Death and Other Details – Season 1 Episode 1 Recap & Review

Rare

Death and Other Details Episode 1 begins with Rufus Cotesworth, a detective, being asked to speak to a young girl named Imogene. She’s currently under the care of Katherine and Lawrence Collier who also have two kids, Tripp and Anna. Rufus is going to help solve Imogene’s mother’s death. She’s the only eyewitness to her mother’s car getting blown up in the Collier’s driveway but she can’t bring herself to remember what happened.

Eighteen years later, a grown-up Imogene is on a luxurious cruise liner with the Colliers. Imogene has been working for Anna as an assistant. Everyone watches when a rich man mistreats a waitress who spills a drink on his watch. Imogene storms up to him and gives him a piece of her mind.

He retorts that she’s just a hypocrite herself. She leaves but steals his room’s key card on the way. Later in the night, she sneaks in his room and breaks the watch he was so worried about. In the morning, a cleaning woman finds the man murdered in his room.

The scene shifts to two days in the past when everybody is boarding the boat, a cruise organised by the Collier family. Teddy Goh, the staff manager, explains who everyone is to her employees. The murdered man is Keith Trubitsky, brought on board by Tripp. Anna is the Collier’s daughter who is soon expected to take over the company as CEO.

There’s her wife Leila, who is a bit paranoid. Her brother Tripp is an entrepreneur who has seen more failure than success. There is Alexandra Hochenberg, a governor enjoying a vacation. The Collier’s lawyer, Llewellyn Mathers. A priest named Father Toby and his son.

There’s also the Chun family who are expected to announce an investment in the Collier’s company. They came along with Rufus Cotesworth, who is their security detail. After these introductions are done, Teddy speaks to the waitress who will later spill the drink on Trubitsky and we realise she is Winnie, Teddy’s younger sister.

Imogene sees Rufus on board and tells Teddy to let his client know that he’s a fraud. Meanwhile, Tripp hounds Keith about a payment he was supposed to make him. In another room, Anna’s wife Leila seems paranoid about her safety but Anna encourages her to come to the party that night. Imogene comes to their room and tells Anna that Rufus is here. She, in turn, discusses the situation with her parents who worry about the deal with the Chuns.

Back in the past, Rufus tried to get young Imogene to tell him what happened. She was in the car with her mother outside the Collier’s house and went back to return a toy of Anna’s. When she did, the car blew up.  

Leila leaves her room and sees Keith entering his across the passage. She confronts him about spying on her and Anna. Unable to go to the party, she returns to her room.

Imogene meets a man named Sunil, who is the owner of the boat. Anna expects her father to announce her as his successor during the party but he doesn’t. Imogene then hears Rufus boasting about his skills and walks over to challenge him. When he doesn’t recognise her, she throws her drink at him.

A security man named Jules pulls Imogene out of the room but she convinces him to take her to another part of the ship where a party is raging. They drink and end up having sex in the security room.

From here, things flash forward to the present where Keith Trubitsky’s body has been found. Anna hears about it since she’s still in Jules’ room in the morning. She rushes to the security room to deal with the footage of her going inside Trubitsky’s room but finds that it has already been erased.

Teddy informs the staff what happened. She says Rufus will conduct an investigation but the guests will not be informed yet. Imogene comes back to her room where Rufus is waiting for her. He remembers her and he’s also the one who deleted the footage. He also knows that Imogene has been skimming from the Collier’s firm and Anna may not be too keen to support her if she finds out. He offers to help her out of the situation.

In the past, Rufus shows young Imogene that he writes his notes in code but she’s able to decipher the code’s primer very quickly. At present, Imogene and Rufus go to Keith’s room and they conclude the housekeeper who found him must know something. But the housekeeper speaks in Cantonese and also turns out to be Teddy’s aunt, leading to Teddy being very protective of her.

Imogene then brings up the odd coincidence of a murder taking place when she and Rufus cross paths, almost twenty years since they last met. Rufus agrees that something bigger is going on. He then helps Imogene remember what she saw in the room and she recalls a cleaning cart. Which wasn’t there in the morning. So this was how the killer got in and out of the locked room with no one noticing.  

Later, Imogene hides inside a cart and surmises where the killer could have gotten out. She then realises that Rufus knew this all along and becomes angry at him. Things from their past come up and she blames Rufus for giving up on her mother’s case. He insists that isn’t what happened but Imogene leaves anyway.

In the past, after being on the case for three months all Rufus has is a fake name — Viktor Sams. The name was linked to the parts of the explosive that killed Imogene’s mother. Still, he promises Imogene that he’ll see the case through.

On the ship, Imogene looks for Jules but comes across Sunil instead. He takes Imogene out for a ride on a small boat and talks about how built his own ship, and found a way to leave a mark on the world.

On deck, Rufus has all the guests brought together. Lawrence Collier refuses to show up since he believes Rufus is a fake. Simultaneously, Imogene remembers the day Rufus left the Collier’s house, having given up on her mother’s case. The man who picked Rufus up in his car was none other than Keith Trubitsky. He was Rufus’s assistant. This means that Rufus came on the ship for a case at the end of Death and Other Details Episode 1.

The Episode Review

Much like other recent murder mystery films like Knives Out, Death and Other Details has the exact visual and narrative style of an Agatha Christie mystery. There is a specific set of suspects, each character with quirks and secrets. The cinematography and the editing highlight the character’s interactions and movements in the same speedy manner, emphasizing the feeling of being dropped inside a puzzle.

However, there are several differences too. The shifts in timeline are a bit sudden and there are sharp jump-cuts that make the effect even more jarring.

As a whole, Death and Other Details Episode 1 is a decent start to a murder mystery, with an ensemble of interesting characters. Rufus comes across as the quintessential quirky genius with Mandy Patinkin doing a great portrayal of the detective. Imogene does not seem as layered as him but there is time to contest that yet.