Roadkill and The Undoing: Hugh Did It Best?

If you're looking for your next TV binge, two shows have just concluded their runs on American TV and are now available to watch in one delightful gulp. Starring my two favorite British Hughs (sorry Hugh Dancy, Hugh Bonneville, Hugh Dennis, Hugh Skinner and the rest), they both feature excellent performances, twisty storylines, and cliffhangers galore. Get your couch ready, you're not going to be leaving it for a while.

The Undoing: Over the past six Sundays, I have been glued to HBO, watching The Undoing slowly unfold its mystery. It was as close as I could get to a "watercooler" show in the Covid age - I wasn't in the office every Monday, but I sure could expect a flurry of texts from various friends and colleagues to share our latest theories about who the killer might be. The show stars Nicole Kidman as Grace Fraser, a therapist in New York. She's married to Jonathan (Hugh Grant), a seemingly charming and warm pediatric oncologist, they have a precocious son, Henry (Noah Jupe), and they are living a rich, comfortable Upper East Side life. Of course, by the end of the first episode, that all comes crashing down when one of the mothers at Henry's school is found brutally murdered, and the chief suspect is Jonathan.

Based on Jean Hanff Korelitz's novel (which I now need to read), and adapted by David E. Kelley, the six episodes are filled with revelations, red herrings, and sexy drama. Hugh Grant is perfectly cast - at first, I was surprised that he was such a wonderful husband, given that the latter stage of his career has been given over to playing more villainous roles. I was therefore vindicated at the end of the first episode when he became the prime suspect. But then the series showed us how many other suspects there could be, and by the end, it was like, who DIDN'T kill this woman? Through it all, Grant's performance was my absolute favorite, delivering every conceivable human emotion under the sun and reminding us that there is so much more to this charming bastard than meets the eye. 

The rest of the actors are fine, but my God let's talk about the accents. Almost every actor on this show is a foreigner, but they are all playing New Yorkers, except for Grant who blessedly gets to be British. Nicole Kidman's American accent veers into Australian every time she has to say the word "No." Donald Sutherland's pronunciation of "monster" strikes me as being impossibly Canadian. Noma Dumezweni is supposed to be a tough New York lawyer but her mid-Atlantic accent is mostly veering off to the British side of the Atlantic. The only one who really pulls it off is Noah Jupe, who I had completely forgotten was British. As usual, Gen Z for the win. Director Susanne Bier is Danish, so clearly she had no idea her cast sounded like the United Nations, but oh well. The screenplay, Hugh Grant, and ogling those swanky penthouses provided ample distraction.

The Undoing isn't perfect, and some felt the ending was a bit of a letdown. But given how much entertainment it provided up until that ending, it has my hearty endorsement. Murder mystery? Good. Set in New York? Good. Starring Hugh Grant as a complicated douchebag? Gooooooood.

Roadkill: Written by David Hare and starring Hugh Laurie, Roadkill's got pedigree. And while it is a bit soapy and absurd, there's nothing more relevant to our current times than a story about a Conservative British MP who claims to be a libertarian and harbors grandiose ambitions. Like Hugh Grant, Hugh Laurie is one of the most charming actors on the planet. You always want to root for this man, but his latter career has consisted of him being decidedly more curmudgeonly and leaving behind his comedy roots to foray into decidedly dark dramas. Over the course of four episodes, I found myself having no idea who I was supposed to root for because I couldn't figure this character out. Is he a hero? Is he a villain? He's a politician, so mostly the latter.

Filmed on location in London and Hastings, this show is your quintessential British political drama. Everyone's squelching about in the never-ending rain and plotting all manner of shenanigans at 10 Downing Street, and the Prime Minister, played by Helen McCrory, is a devious woman who is terribly put-upon and more concerned with fundraising than policy-making. Over the course of 2020, I have gradually come to realize that the world of British politics might be just as terrible as the American world - their Conservative Party is of course much more aligned with centrist Democrats than our GOP, but both parties still seem consumed by the same problems of incompetence and bravado that have plagued us. Roadkill offers up a delicious view into the dysfunction and how even when British MPs purport to be open and transparent in all their dealings, there's always some hidden agenda and blatant political maneuvering. Sidenote: the theme tune and soundtrack by Harry Escott are exquisite - while the opening credits are set to an ominous and foreboding version of the theme, throughout the show you will get other versions, some fast and frenzied, some light and comic, and it's a truly wonderful use of music to quickly convey tone. 

It's only four episodes so Roadkill is a quick and dirty binge that will satisfy your need for a dose of the BBC. There are many plots and sideplots, some more tropey than others (the alcoholic female journalist is always a snooze), but that central Hugh Laurie performance is riveting and commands your attention throughout. If you're sick of the American elections, distract yourself with the notion that the UK sucks too, and indulge in some schadenfreude. What could be more 2020 than that?