There have been three telling’s in a documentary focusing on the Murdaugh family and the scandal surrounding their family, so if you’ve never seen any of these documentaries or have heard of the story about what happened to this family from the south than Murdahugh: Death in the Family will prove to be an interesting watch, but having to see it weekly may lose captivating intrigue here and may prove to be more detrimental than helpful for this limited series. The series is created by Michael D Fuller and Erin Lee Carr, it’s 8 episodes long and it captures everything the docuseries have touched on with more updates as it is more recent. About half way through the series it does inform us that some creative liberties were taken – but the facts remain the same thankfully, so lets dive into Murdaugh.
Episode one opens with lawyer, Alex Murdaugh (Jason Clarke) finding his wife Maggie (Patricia Arquette) and son Paul (Johnny Berchtold) murdered outside their house. The series then goes 3 years in the past, before this tragedy occurs and focuses on the family and what happens in the family and so forth. It focuses on Paul’s wild night which results in a tragic boating accident, and the true power of the Murdaugh name as Alex and Maggie try to bury the evidence against Paul and get his name cleared. This is the focal point for a few episodes, and while this is stretched into 8 episodes its far from the ‘interesting’ part of the story. Where it does get interesting is the power of the Alex Murdaugh and the murders of Maggie and Paul, but that enters spoiler territory.
The biggest issue here is if you’re a true crime fan, you’ve probably seen the documentary – Murdaugh: A Southern Scandal which shows everything that happens, without fictionalization and unveils how truly dark and horrifying this story truly is. Murdaugh: Death in the Family spends too much time on other things, before getting into the nitty gritty and already when they touch upon the nitty gritty (roughly episode 5) it fails to captivate in the same way. It touches upon, then drowns it out by not focusing on it. This is the problem with fictionalizing and Hollywoodizing true crime stories sometimes, if you don’t lean into the dark, terrifying, and horror then it falls onto the actors to make something for the audience to get engaged in and be horrified by. Thankfully, there are two wonderfully talented actors involved in the project – but they are the highlights that are few and far in between.
Jason Clarke is truly revolting and terrifying as Alex Murdagh, he understands the terror and power this man possessed and nailed his performance of horror perfectly. Patricia Arquette being the motherly and wifely figure here is great as well, she’s excellently cast in this role and brings a care and terror to the project as well as the evil does not lay solely inside of her. However, her performance is not strong enough to juxtapose the evil and horrors that Clarke brings to the forefront.
Overall, Murdaugh: Death in the Family works if you don’t know the story of the Murdaugh’s and haven’t seen any of the previous projects regarding them. If you know the story already, and have seen it, you know how haunting it is and this dramatization of it does no favours unfortunately as the audience is waiting for the next step in the journey we are taken on. Clarke and Arquette deliver great performances, but not enough to bring something new to familiar audiences and not enough to keep a familiar audience fully engaged with a story that’s been told multiple times.
