A Murder at the End of the World – Episode 2 “The Silver Doe” Recap & Review

The Silver Doe

Episode 2 of A Murder at the End of the World begins with Darby running to the Fjlot Hotel and asking for help. She immediately runs to Sian’s room, as she is a doctor. This scene is intercut with visuals of Darby as a kid. She used to accompany her father to gruesome murder sites. Darby would be observant and help her father in assessing the anatomy of the body. Sian performs CPR; the EMT also arrives and tries their best…but Bill is beyond saving. 

After he is pronounced dead, Ronson, Lee, and some of the others – not the guests – also arrive at the room. Ronson tasks Todd and his wife, Eva, to look after Darby in this distressing moment. Darby is given sleeping pills by her. Although she is sceptical at first, Darby decides it is indeed the best way to “heal” at the moment. We go into the past when Darby met her “Silver Doe,” the Jane Doe who had nothing but bones left of her body – and a pair of silver earrings.

If she was indeed young, Darby was convinced the earnings were planted. She focused quite a bit on the earrings worn by high school girls the next day. It is a quite intriguing as none of them wore earrings remotely anything to what Darby had found. Her father wants Darby to drop her proposed investigation since they haven’t found any ID on the body. At the time, such cases were shut for the want of the name of the victim. But Darby decided not to turn in the earrings to evidence and kept them for herself. 

When she goes back home. Darby posts on a sleuth community forum on the intent called The Doe Files. She even posts the photos and is messaged by a user. That person turns out to be Bill…and that’s how they met. They start discussing the case and bond over their shared passion for true crime and computers. The next day, at breakfast, Ronson informs the guests about Bill. They are shocked and Ziba is one of the few who ask the tech billionaire to arrange for their travel back home.

However, Ronson believes they must soldier on, comparing their situation to everyday life. Ronson believes the cause of death to be overdosing, although Darby takes strong offence to this. Bill had become sober four years ago but Sian correctly points out that Darby hadn’t talked to him for years…maybe he had fallen back into his bad habits? Darby is miffed that the room doesn’t have more compassion for Bill’s death.

She runs into the common washroom and gets an idea to distract Marius, the hotel manager, from the front desk. Darby gets access to Bill’s room and goes to investigate. She checks for signs of Bill injecting himself but finds none. With Ray’s help, she determines that someone must have injected Bill and made it look like a murder. When Darby checks for prints on the syringe, she once again finds nothing. However, she is in for a surprise. Lee enters the room in a fit and starts going through Bill’s things. Darby hides in the washroom and is almost caught. 

However, Lee is late for Martin’s presentation and Darby soon follows her out. Martin announces his new film made with the help of Ray. This attracts resentment from Ziba, who isn’t happy that technology is used to produce art. Martin presses on with his idea that AI is an exceptional tool for artists due to its knowledge. As the film starts playing, Darby confronts Lee, who doesn’t have convincing answers. Still, it is early to classify her as a suspect. 

Lee points Darby toward her next step – figuring out a way to hack the camera feed using one of them rooted in the lobby. She will need to use Lee’s old Mattel trick, as she did in the book, to get the SSID and password. As Darby pieces together her next moves in the present, we go back to Bill and her investigation. They kept hitting dead ends when Bill suggested they look for a survivor’s tale. If they can find a woman who fought him off and reported it to the police, they might have a better chance of catching the killer. 

That is when they decide to hack federal databases. After a while, Darby finally gets her lucky break. They find a report filed by Marta Diaz, where she mentions silver earrings and having survived the killer’s attack. In one instance of Bill’s expression of feelings for her, he leads Darby to the railway tracks that go through the city. Using Morse Code and the lights, he spells out “Happy Birthday, Darby,” which woos her. Next, we see their first date together at Ray’s Tavern…a moment that instantly confirms “love at first sight.” 

In the present, Darby uses the circuit board of a smart LED bulb from the hallway to tap into the hotel administration’s camera records. She starts to go through the feed of Bill’s door camera. Ziba and David are the two guests seen in the footage. However, the actual killer wore a mask to protect their identity. 

The Episode Killer

I think the jury’s still out on whether the murder within a murder narrative works…but Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij are intelligent operators. They showed supreme guile and ability in Episode 2 to hint that this framework can be managed. By turning the investigation from the past into Darby and Bill’s great love affair, they channelled a sweetness in the otherwise cold, indifferent universe. 

It is something for us to hold on to as Darby might potentially work with Lee to piece together the puzzle of Bill’s murder. My only worry at this point is around the investigation and if it gets bogged down and oversimplified. We still have a lot to unpack in both timelines…however, execution will be key.