Premise
Rufus Coteworth finds himself on a luxury cruise liner when a locked-room murder takes place.
My Review (so far…)
Let’s move on from the elephant or should I say Montoya in the room…
Or perhaps you prefer the Gideon in the room?
Yes, the main character from this Mystery Drama is one in the same. His fame comes from Broadway, to the big screen and the small television screens. There are other shows I’ve seen him on but I wanted to mention these two specifically because they are vastly different and vastly the same characters.
Mandy Patinkin is an exceptional actor and playing the role of Rufus Coteworth in this Hulu Original is no different.
The writers pay homage to Agatha Christie and her Hercule Poirot series while also injecting a bit of Sherlock Holmes and his genius. Rufus is all this and more in the series.
But every great detective needs a sidekick. And what I like about Imogene Scott is that she’s no Watson or Captain Hastings. On the contrary, she may have already surpassed the teacher just by growing up.
Okay, so the mystery starts with some flashbacks to Imogene as a child. She witnessed her mother being murdered in her car that exploded in front of her. Coteworth is called in to solve the case. By this time he’s pretty world renowned as the best detective ever. And Imogene’s mom happened to be friends with a pretty wealthy family who take in this little girl and pay this detective to solve the crime.
Unfortunately, he leaves the little girl shattered with no answers. This of course leads us down many rabbit holes and layers to peel back of the onion. This all happens on this massive yacht that makes the titanic seem like a child’s tugboat toy in a bath.
Imogene is like a daughter to this wealthy family and the patriarch is about to announce his retirement where he’ll pass on the reigns to his lesbian daughter. The daughter has her wife on board the yacht with her. Please excuse me at this point because I’m going to list off a bunch of people who are all on this yacht and all suspects even though I haven’t gotten to the murder victim yet.
The wife was in a terrible accident that left her a few marbles short of a full set. She’s all paranoid that someone (everyone?) is following her and bugging her room. She’s so paranoid she doesn’t allow any tech devices anywhere near her and practically stays in their cabin on the yacht the entire time. Well, except when she may or may not have killed someone.
There’s the rich family, husband and wife. Their son is there too. He’s a complete failure so the multi-billion dollar business is obviously going to the levelheaded daughter. He, on the other hand, is attempting to woo investors on his latest money making scheme. One of those investors is this loud mouth guy who gets under everyone’s skin and nerves. Ring any bells who this character might be?
If you answered, “the murder victim,” then you’d be correct! He ends up dead with a harpoon in his guy, standing upright in this room. Pretty strange way to go if you ask me.
Anywho, back to the story. So, Imogene is older now, fast forward like 15 years or so and low and behold, the detective who let her down by no solving the mystery of her mother’s murder is on the yacht. Turns out a wealthy Asian family was invited on board for a rather hush-hush business merger and Coteworth is their bodyguard of sorts?
When he sees that Imogene is on the yacht he realizes that none of this is coincidence. They were brought together intentionally by the person who killed her mother. Why? Well, there’s only been two episodes so far and eight more to go. Every Tuesday.
Are you watching the series on Hulu? If so, tell me your thoughts so far?
I’m hooked. I like the fact that the ship is intentionally set in the 50’s and the architect, who is also on board, also a suspect, and very much going to be a future hook-up with Imogene, mentions how difficult it was for him to find every single piece of the boat that would make it look and feel like it came out of the 50’s. Even down to the clothing they are all wearing. I feel like I’m in an Agatha Christie, Hercule Poirot, novel but it’s this century. I’ll be back when the series has ended with a rating on the show as a whole. It wouldn’t be fare of me to rate it now when I haven’t been given the opportunity to solve for who the murderer is.
