From the Netflix docuseries, “Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal,” to HBO’s “Low Country: The Murdaugh Dynasty,” a lot has already been said on screen regarding the well-known South Carolina family whose legacy came crumbling down amid murder, theft and addiction. Now, Hulu is giving the infamous saga the Hollywood treatment in a fictionalized miniseries, “Murdaugh: Death in the Family.” Created by Michael D. Fuller and Erin Lee Carr, the show is an engaging portrait of greed, cruelty and arrogance. The eight-episode series encapsulates what is so compelling about this particular family and why, ultimately, they self-immolated.
Based on the “Murdaugh Murders Podcast” by Mandy Matney (portrayed in the series by Brittany Snow), the series opens on the evening of June 7, 2021, at the Murdaugh estate, Moselle, in Hampton, South Carolina. Night has fallen, and as the camera pans, the audience sees blood dripping and pooling around dog kennels. A distraught Alex Murdaugh (played by Jason Clarke) is seen surveying the grounds. He spots the bodies of his wife, Maggie (Patricia Arquette) and son Paul (Johnny Berchtold), before calling the police. The scene is shocking. But it quickly becomes apparent that the Murdaughs were always going to implode.
The show then dials back to February 22, 2019, another notorious day in the Murdaugh family dynasty. The sun looms on Moselle as viewers find Maggie and the family’s beloved and long-time housekeeper, Gloria (Kathleen Wilhoite), preparing a soiree in celebration of Alex’s father, Randolph (Gerald McRaney). Alex is present as well, but beneath his gregarious personality is deep insecurity and pressure centering on his position at his law firm, his increasingly ballooning debt and a debilitating pain-pill addiction. Meanwhile, after yet another night out binge drinking, 19-year-old Paul arrives home with a large tree branch stuck in the wheel of his car. His own personal failures and limitations are further exacerbated when his older brother, Buster (Will Harrison), the golden child, announces his acceptance to law school.
The intense coddling and dysfunction within the family come to a head at the end of the show opener when a drunken Paul crashes a boat, killing his best friend’s girlfriend, Mallory (Madeline Popovich), and injuring all on board. It is a horrific crime, one that Alex and Randolph immediately begin attempting to sweep under the rug when they arrive at the hospital. Additionally, it marks the first crack in the Murdaugh facade, which would eventually lead to its complete disintegration in the years to come.
With the relentless coverage of the Murdaughs on national news, and certainly amid the plethora of podcasts and docuseries, many of the details about the family and Maggie and Paul’s murderers have long been public knowledge. However, Fuller, Carr and the actors are skilled in truly immersing the audience within the Murdaugh ecocosystem, highlighting the men in particular, who used their privilege and wealth to gain dominance over this South Carolina community for generations. It’s not until tenacious local reporter Mandy Matney begins uncovering the truth about the Murdaughs that it becomes clear that their buried skeletons go back decades.
From patriarch Randolph onward, the Murdaughs are not a sympathetic group. They dominate their Hampton community using coercive control cloaked in a thin veil of charm to shield themselves and prey on others. The show cleverly focuses inward. Although Maggie and Paul aren’t inherently sympathetic characters, Arquette is exceptional as always, portraying a woman of a certain age who finds herself trapped in a life she thought she wanted, with no other way out except to lean further into servitude and passivity. Though she certainly isn’t faultless in her contributions to her sons’ delinquencies, she is a victim of misogyny and archaic patriarchal ideals.
“Murdaugh: Death in the Family” highlights how Alex’s obsession with authority, Maggie’s constant coddling and their joint fixation on appearance warp their marriage and personalities, which in turn distort Paul and Buster’s sense of morality. This is best seen in Episode 3, “Kokomo,” when, following Paul’s indictment for Mallory’s death, Alex whisks the family away on a lavish Caribbean vacation. It’s an obscene display of recklessness.
Weaving in various threads and challenges Alex faced, including a lawsuit from Mallory’s parents, the revelation that he’d been stealing from his underprivileged clients, his substance abuse issues, and Maggie’s discontent in their marriage, the series showcases how these all chipped away at the immunity he’d built up and wielded boldly over a lifetime.
“Murdaugh: Death in the Family” is a profoundly compelling character study of a man so deeply rooted in his own lure, anchored by legal, political and financial influence, that the idea of being swallowed by his own monstrosity was foreign to him. Still, as the show illustrates, no matter how long it takes, we often must answer for our transgressions. You pay on the front end or the back, but the bill will always come due.
The first three episodes of “Murdaugh: Death in the Family” premiere Oct. 15 on Hulu with new episodes dropping weekly on Thursdays.
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