

Wow, that was not the ending I expected! First off, after 12 minutes I was convinced that Grace’s father was going to be the surprise murderer, who then hid the hammer at the lake house.  After watching SVU and other Law & Orders, I guess I’m conditioned to believe that the obvious suspect never turns out to be the guilty one.  Grace setting it up so that she could go on the stand and destroy Haley’s case was a shock to me. And I was on the edge of my seat fearing that J was going to cause a fatal crash and take Henry’s life along with his own.  So I liked it a lot.

One thing did bother me.  I thought someone here said if someone is going to be a witness, they can’t be in court during the trial.  So how could they call Grace and Miguel?

[LoveLeigh]

1 hour ago, Vella said:

Quite frankly, the only thing that genuinely bothered me was that a female character of color, the victim, was repeatedly shown on screen being beaten to death throughout the series.  Apparently, the audience needed to see her pleading, needed to see the brutal first blow, needed to see the graphic attack in its entirety.  I find it more and more disturbing when showrunners feel the pathological need to SHOW the violence.

What does her color have to do with it? Why reference it? Female characters of all colors are abused and murdered: Shanann Cathryn Watts and Laci Peterson and many more. If we were to see a movie about their murders we might see them pleading too. Elena's ethnicity was not even generic to the story line. So I think it is moot. Many movies show worse. Just look at slasher movies. 

And my family is Hispanic by the way. 

[Agnes Bean]

3 hours ago, PepSinger said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_against_interest

Basically, from what I can gather in my 10 minutes of Googling, the show misused the "declaration against interest" rule. From what I understand, Jonathan would've had to make the declaration in a conversation with Grace or his mother. 

As a lawyer, can confirm. I'm not a trial attorney, so I had to pause the TV and go Google to confirm that I wasn't completely misremembering everything I learned in Evidence. Complete nonsense. Weirdly, I think the statements were arguably admissible as non-hearsay -- that they weren't being admitted for the truth of the matter asserted, but rather for their impact on Grace's mind, which I guess is what the prosecutor was getting to with calling it impeachment evidence. I don't understand why the writers used declaration against interest at all. It was completely non-applicable and stood out like a sore thumb for a lawyer, but was also way too specific to mean anything to most non-lawyers. Weird choice. 

Anyway, add me to the list of people who cannot understand why the big fancy defense attorney put Grace on the stand. How did she not know about the 911 call, at the very least? That alone should've made it a no-go.

But hey, at least Hugh Grant was really good.

[Mellowyellow]

4 hours ago, kay1864 said:

1. Cops can’t drive faster than an SUV?

2. Cops can’t outrun Nicole Kidman on a bridge?

Hey Nicole jogs a lot!!!! There is often pictures of her jogging when she's in Australia! And don't forget Grace was a walker who walked everywhere in heavy coats. Totes makes sense she can outrun the cops 😆

[Cool Breeze]

1 hour ago, DakotaLavender said:

What does her color have to do with it? Why reference it? Female characters of all colors are abused and murdered: Shanann Cathryn Watts and Laci Peterson and many more. If we were to see a movie about their murders we might see them pleading too. Elena's ethnicity was not even generic to the story line. So I think it is moot. Many movies show worse. Just look at slasher movies. 

And my family is Hispanic by the way. 

I think her ethnicity is relevant because the story’s focus is on the rich white people yet the murder victim, who’s given a total of 20-25 lines, is sexualized (hit on by all the men at the party; full-frontal on the locker room with NK; kissing NK in the elevator, etc.), and has no interior life of her own.  We get backstory on the other main characters but not Elena or her family.  The Latinx characters are only there to provide sexual release, anger and tragedy to the white characters.  

[ElectricBoogaloo]

I was totally fine with Jonathan being the murderer because it made the most sense. I'd much rather that he be the killer than Grace having fugue states and not remembering that she bludgeoned someone to death.

5 hours ago, PepSinger said:

That car chase scene was terrifying to watch. I honestly wasn't breathing. I thought Jonathan was going to murder that poor boy. Hugh Grant did an excellent job. I've never been fearful of him before, and I was scared of him as I sat on my living room couch. I hope his performance is recognized.

 

3 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

Who knew that Hugh Grant could be so damn scary? Once his charmingly British Hugh Grant charm started to give way to his increased desperation, he actually did seem truly unhinged and dangerous. I really did think he was going to drive his car off the bridge and take Henry with him. Its really did feel like he was peeling off layers of the personality he created for himself and was showing his true self. Like it was being...undone?

Hugh Grant's performance on this show reminded me of Harrison Ford in What Lies Beneath. I seriously could not sleep the night I saw that movie because I was so unnerved by charming affable Harrison Ford being so terrifying.

5 hours ago, kay1864 said:

So… Are there any loose ends? We never found out what the half a million was for that Grace’s father gave Jonathan.  And what the Cleveland trip was a cover for. Maybe the Jonathan/Elena liaison at the beach house?

And we never found out who he had the other admitted affair with!

4 hours ago, For Cereals said:

I saw it as that and also more of an insult or callback to when she met with him and pointed out how he’s able to fool and charm people, that he found himself so clever, but ruined his own case by being stupid enough to not get rid of the hammer.  He’s coming for Haley’s legal skills but her ran out of charm.

That was one of the moments when Jonathan really revealed himself because like so many other narcissists sociopaths (or psychopaths? I always get the two mixed up), he was focused on blaming Haley for failing to keep him out of prison. He just couldn't accept any responsibility for his own actions.

6 hours ago, Valny said:

And eeew to the part where he and Elena were kissing and the string cheese between their lips came out! Oh man, I had to look away. Sorry, that just grosses me out.

 

4 hours ago, ReviewX said:

A great scene in the movie JFK is ruined by the same string kiss between Kevin Costner and Sissy Spacek. I haven't been able to get that image out of my head for literally 30 years.

It actually made me laugh because it reminded me of Sarah Michelle Gellar and Selma Blair's kiss in Cruel Intentions which was then parodied in Not Another Teen Movie:

 

 

[dmc]

I knew it, he's a sociopath.  The way he manipulates every situation to his every advantage.  

[nara]

5 hours ago, RealReality said:

I was fine with the ending.  Jonathan was such an obvious suspect that I assumed he didn't do it.  But, I think it was kinda weight to paint Grace as a) relatable in any way to the average person and b) an "expert" for the jury on Johnathan because of her education.  Like girl, you were still happily married to him for what, a decade, and had no idea......I just dont think you're the brilliant authority on the subject.  She clearly doesn't have the superpowers everyone painted her as having. 

I also have a hard time believing that Haley would agree to put her on the stand, she knew exactly how shaky Grace was.  Why risk a good position to put someone on the stand who, at best, was either blind or incompetent and couldnt see, even with her training, that she was married to a liar and a cheat who was having an affair right under her nose with a woman at her sons school.  Realistically, what was the best Hayley was going to get out of Grace "I know my man, and he'd never do this, trust me, I have no selfish motive here"

But, I thought it was overall, a good roller coaster ride, I thought the acting was good, and I'm happy that Donald Sutherland's character didn't do it.  It would have been very law and order if he had.  

It was.  But I wasn't sold.  

I couldn't find my remote, but did anyone explain why Henry was riffling through an outdoor fireplace as soon as he got to the beachhouse?  Seems like a good place to encounter an angry raccoon family.  

Putting Grace on the stand would have made more sense if Miguel testified that he woke up at night to go to the bathroom and saw his father at home. That would have eliminated the only other reasonable suspect and put more pressure on Haley to put Grace on the stand. 
 

Henry was playing with a ball or something and it went into the fireplace. That’s why he was digging around there and he noticed the parcel.

5 hours ago, Irlandesa said:

In theory, yes, but she explained that away as there was no definitive proof that this was the murder weapon and there was no way to prove it now that it had been washed twice in the dishwasher.

I also have a question that just occurred to me.  While she was on the stand, Grace said that she and her husband met in 2002 while at Harvard University.  So just how old are we supposed to believe these people are?  I know they're probably younger than their ages but 17 years ago (or 18) Hugh Grant was 42 and Nicole Kidman was 35. Even if we're generous to assume they meant grand school, that would mean that Nicole is playing at least 10 years younger than she is and Hugh between 15 and 20 years younger.

She went to Harvard for her PhD and perhaps he was there for his residency or a fellowship. That could put her in mid to late 40’s 

Edited November 30, 2020 by nara

[qtpye]

8 hours ago, saoirse said:

Well that was...an ending.

From what I can tell, this was set up to be a Nicole Kidman vehicle but I honestly feel it was Hugh Grant’s pretty much the entire way. I just rewatched Notting Hill, and he definitely showed some range from that role!

Hugh nailed it at the end. The psychopath being robbed of his mask was chilling.

8 hours ago, Norma Desmond said:

Wow. Jonathan did it (which should have been obvious, given the DNA evidence). Color me underwhelmed. Did we need to stretch this for 6 long episodes? Hell no.

The only interesting thing about it was Grace setting things up with the prosecutor and manipulating Jonathan and Haley into letting her testify.

 

 

 

 

8 hours ago, cardigirl said:

So in all those years that Jonathon and Grace were married, he never acted like a sociopath until he murdered Elena? Okay. 
 I can't believe I was excited for the ending. Gah. 

Also weird because he was on the older side when they got married. This were not young kids blinded by youthful foolishness.

8 hours ago, MagnaMater said:

My favorite part was in the beginning of the episode and the lawyer was telling Nicole to not show any emotion. No problem!

It almost felt like an inside joke. The woman has the same face when she finds out her husband is a murderer as I do when I lose a sock in the laundry.

8 hours ago, buttersister said:

Jump, Jonathan! Just saying I would have been okay with it. As opposed to him getting out of jail at some point, even the thought of that is distressing.

I'm with Donald Sutherland, proud of Grace, too. Nicole Kidman, otoh, oh, honey, no. I'm afraid I was laughing as she ran on the bridge trying to express the horror of seeing her son that way. Unfortunately, the lighting practically bounced off of her shiny skin. No muscles moved. Still.

 

7 hours ago, Norma Desmond said:

I did notice the forehead wrinkle/expression line. I wonder if it's CGI? Anyway, the forehead wrinkle deserves a nod in the next Golden Globes.

I think Donald Sutherland’s eyebrows need to be nominated for an Emmy. They showed far more emotion than Nicole ever could.

5 hours ago, WaltersHair said:

I'm a little miffed that Jonathan said his legacy was Grace, Henry and his cancer kids. Dude, you have a daughter too.  Cemented the idea that Elena was nothing to him.

This is the same man that tried to frame his son for the murder of his mistress. Jonathan cares for no one beyond himself.

It seemed to me like she had a horribly toxic relationship with Elena were he indulged his dark side. He could never do that with Grace because she comes from a rich and powerful family. 

Edited November 30, 2020 by qtpye

[Corgi-ears]

The Frasers: so rich and privileged that their son does not understand that you can and should hand wash a murder weapon, not have a dishwasher do it for you. Twice.

Grace: Put me on the stand! I'm a reliable narrator!

Grace, on the stand: * Promptly mispronounces her own family name, again *

[dmc]

2 minutes ago, qtpye said:

Hugh nailed it at the end. The psychopath being robbed of his mask was chilling.

 

Also weird because he was on the older side when they got married. This were not young kids blinded by youthful foolishness.

It almost felt like an inside joke. The woman has the same face when she finds out her husband is a murderer as I do when I lose a sock in the laundry.

 

I think Donald Sutherland’s eyebrows need to be nominated for an Emmy. They showed far more emotion than Nicole ever could.

This is the same man that tried to frame his son for the murder of his mistress. Jonathan cares for no one beyond himself.

It seemed to me like she had a horribly toxic relationship with Elena were he indulged his dark side. He could never do that with Grace because she comes from a rich and powerful family. 

Or he did act like a sociopath and she missed it. I agree with whoever said that it was pretty obvious Jonathan did it.  The show is her coming to grips with the fact that she missed all the signs of what he was capable of....he's manipulative. She wants to believe him because if not what does that say about her.  

[AryasMum]

The prosecutor was really struggling with an American accent. Google tells me she’s Danish.

I liked the ending but would have preferred Jonathan completing his swan dive.

13 hours ago, Cool Breeze said:

I think her ethnicity is relevant because the story’s focus is on the rich white people yet the murder victim, who’s given a total of 20-25 lines, is sexualized (hit on by all the men at the party; full-frontal on the locker room with NK; kissing NK in the elevator, etc.), and has no interior life of her own.  We get backstory on the other main characters but not Elena or her family.  The Latinx characters are only there to provide sexual release, anger and tragedy to the white characters.  

Agreed. They also portray the victim as an unbalanced manipulator who “drove” Jonathan to violence. They had her go at him first with the hammer!  I didn’t like that part at all. 

[Milburn Stone]

7 hours ago, SourK said:

Like, the show literally ends before Elena's murderer is found guilty.

You just know that when the trial resumes, Jonathan will say, "I fled because I was afraid I'd be found guilty of a crime I didn't commit!"

[kay1864]

1 hour ago, Corgi-ears said:

The Frasers: so rich and privileged that their son does not understand that you can and should hand wash a murder weapon, not have a dishwasher do it for you. Twice.

Grace: Oh, you’re running a cycle. I have a dirty glass I need to add.

Henry: No no no no no no

[Norma Desmond]

1 hour ago, qtpye said:

Hugh nailed it at the end. The psychopath being robbed of his mask was chilling.

Yes. That was truly the highlight of the series.

 

1 hour ago, dmc said:

The show is her coming to grips with the fact that she missed all the signs of what he was capable of

 True. I think the series didn't explore it clearly - she's an expert on those things but didn't see it at all with the man she was married for almost 20 years, hence the book's title "You should have known". It was never a murder mystery per se, though it's what DEK *tried* to accomplish here.

 

[Trillian]

7 hours ago, DakotaLavender said:

Didn't Haley have an obligation to disclose they found the murder weapon? Otherwise it is hiding evidence and she could be charged. 

Yup.  They tried to get around the ethical issue by having her give that little soliloquy to herself about how she doesn’t actually “know” it was the murder weapon so she technically wasn’t obliged to turn it in. 

The way we taught In law school to deal with this scenario is that the lawyer who has the weapon hires a lawyer herself and gives the weapon to the second lawyer who then turns it over to the police, saying only “my client who will remain nameless gave this to me”. If the original lawyer said that to the police, it would be obvious who the client was, so the second lawyer acts as a buffer to try to preserve confidentiality and to salvage some of the defence. 

5 hours ago, Agnes Bean said:

As a lawyer, can confirm. I'm not a trial attorney, so I had to pause the TV and go Google to confirm that I wasn't completely misremembering everything I learned in Evidence. Complete nonsense. Weirdly, I think the statements were arguably admissible as non-hearsay -- that they weren't being admitted for the truth of the matter asserted, but rather for their impact on Grace's mind, which I guess is what the prosecutor was getting to with calling it impeachment evidence. I don't understand why the writers used declaration against interest at all. It was completely non-applicable and stood out like a sore thumb for a lawyer, but was also way too specific to mean anything to most non-lawyers. Weird choice. 

Anyway, add me to the list of people who cannot understand why the big fancy defense attorney put Grace on the stand. How did she not know about the 911 call, at the very least? That alone should've made it a no-go.

But hey, at least Hugh Grant was really good.

Well, I am a trial lawyer, and I agree.  The only reason I could think of for calling it a Declaration Against Interest (which it clearly isn’t) is totally lazy writing. If this were a show about the law, they could’ve had interesting submissions on why the statement wasn’t hearsay at all. But I’ve seen law students and even more experienced lawyers struggle with the idea that it isn’t hearsay if it’s not being offered for the truth of the content of the statement, so I guess they didn’t want to have to try to explain that to a lay audience when it wasn’t the point of the scene.  But, that was so sloppy - the legal technical advisor, whom I’m sure they ignored, must be absolutely mortified. 
 

[cardigirl]

2 hours ago, dmc said:

Or he did act like a sociopath and she missed it. I agree with whoever said that it was pretty obvious Jonathan did it.  The show is her coming to grips with the fact that she missed all the signs of what he was capable of....he's manipulative. She wants to believe him because if not what does that say about her.  

But the audience has no knowledge of that.  Give us flashbacks.  All they showed us was Jonathon being pretty charming with a young cancer patient.  That didn't look manipulative to me.  If she was ignoring signs of him being a "MONSTER" than show us past aggressions, like that time he lost control and threw a bowl at you or that time you wanted to go to Florida for vacation but he overruled and said lets to go Vegas. or some such.  The show gave us NOTHING to show us his past behaviour with his family that should have clued her in. She meets this woman at a committee meeting, and when she tells her husband about it, he joins in with joking and surmising things about the woman, and that's when the audience begins to see how he was deceiving her because later, we find out he knew this woman, and all along had been involved with her. 

But there were no accusations from Grace about "Why do you always do this to me?" or "Why do you leave me in the dark so much?"  I really think this story was so simple-minded in that it gave us a thin line of reasoning.  Everything was fine until it wasn't.  But it 17 years together, a sociopath is going to exhibit some behaviour that is going to be concerning, and they should have flashed back to it.  They didn't.  Grace didn't share that with the audience.  

And I don't remember Jonathon's mother ever saying that they surrounded him with support and love, waiting for him to show grief or remorse. I think that was added for drama's sake at trial, but was not true.

Ugh, this show. 

[dmc]

3 minutes ago, cardigirl said:

But the audience has no knowledge of that.  Give us flashbacks.  All they showed us was Jonathon being pretty charming with a young cancer patient.  That didn't look manipulative to me.  If she was ignoring signs of him being a "MONSTER" than show us past aggressions, like that time he lost control and threw a bowl at you or that time you wanted to go to Florida for vacation but he overruled and said lets to go Vegas. or some such.  The show gave us NOTHING to show us his past behaviour with his family that should have clued her in. She meets this woman at a committee meeting, and when she tells her husband about it, he joins in with joking and surmising things about the woman, and that's when the audience begins to see how he was deceiving her because later, we find out he knew this woman, and all along had been involved with her. 

But there were no accusations from Grace about "Why do you always do this to me?" or "Why do you leave me in the dark so much?"  I really think this story was so simple-minded in that it gave us a thin line of reasoning.  Everything was fine until it wasn't.  But it 17 years together, a sociopath is going to exhibit some behaviour that is going to be concerning, and they should have flashed back to it.  They didn't.  Grace didn't share that with the audience.  

And I don't remember Jonathon's mother ever saying that they surrounded him with support and love, waiting for him to show grief or remorse. I think that was added for drama's sake at trial, but was not true.

Ugh, this show. 

Sociopaths are charming.  They are usually well liked people. The show is Grace’s POV, you see what she sees and when she recognizes what’s in front of her...you see it. It’s amazing to me with the prevalence of true crime that people are surprised that there are people that like Jonathan that can fool people 

49 minutes ago, Norma Desmond said:

Yes. That was truly the highlight of the series.

 

 True. I think the series didn't explore it clearly - she's an expert on those things but didn't see it at all with the man she was married for almost 20 years, hence the book's title "You should have known". It was never a murder mystery per se, though it's what DEK *tried* to accomplish here.

 

This show has a lot of misses for me, pacing is the huge one 

Edited November 30, 2020 by dmc

[cardigirl]

4 minutes ago, dmc said:

Sociopaths are charming.  They are usually well liked people. The show is Grace’s POV, you see what she sees and when she recognizes what’s in front of her...you see it. It’s amazing to me with the prevalence of true crime that people are surprised that there are people that like Jonathan that can fool people 

This show has a lot of misses for me, pacing is the huge one 

They are charming, but they move on when people begin to suspect. This is a poor story. There would have been instances where his behaviour would have made her pull up short and he would have to explain (charm) his way out of it, but they gave us nothing. 17 years of fooling? He wasn't constantly moving from practice to practice either. Or so we weren't told. I just don't buy it. But okay. This was a real-life story.  🙂 

[mamadrama]

I'm left feeling...nothing. The acting was good. The story was...okay. I realize this was more about characterization and subtly and not really a murder mystery per se, but I felt like the pacing and the filming made it FEEL like a mystery. I think it could've been more economical and parred down at least an episode or two. 

[Mellowyellow]

I really enjoyed that!!! 

I think with these thrillers every scenario has been done before so the audience ends up making room for every single character being guilty.  I enjoyed that they went with the most logical choice, laid down all the groundwork to establish Jonathan's personality, what that personality was capable of and built on that. It would have been bizzare to pull a last minute twist for the sake of plot. 

I also enjoyed Grace's journey and growth. Her slowly coming to the realization of who and what she had married. As soon as Jonathan had the audacity to accuse Henry you could tell it was end of the road for Grace.

Overall I am extremely appreciative of the fact that how everything played out was written to be very much personality based and not plot based.

[dmc]

20 minutes ago, cardigirl said:

They are charming, but they move on when people begin to suspect. This is a poor story. There would have been instances where his behaviour would have made her pull up short and he would have to explain (charm) his way out of it, but they gave us nothing. 17 years of fooling? He wasn't constantly moving from practice to practice either. Or so we weren't told. I just don't buy it. But okay. This was a real-life story.  🙂 

Not always.  I think their portrayal of Jonathan is accurate.  Accurate enough, that I double majored in Criminology and knew.  I agree some elements of the story are poor.  But it is incredibly accurate that Grace could be a psychiatrist and miss it. A lot of people want to believe they would see signs but it’s not true.  A lot of con artist are also sociopaths it’s why they are usually successful at it 

[ahpny]

Though somewhat galling to an experienced attorney for many of the reasons already pointed out, I found the courtroom scenes compelling and entertaining. I forgive them for lapses of legal reality.

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Poor MIguel. I knew Haley would be as gentle as she could because it's obviously a terrible look for the defense attorney to be mean to a child, but it was brutal for him to endure nonetheless. 

An 8-year old child would not be blithely called to the stand in the murder trial of his mother. Maybe argument about his testimony had been worked out ahead of time off screen to us, but that didn’t appear to be so. Judges are normally quite protective of child witnesses, and more so when they’re the victim’s son. I don’t see a high likelihood of that type of testimony happening in a real trial.

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I can't believe how stupid Haley was to let Grace on the stand. Of course she didn't know all of the stuff Grace told Sylvia and therefore the Prosecution, but still, she was taking a chance putting a cheated on wife on the stand.

This wasn’t a “legal error” in the show - as with the hearsay point - but a tactical error that an experienced trial attorney would not be expected to make. Even if Jonathan had enthusiastically encouraged her testimony (which he did not, granting a mere nod of acceptance), the lawyer should have advised against it. The mere fact that Grace volunteered should also have raised some suspicion give the “ambivalence” the lawyer already mentioned.

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You are correct, it is a total misuse of that particular hearsay exception. You would think they'd have a lawyer consultant look over the script.

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I don't understand why the writers used declaration against interest at all. It was completely non-applicable and stood out like a sore thumb for a lawyer, but was also way too specific to mean anything to most non-lawyers. Weird choice.

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Well, I am a trial lawyer, and I agree.  The only reason I could think of for calling it a Declaration Against Interest (which it clearly isn’t) is totally lazy writing.

This evidence could have come in without directly referencing the conversation with the mother – and that might have avoided the convoluted hearsay detours they tried to take. Simply ask, “Why is Jonathan estranged from his family?” Don’t ask “what did his mother say.”

Another legal error was allowing Grace to testify as an "expert." Though she has a PhD. from Harvard, of course, she is only testifying here as a fact witness, and as such may not offer her professional opinion. In order to do that, she would have to have been "qualified" as an expert first. They never even tried to do that. At least they tried to avoid the hearsay objection by offering some legal-sounding excuse. They never even bothered to recognize that this type of expert testimony - from a lay witness - is not permitted at all.

The cross examination of the witnesses, at times, was also done in poor form. You don’t ask open ended questions on cross, or questions to which you don’t know the answer. Both lawyers didn’t adhere to this guideline, and risked damaging their respective positions.

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Didn't Haley have an obligation to disclose they found the murder weapon? Otherwise it is hiding evidence and she could be charged. 

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In theory, yes, but she explained that away as there was no definitive proof that this was the murder weapon and there was no way to prove it now that it had been washed twice in the dishwasher.

This point doesn’t make any sense to me. Blood, or DNA, on the weapon wasn’t its only potential import or evidentiary value. Surely, as with ballistics analysis used to link bullets and guns, some sort forensic analysis could confirm that the surface pattern of the mallet matched the impact marks on the victim to show that its use as the murder weapon was fully consistent with all other evidence. That, plus the effort to hide it, and where it was found, should be damning enough before any reasonable jury. The defense lawyer more or less confirmed this by calling Jonathan stupid for not ditching the mallet.

I suppose Jonathan being all pissy about it being cleaned up, as if it could have implicated the victim's husband, is just another episode of Jonathan's now-revealed full-blown sociopathy?

[ECM1231]

Is ELL- e nah the British pronunciation? I've only heard it pronounced as El - LAY -na, which would be the Spanish pronunciation as well. Every time Hugh pronounced her name that way, it took me out of the scene.

[MartyQui]

Re: the meeting in 2002, I thought he would have been on staff at one of the Harvard hospitals, and he met her then.  So he could be quite a bit older than her.  

[Sigmagirl]

Oh, come on. If you’re really rich, you have people to wash your murder weapons for you.

[LoveLeigh]

6 hours ago, Cool Breeze said:

I think her ethnicity is relevant because the story’s focus is on the rich white people yet the murder victim, who’s given a total of 20-25 lines, is sexualized (hit on by all the men at the party; full-frontal on the locker room with NK; kissing NK in the elevator, etc.), and has no interior life of her own.  We get backstory on the other main characters but not Elena or her family.  The Latinx characters are only there to provide sexual release, anger and tragedy to the white characters.  

The story is about white rich privileged characters. We see Elena as an artist. We see Fernando as a very caring father. Elena was sexualized because she was the woman with whom Jonathan had the affair. I think she was sexualized to show why Jonathan was seduced. The Alves family had to be minor characters to keep the mystery going. 

Not every story can give equal time to all the players. Stories are not written to be fair. 

"The Latinx characters are only there to provide sexual release, anger and tragedy to the white characters." Because that is what the story is about. it would be the same if Jonathan murdered a Jewish or an Asian woman or a Greek woman. No equal time would be given to show her family. She and her family were supporting players in this plot about rich white people.  

Edited November 30, 2020 by DakotaLavender

[JennyMominFL]

10 hours ago, Irlandesa said:

In theory, yes, but she explained that away as there was no definitive proof that this was the murder weapon and there was no way to prove it now that it had been washed twice in the dishwasher.

I also have a question that just occurred to me.  While she was on the stand, Grace said that she and her husband met in 2002 while at Harvard University.  So just how old are we supposed to believe these people are?  I know they're probably younger than their ages but 17 years ago (or 18) Hugh Grant was 42 and Nicole Kidman was 35. Even if we're generous to assume they meant grand school, that would mean that Nicole is playing at least 10 years younger than she is and Hugh between 15 and 20 years younger.

They met when Grace was doing her PHD though, so she would have been a-bit older

[Ashforth]

11 hours ago, saoirse said:

Well that was...an ending.

From what I can tell, this was set up to be a Nicole Kidman vehicle but I honestly feel it was Hugh Grant’s pretty much the entire way. I just rewatched Notting Hill, and he definitely showed some range from that role!

So yes, it turns out that this was a Kidman vanity project the whole time, with clueless, maybe culpable due to utter constant confusion Grace ending up as the HERO! Unmasking her psycho husband and chasing him down in Daddy's helicopter. SMH.

11 hours ago, Norma Desmond said:

The only interesting thing about it was Grace setting things up with the prosecutor and manipulating Jonathan and Haley into letting her testify.

The thing is, the prosecutor would always have called Grace to testify. It wasn't a choice that the defense attorney and Grace had, and to pretend for the drama that Grace had a choice was one of many ridiculous things this show presented. 

10 hours ago, LilaFowler said:

It's so strange that Jonathan put the hammer in the outdoor fireplace. Considering that the property was where he was hiding out, you'd think the police would have obtained a warrant to search it. You'd think Jonathan would have assumed that, too. Why did he hang onto it and leave it where someone would eventually find it? Very dumb and he's not supposed to be a dumb person.

The whole hammer thing was idiotic. He drove miles and miles (in a nonexistent car) but didn't stop off to toss the hammer into a field or a dumpster or a pond. Instead he hid it on the "family" property, in a place that his son inexplicably searched for no reason immediately upon his arrival. Then the privileged little boy, who we were explicitly told in ep 1 never cleaned up after himself in the kitchen, ran it through the dishwasher twice. Please. That kid wouldn't have any idea how to use a dishwashing machine. That's what maids are for!

9 hours ago, aghst said:

So they never had much more story than the obvious killer, though if Jonathan is a sociopath, he’s pretty functioning one, ending up with a very prestigious career and fooling his wife of at least over a decade.  And the wife is a trained psychiatrist who obviously didn’t have reason to believe that the father of their son could murder so brutally.

The thing is, it’s not credible that he would behave in a way to spook his own mother yet there were were no other episodes of him getting out of control since his childhood to late middle age or maybe senior pat of his life when he bludgeons Elena?  

Either Grace is a bad psychiatrist or has been in denial for years.

They started out saying that Grace was a therapist, and then she morphed into a psychologist with a Ph.D. from Harvard. Whaaaaat? One of these things is not like the other. Therapists are licensed and do valuable work with patients, but they are not doctors. I noticed that people started calling her "Dr. Fraser" about halfway through this shitshow.

9 hours ago, ReviewX said:

You are correct, it is a total misuse of that particular hearsay exception. You would think they'd have a lawyer consultant look over the script.

What should have happened after the Defense rests (which it presumably did at that point) was the prosecutor asks for bail to be revised in light of the higher flight risk.

David E. Kelley has has coasted for many, many years as an alleged legal expert when writing fiction because he went to law school and maybe practiced for a few years. His courtroom scenes are uniformly devoid of any resemblance to reality. Even his "insight" into the inner workings of law firms fall flat. LA Law was a huge hit, but I must say that in my many years of working in law firms, we have never received a bag containing a severed human head.

After the defense rests, it asks for the case to be dismissed because the prosecution hasn't met its burden of proof. It's almost always denied, but it's a procedural element that could create some legitimate drama.

9 hours ago, SourK said:

I also feel like there was such a contrast drawn between the rich family and the poor family / the white family and the latinx family, with the second family just getting kicked while they were down the whole time while the first family tried to get away with murder... and then nothing really came of that, and we don't even know how they are. Like, the show literally ends before Elena's murderer is found guilty.

At first, I thought they were in the police helicopter, and I was like "Why???" and then I was like, "Whoa, does her dad have his own helicopter for this helicopter chase??" Rich people really are different.

I wish the show had embraced the theme of the imbalance of justice for wealthy and not-wealthy people, or the theme of how people of color are treated as opposed to those with White privilege, or something. But mainly the storytelling here was just messy and stupid.

8 hours ago, Vella said:

Quite frankly, the only thing that genuinely bothered me was that a female character of color, the victim, was repeatedly shown on screen being beaten to death throughout the series.  Apparently, the audience needed to see her pleading, needed to see the brutal first blow, needed to see the graphic attack in its entirety.  I find it more and more disturbing when showrunners feel the pathological need to SHOW the violence.

And really, what was the point of the full frontal nudity? To show that Elena was offbeat, unashamed and whatever? And the only way to show this is to have an actress who received no more than 20 lines overall and a shell of a character strip down? The overall laziness to communicate stuff to the audience was just disappointing.

THIS.

7 hours ago, MBayGal said:

One thing did bother me.  I thought someone here said if someone is going to be a witness, they can’t be in court during the trial.  So how could they call Grace and Miguel?

It's called "The Rule" and it mandates that potential witnesses cannot be in the courtroom before they testify. The Rule has been invoked in every trial I've worked on for the last 20 years.

3 hours ago, nara said:

She went to Harvard for her PhD and perhaps he was there for his residency or a fellowship. That could put her in mid to late 40’s 

My sister got her PhD in her mid-late twenties. College, post-grad, PhD program = done. I don't think that people pursuing PhD's are typically in their 40's.

3 hours ago, qtpye said:

It almost felt like an inside joke. The woman has the same face when she finds out her husband is a murderer as I do when I lose a sock in the laundry.

But you LOVED that sock! Right?

2 hours ago, Corgi-ears said:

Grace: Put me on the stand! I'm a reliable narrator!

After all of the discussion on these threads of her being an unreliable narrator, I literally thought that I had gone into a fugue state and imagined that moment of dialogue.

2 hours ago, AryasMum said:

The prosecutor was really struggling with an American accent. Google tells me she’s Danish. 

She and the defense attorney, and Kidman, and others were all over the place with their accents. Would it really be that difficult to cast American actors for these roles?  

[Robert Lynch]

Why were they expecting a 2nd season? It looked like the show was done for good.

[susannot]

19 minutes ago, Ashforth said:

The thing is, the prosecutor would always have called Grace to testify. It wasn't a choice that the defense attorney and Grace had, and to pretend for the drama that Grace had a choice was one of many ridiculous things this show presented. 

 

Not so.  Every state has a spousal privilege exemption.

[DoubleUTeeEff]

3 hours ago, cardigirl said:

But the audience has no knowledge of that.  Give us flashbacks.  All they showed us was Jonathon being pretty charming with a young cancer patient.  That didn't look manipulative to me.  If she was ignoring signs of him being a "MONSTER" than show us past aggressions, like that time he lost control and threw a bowl at you or that time you wanted to go to Florida for vacation but he overruled and said lets to go Vegas. or some such.  The show gave us NOTHING to show us his past behaviour with his family that should have clued her in. She meets this woman at a committee meeting, and when she tells her husband about it, he joins in with joking and surmising things about the woman, and that's when the audience begins to see how he was deceiving her because later, we find out he knew this woman, and all along had been involved with her. 

But there were no accusations from Grace about "Why do you always do this to me?" or "Why do you leave me in the dark so much?"  I really think this story was so simple-minded in that it gave us a thin line of reasoning.  Everything was fine until it wasn't.  But it 17 years together, a sociopath is going to exhibit some behaviour that is going to be concerning, and they should have flashed back to it.  They didn't.  Grace didn't share that with the audience.  

And I don't remember Jonathon's mother ever saying that they surrounded him with support and love, waiting for him to show grief or remorse. I think that was added for drama's sake at trial, but was not true.

Ugh, this show. 

I'm not going to try and argue that this is a well-written show, because it absolutely was not but I do think they tried to show us that Jonathan had whatever personality disorder he has. In the first or second episode, there was a conversation between Grace and Jonathan about how they didn't have any friends. Whether that was because Jonathan was trying to isolate her or because he always ended up doing something that made it so all of their friends cut them off, we don't know, but that's a sign that something was wrong. In that conversation, Johnathan brushed it off in his bumbling English patter rather than taking Grace seriously.

I think Johnathan used his job in order to excuse a lot of his behavior. From Grace's POV, he was always running off to a patient so that made it OK in her eyes but we learned that he frequently lied to her about it. He also made up a fake dead dog story about his real dead sister so that he'd have a reason to not to get a dog. Those lies are something manipulative people use in order to keep normal, empathy feeling people in line. There's no reason from their POV that someone would make something like that up so they of course believe it. You feel like a fool for having trusted them in hindsight but how were you to know, really?

Everyone around Grace was telling her what Johnathan was really like. There was the doctor at the hospital, her father and his mother. If everyone around you is telling you that someone is not a good person, they are probably not a good person. Also, I do remember from the phone call that Johnathan's mother said they surrounded Johnathan with family after the accident.

Ultimately, you are right that there should have been some flashbacks of problematic moments between Johnathan and Grace to really flesh out their relationship. I think this show made an error in trying to make it more of a "whodunnit" than a psychological thriller.

[Irlandesa]

47 minutes ago, Ashforth said:

My sister got her PhD in her mid-late twenties. College, post-grad, PhD program = done. I don't think that people pursuing PhD's are typically in their 40's.

 

Right.  I think that's what confuses me.  For both of them to be at Harvard at the same time, allegedly as students, either or both fo them would have had to be non-traditional which isn't the impression I got.  (Non-traditional being that going to med school in the 30s and 40s is not the typical age for med students.  Not unheard of but not typical).

Speaking of other unanswered questions--we never learned who the patient Jonathan was treating that Grace kept envisioning was.  Was it just her fantasy?  Something she witnessed?  I was waiting for it to be revealed that she met him when he was treating her first kid who died--kind of like how he met Elena.

Edited November 30, 2020 by Irlandesa

[iMonrey]

Overall I enjoyed the ride, but finding out Jonathan was guilty after all did seem a bit anti-climactic. When Henry said he found the hammer right after they arrived at the beach house I was still thinking it could turn out to be Grace. 

A lot of the trial was a stretch. I can't believe the judge would have allowed a lot of the questioning of Miguel. It all seemed pretty irrelevant to the crime since it wasn't his father who was on trial. And can Grace be charged with perjury? Her 911 recording clearly contradicted her earlier testimony. The car chase tacked on at the end felt very schlocky too. 

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Either Grace is a bad psychiatrist or has been in denial for years.

Yeah, Grace did not come off well in this, at all. She's not a murderer but she's a bit of a narcissist herself. 

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Like, are we to believe that, if Grace hadn't taken the stand, the prosecution never would have played that 911 call?

Right? A lot of the trial scenes were set up to be dramatic at the expense of reality.

[nara]

1 hour ago, Ashforth said:

 

My sister got her PhD in her mid-late twenties. College, post-grad, PhD program = done. I don't think that people pursuing PhD's are typically in their 40's.

Perhaps I was’t clear. If they have been together for 17 years and met in her late 20’s while she was getting her PhD, that would put her in her mid-40’s. Since Nicole would have been 52 during filming, it’s not too, too crazy an age difference IMO. Of course, Hugh Grant is much older than her so if they want to portray him as in his 40’s that’s way off.

[Penman61]

2 hours ago, DakotaLavender said:

The story is about white rich privileged characters. We see Elena as an artist. We see Fernando as a very caring father. Elena was sexualized because she was the woman with whom Jonathan had the affair. I think she was sexualized to show why Jonathan was seduced. The Alves family had to be minor characters to keep the mystery going. 

Not every story can give equal time to all the players. Stories are not written to be fair. 

"The Latinx characters are only there to provide sexual release, anger and tragedy to the white characters." Because that is what the story is about. it would be the same if Jonathan murdered a Jewish or an Asian woman or a Greek woman. No equal time would be given to show her family. She and her family were supporting players in this plot about rich white people.  

Individual examples of stereotypical tropes can almost always be justified on individual grounds. The problem becomes clearer when you notice a pattern of depiction (e.g., minority women are hyper-sexualized, underwritten, and often brutally overkilled on screen by white men) across multiple works in the culture. This individual show's propagating this widespread stereotype is just one example of many, many shows doing so.

Edited November 30, 2020 by Penman61

[Agnes Bean]

3 hours ago, ahpny said:

This wasn’t a “legal error” in the show - as with the hearsay point - but a tactical error that an experienced trial attorney would not be expected to make. Even if Jonathan had enthusiastically encouraged her testimony (which he did not, granting a mere nod of acceptance), the lawyer should have advised against it. The mere fact that Grace volunteered should also have raised some suspicion give the “ambivalence” the lawyer already mentioned.

You know, this is making me think this would've been so much better if the defense attorney had been pretty strongly against it, but Jonathan pushed for it really hard and she relented (because ultimately it is his strategy). This would make more sense to me with the two characters.  It would make the supposedly talented defense attorney not look like such an idiot, and I could see Jonathan wanting Grace to testify for him as the ultimate sign of proof that he ~won~ and still has her on his side. As we saw at the end where he thought she was running to him rather than her son, he can't really comprehend that she could/has turned against him, so that would've been fitting.

[Aqua]

3 minutes ago, Agnes Bean said:

 As we saw at the end where he thought she was running to him rather than her son, he can't really comprehend that she could/has turned against him, so that would've been fitting.

He thought she was running for him? I didn't get that. Will have to rewatch.