MUX
Naomi Fry: This is Critics At Large, a podcast from The New Yorker. I'm Nomi Fry. 
Vinson Cunningham: I'm Vincent Cunningham. 
Alex Schwartz: And I'm Alex Schwartz. Each week on this show, we make sense of what's happening in the culture right now and how we got here. Hello, my friend. Hey. Hello. What's up? Hello. What a warm cozy December day to discuss murder.
So right now the big flashy new entry into the Knives Out series is out in theaters. The first Knives Out came out in 2019. I remember it well. I went with my parents and my husband to see it. That's so cozy. It was cozy. That movie was a huge success. It was one of those movies that everyone was talking about, and then Netflix wound up paying.
A truly incredible $465 million for the next two knives at movies. So that's Glass Onion, which came out in 2022. And the film that's now in theaters, which is called Wake Up Dead Man, 
CLIP: you are the only one on stage with the Monsignor at the time of his killing. You are the only one at that church who hated his guts The spirit really moved him today, huh? So tell me. What the hell happened? 
Alex Schwartz: So once again, there's a bit of a seasonal excitement mm-hmm. Around this movie. And it did get me thinking about murder mysteries because this format has been going strong for a little while, and I do feel like it's hitting an absolute fever.
Pitch. I mean, do you guys have the same feeling? I do. When you just turn on a streamer of choice and poke around in there to see what's on. And it's just like murder mystery, murder mystery, murder, mystery, murder mystery. 
Naomi Fry: Yeah. It's like everything, um, starts with a body nowadays. 
Vinson Cunningham: It's true. 
Naomi Fry: This trope is just like everywhere.
Whether it's like. Big little eyes mm-hmm. To, um, these knives out movies. Maybe the White Lotus that's like the White Lotus pretty in my mind. Yeah. The White Lotus. It's everywhere. It's everywhere. White 
Vinson Cunningham: hit. Yeah. Yeah. 
Alex Schwartz: Vincent, what do you, have you 
Vinson Cunningham: noticed this too? Absolutely. It's, it's, I think White Lotus is the big, the big one.
Big Little Lies. The whole Nicole Kidman is kind of a, a big presence in the, in this new wave of the perfect couple being a, a recent example. Mm-hmm. It's, it's, it's happening. 
Alex Schwartz: Yeah, there's a whole sub genre of this that's just Nicole Kidman dealing with murder. 
Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm. Dealing with murder. 
Alex Schwartz: But today we're going to look at audiences seemingly insatiable hunger for murder mysteries. It's not a new thing, but it is Having a moment. We will talk about the new knives out. I want us also to look back at the origin specifically of the whodunit format, back to people like the Queen Agatha Christie. And we're also looking at how this new era of mysteries. Is updating that classic genre. We hear a lot these days about cozy murder mysteries.
I recently heard the term millennial who done it, and yes, people will put millennial on the front of anything, but we're gonna talk about what that could mean. So that is my question. Are these new mysteries different from their predecessors? I do wanna know, but one thing is for sure the whodunit formula continues to hit.
So that's today on critics at large. Why can't we get enough of murder?
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So before we get started, the world of mysteries is vast, my friends, it is large, and I do think we should give ourselves some parameters here so that we don't completely lose our minds. Tell me what exactly is the mystery format we're talking about today? What are, what are some aspects that we're here to discuss?
Vinson Cunningham: Well, we're talking about the kind of murder mystery where there is a sort of cloistered quality to the cast of characters. There are only a few people who could have done it and um. Each of the characters in this kind of thing stands to gain or seemingly stands to gain something from the death of the person who has died. and therefore, um, the, this genre kind of. The way it moves, I think, is by swinging the audience's suspicion from one character to another building, sort of structures of suspicion, letting them kind of rise to a crest and then making it kind of switch off onto, onto somebody else.
Alex Schwartz: Mm-hmm. Red herring's abound. Red, red. Anything to add? Yeah. 
Naomi Fry: Red herring's abound. There's usually, there's often a character of a detective, a sharp. Uh, you know, intellectual character who treats this, um, very human drama or even tragedy as a puzzle to be solved. 
Alex Schwartz: Yeah, I think the charismatic detective is a key. Um, if we're talking about whodunits, I think, I think a real aspect of the whodunit is that it encourages the reader or the viewer or the listener, perhaps you're an audio whodunit fan.
Mm-hmm. To try to play along and to try to see if you can put together clues 
Vinson Cunningham: mm-hmm. 
Alex Schwartz: That the creator is leaving for you, along with the inevitable red herrings. I mean, I'm thinking of some very classic detective figures like Hercule Poirot. From the world of Agatha Christie. Mm-hmm. Who has most recently been incarnated by Kenneth Brena in a series of movies.
And as he says in the movies, whenever people try to call him Hercules, it is Wow. He's a Belgian perfectionist with a very showy mustache. Um, also Miss Marble, kind of the opposite in the Agatha Christie world, just to. Ordinary English woman, not a detective at all, but who has some very perceptive powers mm-hmm.
That leads her to solve a slew of crimes that always seem to be popping up. Yeah. So is this a genre that either of you has historically been into? Are you a who done it fan? Do you not touch the stuff? 
Vinson Cunningham: I like it tele visually and maybe in in cinema as well, it seems to me a more of a collaborative medium, medium.
In terms of viewership, like it's the only kind of movie that I really am fine with people talking over that I'm around because they're like, look at him, look at that. What? You know, it becomes a way of watching everybody's kind of talking, being like, this guy did that, da, da, da. Um, and also just that kind of suspense doesn't accord with what I'm interested in from post fiction. I don't know why. 
Mm. Uh, 
but interestingly, yeah, I like these kinds of TV shows, but. Uh, there, there are lots of the classics of the genre in terms of novels that I just have not ever desired to, to jump into, but maybe today will change my mind.
Alex Schwartz: I kind of wanna send you a little packet. I'm 
Vinson Cunningham: down 
Alex Schwartz: like a little Christmas packet. 
Vinson Cunningham: I'm down, and your 
Alex Schwartz: birthday is coming up. 
Vinson Cunningham: It is. That's true. Yeah. There's the season. Here's an idea. 
Naomi Fry: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Here's an idea. Much like Jesus, 
Vinson Cunningham: much like, you know, 
Naomi Fry: Vincent was born and, and who did that in the month of December.
Vinson Cunningham: And 
Naomi Fry: who did that? Who did that? Yeah. Who did do that? 
Vinson Cunningham: Who, who done that? 
Naomi Fry: Who done it? 
Vinson Cunningham: Noby? Are you in, is this like a part of your I'm 
Naomi Fry: more of a noir girly. Sorry. I hate when people say girly, but, which I like more than the who done it because what interests me about crime is more the texture and the psychology rather than like, Hmm.
The candle stick has like, you know, the thump pri thump print an Aaron thumbprint and That's right. It could it be the secretary who, you know, I'm more interested in like. What is wrong with these people? Yeah. What is wrong with this person? What is wrong with a society that has made them corrupt or made them desperate, or whatever is the case?
Yeah. 
Alex Schwartz: Lemme just defend the, who done it for one second? No, do no do thing. No, I'm not, you know. I just wanna defend the whodunit. I think these are good points. They're strong points. Thank you. They're robust points. Well, thank you. Thank you. Well, of course I must commend it, but I do think that some whodunits may give you a little bit of what you like.
Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm. 
Alex Schwartz: If you wanna look at humankind's, brutishness and their nastiness. 
Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm. 
Alex Schwartz: just take a look. At a book like, and then there were none by Agatha Christie.
Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm. 
Alex Schwartz: Once upon a time called 10 Little Indians. Thank God that's over. Oh my God. Let's just, it's done. We don't like that. We're moving on from that. Anyway, It's a bunch of really kind of not great people who are gathered together on an island and at the very start.
They're told by a record, played by a ghostly hand, not a ghostly, that each of them has committed a murder in the past and now they're all gonna be killed. 
Naomi Fry: No. And 
Alex Schwartz: one by one. So they are, and each of them has, I just, it just makes me think of what you were saying, Naomi, because each of them has.
Committed a crime. Some of them feel bad about it. 
Naomi Fry: Yeah, 
Alex Schwartz: most of them don't. This is very like, I know what you did last summer. Totally code coded. Totally. Or is I know what you did last summer and then the reun coded. Ah. I think you'll find there's the rub there. Well, I think you'll find that this is one big old archetype.
So with that, let's get us to the big splashy new entry into the Who Done it genre. We're talking about Wake Up Dead Man. It's the third installment in the Knives Out series. I think it's also being called at this point, the Benoit Blanc Mysteries. 'cause the Blanca detective, the Blanca hers, it's out in select theaters now.
And if it's not you. Don't panic and don't kill someone. You can stream it on Netflix. Thank God. Soon, December 12th. It's coming right up. It's directed by Ryan Johnson, who also directed the first two Knives Out, created them and it stars Daniel Craig, alongside a star studded ensemble cast. Okay. I think we should say it's led by Josh O'Connor.
'cause he's basically as important as Daniel Craig in this one. Mm-hmm. All right. Now that we've said that Whom's among us wants to give me, give me a little brief summary and don't reveal. 
Vinson Cunningham: I won't. 
Alex Schwartz: Okay. Go for it, Vincent. 
Vinson Cunningham: It takes place in, uh, a ruined misbegotten. Half abandoned, uh, Catholic parish in upstate New York.
A priest having gotten into a physical scuffle with another priest, uh, because he is a former boxer who had a sort of ruinous thing happen to him during his boxing career. Now he's a priest. This is Josh O'Connor. Um, now he's come to be this, the associate priest in this parish, which is run in authoritarian fashion by.
This Monsignor, who, uh, gives every Sunday sort of fascistic, right wing sermons, so nasty in their tone and content that new people that come to the parish always just like, get up. And walk out. Um, and so, uh, this fell Monsignor Wicks, uh, played by Josh Brolin. He's lording over a very small flock of parishioners.
The sort of remnant who as a badge of pride really stick around even through this person's crazy mania. It's a total cult of personality. This wretch of a person in the middle of a mass after giving, uh, his homily. Is stabbed. We don't know by who. We don't even know how it's possible it's a small room.
Um, and of course, Josh O'Connor, who hates and has expressed by now his hate for this priest and his methods and his sort of, uh, perversion of the gospel or whatever is the chief suspect enter Benoit Blanc. 
CLIP: Who are you? Uh, I, I probably should have led with this. My name is Benoit Blanc. I'm a detective.
I've taken an interest in the murder of Jefferson Wicks. 
You're a detective, so you're with the police? No, no. I work in a private capacity. Everyone thinks I did it. I didn't do it, but in my heart, maybe I didn't. And the way it happened was some kind of miracle, and I don't know. I'm lost. I don't know.
Would you allow me to help you?
What your lips are, correct with dehydration. You haven't slept all night. You spin it outta doors by the STA of your pant legs on your knees in prayer. What I see is not a guilty man in torment, but an innocent man tormented by guilt. Let me help you how this was dressed as a miracle. It's just a murder.
And I saw mother, 
Naomi Fry: I do the declare, 
Vinson Cunningham: ah, do the declare 
Naomi Fry: or something, et cetera. Yeah, sorry. 
Vinson Cunningham: Um, and then, yeah, and then we're off to the races. We find out, you know, reason after reason after reason that each parishioner has, you know, might have reasons to have a, an aught with him, and then it's a fucking gallop to the finish.
Alex Schwartz: Oh yeah. It's a gallop. It's a gallop. It's a bit of a gallop. Um, I mean, is it a gallop though? Well, is it a gallop? So, so let's, let's, that's a question. Let's, well, let's get into it. Was it a gallop for you, Nomi? Was it, was it more of a slog? Was it somewhere in between? 
Naomi Fry: So, somewhere in between. I would say I really love the first knives out.
Uh, when it came out in 2019, I remember being surprised by it because it seemed, um, at that point, at least kind of an old fashioned. Genre though of, of course, updated What I liked about the first iteration and what is now this series was that it was quite a economical, like it was, it really was kind of like.
The classic, like there's a home and there are these several characters, you know, each of them really did have a reason to kill this patriarch, and it really was unclear who had done it, but the solution to the puzzle. It was elegant. I, I remember it was elegant and I, I'll repeat economical. Mm-hmm. I don't know.
It just, everything fe it was kind of like fit a beautiful puzzle box. Yeah. You know, and with this one, I, I, it had a bunch of things to, to recommend it. I think Josh O'Connor is great. I, um, I like the character of Benoit Blanc. You know, I, I think he's a fun character. I think it's, it does give me a kind of like.
Cozy feeling. And I do like that in this day and age, we have these characters we return to that we can kind of, um, depend on to be a voice of reason. 
Alex Schwartz: Would you say that you see Beit Blanc as a strong leader, the kind who you're always seeking? Oh my God, yes. I do think that, that if you need a strong leader, Benoit Blanc could be your guy.
I might, 
Vinson Cunningham: this movie's kind of about strong leaders. 
Naomi Fry: It is. Totally, totally. And it is, and I did enjoy, so I, I, I did enjoy. The ultimate takeaway, which I would say we have these two, well, we have several potential strong leaders. We have the bad, strong leader, which as you said, you know, it's Monsignor Wicks who's like a complete madman and like a bad person.
Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. 
Naomi Fry: We have the Man of the Good Man of God, which is the Josh O'Connor, you know, father character. 
Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm. 
Naomi Fry: We have the pure intellect of Benoit Blanc, who's another contender to the Strong leader. And so I, I, I, you know, I did enjoy. That things were put to write. I do enjoy that. Mm-hmm. I do enjoy that. I did feel like, again, I'm returning to the term economical.
It wasn't as satisfyingly economical as the first, uh, installment. It was two and a half hours of kind of like both too fancy with the plot and not. Finally drawn enough with the characters I mean, props, I think it's one of the hardest things to do, probably in a kind of who done it mystery to make it kind of like snappy 
Vinson Cunningham: to 
Alex Schwartz: make the plot all work.
To make the plot all work. I'll just, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll say it if you don't want to. It could have been two hours. Get it down. Get it down. Ryan, I'm sorry. Yeah, I usually don't let that, it would've gotta get down. 
Vinson Cunningham: Nope. But I agree. This case, I 
Naomi Fry: mean, it was just, it just, which is why I asked about the Gallup or the trot or whatever you said it.
I, I, I could have used less complicated tap dancing with a plot. 
Vinson Cunningham: well, I, it, Ryan Johnson has, has said that this was like maybe one of his hardest ones to put together.
Naomi Fry: Yeah. 
Vinson Cunningham: Bing his head against the wall trying to figure out how, yeah. It works, as he said. 
Naomi Fry: And partly I think, and we should know this, this is a, a, a, as it is actually explained in the movie. In a kind of meta textual way. This is according to Benoit Blanc, and I think this seems true, the hardest type of mystery to solve because it's a locked room mystery, right?
Mm-hmm. Monsignor Wicks goes off into the, everybody sees him go off into the side room, 
Vinson Cunningham: right? 
Naomi Fry: Nobody goes into that room. Suddenly there's a clunk, and next thing we know, the man is dead. But who could have killed him? 
Vinson Cunningham: Who could have done it because 
Naomi Fry: he was alone in that tiny room. 
Vinson Cunningham: And this is what Benoit Blanc says.
He is like, it's like, it's impossible, you know? Like there's, yeah. And, and, and partially because of the, the religious themes of the movie, um, a certain kind of blind faith. Um, this may be part of the structure of the film, which where it's like, here is a, here is a crime that's beyond the rational. And of course his whole worldview depends on.
We can use reason to, yes. To solve problems. 
Alex Schwartz: Yes. 
Vinson Cunningham: It sort of throws a new kind of wrench into the, into the scenario. 
Alex Schwartz: So what, so what were your feelings about the movie Vincent, or thoughts since we're in the realm of reason? 
Vinson Cunningham: Well, you know, I enjoyed, listen, I, I'm gonna like anything or like. Experiencing anything with like, sort of like this ecclesial backdrop.
I, it, it, uh, I 
Naomi Fry: was thinking of you when I was watching. Yeah. I was like, oh, Vincent will probably understand this on that level way more than, 
Vinson Cunningham: yeah. Than me. I like, I like that about it. Um, and interestingly, you know, setting it in America is such a strange thing for this kind of film because, um. The sort of social types, the class types, and of course like the, the priest even as a sort of representative, as a of, of a rival kingdom of sorts, you know, um, seems to me super European.
I was, I was looking hunting down this quote as I was reading it. Um, Henry James and his book about Nathaniel Hawthorne was talking about the difficulties of writing as an American. 
Hmm. Um, 
and one of the things he says, right, is that, um. Uh, here's the things that we don't have that America doesn't have these European sort of mainstays that make fiction possible, and I, I, I think this is really important for like the mystery.
He's like, there's no state in the Europeans end of the world, um, et cetera, et cetera. No sovereign, no court, no personal loyalty, no aristocracy, no church, no clergy, no army, no diplomatic service, no country gentlemen, no palaces, no castles nor manners. Um, old country houses, parsonages, et cetera, et cetera.
Now, of course. As in the fullness of time, America would take on many of those characteristics, but. The idea of there being places where a different kind of authority rules. Mm. A different kind of authority supersedes others. Even money, you know, a church is where all of a sudden this kind of despotic figure can take aggregate to unto himself.
More power than you would think in any other milieu is strange. And like for this to be, I don't know where upstate, but you know, 
Naomi Fry: I know it's totally, I'm putting in 
Vinson Cunningham: like Kingston, New York. It's totally, I don't even know where they are. 
Naomi Fry: it’s totally invented. What you’re saying makes me think I could see this sort of thing in liek a mega church, like a Joel Austin type or something, whereas here I’m like who are these people really, what is this place. 
Vinson Cunningham: That was a weird thing about it. 
Yes. Um, but what I really liked was the Josh O'Connor character.
I kind of said that he was miscast in the, uh, in the, the mastermind. So let me say, I think he's perfectly cast in this. He's got this sort of earnestness, but also this kind of haunted, hunted Russ Nikko energy that just works perfectly as this. I have sinned before and the church is my, my refuge and my redemption.
And I, and therefore I have a deep point of view that puts me at odds to the reigning ideologies of the place. Um, I just thought that was really well done. 
Alex Schwartz: Yeah. Yeah. How about you? Well, I did inconveniently, fall asleep. And at what point do you remember at what point there's just a long middle. You know, the setup of these movies is you have to meet all the characters and, and quite a cast of characters.
They are, I mean, we get Kerry Washington as a skeptical lawyer who becomes more and more bitter as the movie goes on. We get Andrew Scott, he was the hot priest before Josh O'Connor was the hot priest in this Exactly. Takes one. Uh, and he's very funny and I did feel that this and Jeremy Reiner have become significant as an alcoholic doctor.
Um. And best of all Glenn Close is Martha de Laqua. 
Vinson Cunningham: She was pretty great. 
Alex Schwartz: I thought she was excellent. Um, so yeah, there's just a kind of a long middle where things seem unsolvable, and I did tune out a bit. I'd say keep it to a tight one 20. Keep it to a tight one 20. Get us in and get us out. Keep us in suspense
when we are back. More on Wake up Dead, man. Wow. This is critics at large. 
Vinson Cunningham: My bad. That's really good. From the New Yorker. Wow. Back. Really good.
:: MIDROLL 1::
Alex Schwartz: All right. I would like us to talk a little bit about Ryan Johnson, who directed the Knives Out movies, who created them, came up with them, and is being credited as this, I was gonna say Renaissance or Reviver, let's say, of this, of the Who Done it genre. Um, I did read, I don't know if you guys read, but I read our colleague Anna Russell's excellent profile of Johnson.
Yes. Which she wrote for the New Yorker, and it came out earlier this month. It's called Ryan Johnson is an Agatha Christi for the Netflix age. So the argument is right there, 
Vinson Cunningham: right? 
Alex Schwartz: And one thing that really struck me as interesting was learning that when Johnson started making a mystery, started. Decided he wanted to do A two A who done it.
A lot of people thought he was kind of nuts and that this was a really outdated, fussy form that it was popular in the seventies. In the eighties, of course there was murder she wrote, which went on for a very long time, stuff like that. But people really thought we're over it. Who's gonna go for this old fashioned thing?
And then Knives Out came along and it turned out everybody was just really ready for it, eager for it. 
Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm. 
Alex Schwartz: So did you guys get a sense, um, or do you have a sense either from the profile or just from watching the movies of how Johnson is approaching the form and how it might be a bit different from the way it's been done before?
Naomi Fry: Well, I think, you know, and, and we've talked about this a little bit earlier, but. The bones are the same, right? We have like a limited cast of characters, a murder, and the detective character. Right? So, so this is like the same as like Death on the Nile or something, right? It's like the, that hasn't changed. What has changed is. That, and I think this, this might be true in general for the kind of reinvigoration of the form in recent years, like post, post Johnson even is two things. First of all, the insertion of present day political issues and skirmishes Um, and the second thing, and this might be. kind of is true of, of glass onion. The second knives out mystery, maybe less true of this one. Um, the kind of like lifestyle porn aspect of these new, um, who done its, if we're thinking about something like Big Little Eyes or white lotus.
All of which adhere in a lot of senses mm-hmm. To the classic format mm-hmm. Of the whodunit mystery. But part of the enjoyment of them isn't just the kind of like puzzling out of who, who is the murderer, but also the environment in which the murder and the, the detective work is taking place, which is usually a very wealthy.
Community, uh, of people of power and leisure. And I think that is something that has helped smooth the reentry of this, this older form. 
Vinson Cunningham: And, and yet kind of concurrent with that, it seems like he's also using it, using the form as a way to investigate not only money, but. Manners, I guess. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Um, that there's a way of, um, 
Naomi Fry: morays manners. You know, even if you 
Vinson Cunningham: think about the sort of maybe the symbolic setup of this most recent movie. 
Mm. 
It's kind of about in a moment of fading, crumbling institutions, what is the, what is the, what is it like to lead the rump or something like that, you know, what is it like to, to, to lead?
Mm-hmm. Um. Uh, an organization or something like, like that in decline. And you might think of that as a, like, quintessentially American problem of the moment at least. And I, I do think that there is a really earnest engagement on Johnson's part to use this as a form to sometimes, you know, with a lot of humor, really investigate what it's like to be, um.
Alive right now, which I think is is cool. 
Alex Schwartz: Yeah. Is Ryan Johnson smuggling an issues movie? To us in the form of who'd done it. I think sense it's a legitimate question. A sense, yeah. In a sense. Yeah. I'm wondering like it's, it's, it's not the first time that issues of a social nature are brought up into murder mysteries.
Of course, because these murder mysteries, part of the delight of them is their use of tropes and their use of types and I am thinking about something that, that Ms. Marble, Agatha Christie's, Ms. Marble once said, and I quote, she's talking about, um, you know, the fact that since the second World War, people feel a big sense in England of, of unease and, and a sense of alienation from each other. And she says. You could blame the war, both the wars or the younger generation or women going out to work, or the atom bomb, or just the government.
But what one really meant was the simple fact that one was growing old. 
Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm. 
Alex Schwartz: And I love that. 
Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. 
Alex Schwartz: That everyone's feeling disoriented, everyone's feeling suspicious because of course, another part of the who done it is just suspicion, the climate of suspicion. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I do wonder, you know, when we think about the.
The idea of these mysteries being comforting. I think a big part of the comfort is finding types that we recognize and maybe in this day and age mm-hmm. It's the kind of people we meet in a knives up mystery. You know, thinking back to the first one, the rich grandfather, all the other characters, the kind of the fail sons who gather around him, the hardworking, the hardworking immigrant who keeps the household afloat.
Mm-hmm. Who we're obviously supposed to sympathize with. I think the pleasure of this genre has to do with. Our ready identification. Like, okay, this is who we're supposed to, how we're supposed to feel about this particular cast of characters. And it's total scrambling when the plot unfolds and gets messed up.
Mm. And then it's clarification, it's resolution again. Mm. 
Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm. 
Alex Schwartz: There's a satisfaction in that. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so I'm wondering, you know, if we make the argument, and I think we're on pretty solid ground here, that knives out is part of a much broader trend of glossy new mystery stories that have turned up and have.
Captured the attention of the viewing and reading public. When would you guys date the start of this trend? Was there a turning point when you started to notice it's all coming at murder? 
Naomi Fry: I feel like big little eyes, uh, coming out in 2017, which was a huge hit. I remember everybody was like, it's all, it's all anyone could talk about.
Since then, there's been, it was great a couple of other seasons, but um, and you know, was like. Kind of like the, sort of the a-list. It was, it was like big budget, big, big stars. You know, we had like Nicole Kidman, we had Reese Witherspoon, uh, Zoe Kravitz, Laura Dern. It was it, it was like. It was funny, it was kind of like reconfiguring the, who'd done it as a kind of like soapy woman's drama.
        CLIP: Big Little Lies
Um, that has a lot of issues that have to do with like, women's problems. Mm-hmm. You know, like abusive husbands, you know, divorce, like gel, you know, kids like custody. You know, just, just like gossip. Gossip. 
Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. 
Naomi Fry: Um, so I think that kind of like reinvigorated the genre in that direction. 
Alex Schwartz: Yeah. And I do think, Nomi, you drew this point, you drew our attention to this point earlier, but I think it's quite valid. Both of these shows are also about wealth Yes. And the trappings of wealth. So, so I think you're exactly right that that's also part of the rise of this and, and maybe it's even that killing off a person in this world feels perhaps. Satisfying. Yeah. In a kind of, um, you know, like a, yeah. What's the word I'm looking for? Like 
Naomi Fry: raging against the machine? Kind of? Yeah. Like a tribute.
Like eat literally, well, not literally eat the rich. They're not eating. They're not eating, but they're killing, they're not eating, but they're killing. 
Alex Schwartz: I, I, yeah. I, I, I liked big little lies a lot. Um, I was really liking only murders in the building. A cozy mystery if, if ever there was one and another one that has those meta commentaries on, because they're making a podcast about a murder.
The meta commentary aspect of our own hunger for this genre. 
        CLIP - Only Murders in the Building
Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. Only murders is a good and so is white Lotus. These are both good ways to think about the, maybe the chief attraction, at least for me at least, um, of these things. It's also that they're kind of about casting, which makes sense, right? If they're about types, they're also interesting about.
The ensemble cast as a unit, and how can I get an actor into a situation either that they're sort of absolutely made for out of quote unquote central casting or something that contravenes their type and presents them to us in a new way. This is why, you know, um, Steve Martin is so good in this as this kind of like. Adultish, but eager and 
Naomi Fry: well-meaning ultimate well-meaning 
Vinson Cunningham: looking for love a little bit. And uh, Martin Short is this kind of megalomaniac, but benevolent, like they're really, their histories as actors are kind of part of the substance of, of the show. The way that really works well, this is similar from my favorite sort of installments of this as time has gone on, because I love Nicole Kidman, I just think she is so amazingly. half hinged in her presentation of herself. I love when I wrote about the Perfect couple, which is Nicole Kidman is a famous novelist and her very rich family. On Nantucket, the, uh, they're reluctantly welcoming. Um, a new person into their family. They're having a wedding, and the best friend of the bride, the in-law, who is already wary of this family, the best friend dies, and then it's all about, you know, who did it, whatever.
But. 
Naomi Fry: Did the perfect couple do it? 
Vinson Cunningham: Well, you know, in a way I 
Naomi Fry: haven't, I haven't seen the Well, 
Vinson Cunningham: you'll find out. 
        CLIP - The Perfect Couple
But it, part of the attraction is who's gonna be this figure, whether they're the, uh, detective or they're one of the main suspects, who's it gonna be? And, and how comfortable do I feel? That's the co, that's part of the coziness.
It's like, how comfortable do I feel with this actor? Like if there is really such a thing as a movie or television star, I feel like this genre is where we really. Come to know that in certain cases. Yeah. But now, now though, these things are. Like everywhere. There's this thing called the residence. It came out earlier this year.
It stars Uzo. What is that? Uzo Uba, who was amazing in oranges, the new black and et cetera. Uh, is this like totally charismatic, but also kooky Detective who's there to solve the White House? Usher has, chief Usher has been killed in the middle of a big state dinner and she's there to figure this out. 
        CLIP - The Residence
And it just has, it's become such a.
Staple. And I do wonder too if it's like streaming as part of it. 'cause it's just like show after the, the manufacturer of them seems to be speeding up along the lines of the sort of great, uh, conveyor belt that is streaming. 
Alex Schwartz: Well, I think that's a great point. I mean, look at, look at someone like Agatha Christie.
I mean, I'm just gonna open my, first of all, my copy of, and then there were none that I brought in. Mm-hmm. The Queen of Mystery, it says on the cover, and then please just listen to the first line, and I'm coming back to the Netflix point, but please just listen to the first line in the, about the author.
Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of All Time and in Any Language Outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. Wow, okay. That's actually crazy. It's crazy. Her books have sold more than a billion copies in English and another billion in a hundred foreign languages. 
Vinson Cunningham: Wow. 
Alex Schwartz: Totally nuts. And so I do think there's a kind of genre issue both there and even you can look farther back to.
Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I used to, I love Sherlock Holmes. Couldn't 
Naomi Fry: love the more. And speaking of another tween, another kind of tween moment. Well, speaking of another for some reason. Yeah, another, another. Locked Door mystery. The Speckled band. The 
Alex Schwartz: Speckled band. Oh 
Naomi Fry: my God. That Sherlock 
Alex Schwartz: Holmes.
Scared me to death. Well, the reason I'm bringing this up is because, so Arthur Conan Doyle couldn't write these things fast enough. The public was absolutely steamed and heated. They needed more Sherlock Holmes. And couldn't come up with another. Enough of them tried to kill off Sherlock Holmes and the public. Basically almost killed Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. A real murder would've taken place.
We'll 
Vinson Cunningham: kill you off. 
Alex Schwartz: So he brought Holmes back and I think. At that point you have explosion in literacy, you have literary magazines, printing a ton of material. And by literary magazines, I mean just, you know, same thing with Dickens, the serialization of all these, just a huge of all these books. Mm-hmm. A huge demand for these kinds of stories to fill people's leisure time.
And I think we see the same thing now with something like Netflix, Vince, and what you're saying makes total sense to me. There is a need to put new. Grub on there for all of us to gobble up and what could be better than a story that will keep people engaged, that has a natural serialized structure built in because cliffhanger is trying to fall red herrings.
So of course there's a demand for these things and the demand is only going to grow. 
Vinson Cunningham: Yeah, 
Alex Schwartz: we're like a little bit risk of thinking that murder happens every second everywhere. 
Vinson Cunningham: Like the 
Alex Schwartz: murder saturation is so high. 
Vinson Cunningham: I mean, 
Alex Schwartz: but. They're banking on it. They're banking on it big.
What is the millennial whodunnit? That's in a minute on critics at large from the New Yorker.
:: MIDROLL 2::
We've been talking about this new surge of murder mysteries. I get so many publicity emails a day for, I got another one recently for a cozy Christmas murder. You know, just, just cozy up with someone else's body and have a great time. So, one thing I still wanna know. If we can solve this puzzle, this mystery, that would be great.
Are these new mysteries actually so different from the classic ones from the Agatha Christies, the Dorothy Sayers, the um, Chestertons, and if so, how? Um, I do think that. Self-awareness is part of it. Mm-hmm. Like there's a kind of winking quality, a little bit of a meta quality. We love, we love a side of irony.
Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm. 
Alex Schwartz: You know, I'm thinking just for example of the show Search Party. 
Vinson Cunningham: Mm. 
Alex Schwartz: It was five seasons long. It started on TBS in 2016. Eventually it moved to HBO, created by Charles Rogers, Sarah Violet Bliss, and Michael Showalter, and its stars. Ali is Shawkat, uh, John Reynolds, John Early Medi, Meredith Hagner, Brandon, Michael Hall.
Um, it starts that group of people as a bunch of millennials. 
Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm. 
Alex Schwartz: They're kind of disaffected, like they don't really know where life is going, and I. They get obsessed with solving the disappearance of a classmate of theirs.
        CLIP - Search Party
 In starting to try to solve this crime, they basically become a bunch of narcissistic fools, um, who put themselves in the role of the detective and make infinite mistakes.
They are no. Blancs. Exactly. Mm-hmm. They're quite not, and then they get wrapped up in a crime quite by accident that they really can't escape from. And the crime is a problem. It's not like a fun thing to solve. 
Naomi Fry: Well, they, they turned from being the detective to being the perpetrator. Right. Over the course of, of the series, like the, they first, they search for this like classmate and who it turns out.
They barely knew was actually kind of like an annoying drip is not dead and has not really disappeared, but in fact, sort of hold up. Um. Uh, the, the whole quest to find her was wrongheaded and kind of animated by these people's on we and, and lack of kind of like, uh, goals, 
        CLIP - Search Party
Alex Schwartz: those people. Have this kind of main character syndrome. They're not the body, they're not the suspect, they're the detective. And of course, that's what all these who done its ask us to be. Mm-hmm. They ask us to be the detectives, but they ask us to do it as leisure when you actually take the entertainment of it into the streets and try to get to the bottom of whatever it is.
You may end up trapped in a web. I mean, I think that point is probably more broadly applicable in a culture that's deeply conspiracy minded, where people all the time are like doing their own research. Yeah. Trying to Yeah. You know, get to the, the basis of the conspiracy and end up ensnared in a web of partially their own creation.
Naomi Fry: show becomes a kind of like. Um, treat treaties on, on like guilt and the inability of, of redemption, essentially. It's still, it's still funny, great show, but it's, it's, it's taking the, who done it in a totally different direction, in a much more disillusioned direction, let's say.
There is no opportunity or ability. To kind of like solve this puzzle, Bo, you know, like close the lid on the puzzle box. Mm-hmm. 
Vinson Cunningham: Well, I love, I, I unfortunately have not seen search party. Mm-hmm. But what you say about disillusion meant mm-hmm. Does seem to be perhaps part of what maybe we could call the distinctive character of this new crop.
We've talked about the sort of, uh, flitting in and out of a rational setup in the new knives out, and also. The most recent white lotus was kind of about religion mysticism. You know, the idea of this is what Sherlock Holmes does. The first time I ever heard this word was in connection to Sherlock Holmes.
Is Rat Nation like the process of finding something out by rational means, which is almost like, you know, the belief in science. It does seem like the mystery, the murder mystery is on some level at least, maybe attitudinally. A child of the Enlightenment. 
Alex Schwartz: Absolutely. Or really more than that, I would say a child of the post Darwin culture and climate in England where it came to light.
Vinson Cunningham: Right. 
Alex Schwartz: Where if you can only put the pieces together, if you can only look at, you can examine it, the smallest detail together, you will get a true story. And that way it is against faith. That's right. You will get a true story of how things came to be, whether it's all life on earth. Yeah. Or whether it's a particular murder.
Things 
Vinson Cunningham: don't have to remain mysteries. And this is why I think. The current atmosphere of conspiracy does sort of pull this in new ways because it's like. On, on, on so many fronts people are asking us to be like, that's just always gonna be a mystery. Yeah. Or, you know, that document will not become available to you or, you know, trust us, um, and not trust us.
Trust us on and on and on. And so. There, there is a sort of almost re mystification of public life this, this hint of the irrational coming in, I think does have something to do with. The moment and where we all stand vis-a-vis these, you know, Darwin der Russo, like whoever we think of as the enlightenment, who are we children of that moment anymore?
I don't know. 
Naomi Fry: Well look at RFK Jr. You know, look at like what we're going through. Look at as a country. No, but, but I mean, look at him. Well, you look at him, um, the, the complete kind of shoving aside of. Everything that we thought was like, okay, as a, as a culture, we, we believe in, or, you know, policy is, is made according to, you know, vaccine science.
Mm-hmm. You know, just like, no, no. Like, you don't need that? No, no, no. It's like, no, that's not good. I can feel it in my bones that it's bad, you know? Yeah. So we're gonna cancel it until we, you know, it's like that meme, it's like, let's, let's just like stop everything until we figure out what's going on. You know?
Let's just stop science until we figure out what's going on. 
Vinson Cunningham: Right, right. 
Alex Schwartz: Yeah. I think, I think this, this desire to be the hero and to, um, follow the logical trails and take things into your own hands, it's very appealing if you do it right. It's great if you catch the right guy and if you don't and you catch the wrong one, it's the, the entire foundation of society crumbles.
Yeah. It's like, you know, citizens, arrests left and right. We want a Sherlock Holmes because he Sherlock Holmes and because he isn't you. That's kind of the whole point. 
Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm. 
Alex Schwartz: Alright. We’ve got some holiday coming up. What’s the coziest mystery for you. If you wanna give the people something to keep 'em cozy, 
Naomi Fry: I don't know if this is cozy, it's more terrifying, but I did read it in childhood and I never forgot it. Um, the hound of the baskervilles. Ooh, the Sherlock Holmes. Yes. Novel by Arthur Con Doyle. Really scary. Ooh, love it.
Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. I'm gonna throw back the childhood. I don't remember if anybody was into this as a kid, but back in my day there was a detective named Encyclopedia Brown, 
Naomi Fry: loved Encyclopedia Brown. He was a kid 
Vinson Cunningham: and he was solving shit. Oh my God. He was solving, I haven't listened to him in a while or read him in a while.
But maybe I'll go back. Get cozy with him. Oh my man, eb. 
Alex Schwartz: Yeah, he, he was great. I know you can pull off that second grade reading level. He, I, 
Vinson Cunningham: yeah. Well, it depends on what time of the day. 
Alex Schwartz: Yeah. For me, it's, for me, it's the 1985 cinematic masterpiece clue, you know? Mm-hmm. It's the pleasure of watching a, a kooky, but also.
Finally crafted little mechanism. 
Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm. 
Alex Schwartz: With three alternate endings. Love it. I will be watching it probably tonight.
This has been critics at Large. Alex Barish is our consulting editor, and Rhiannon Corby is our senior producer. Our executive producer is Steven Valentino. Alexis Quadra composed our theme music and we had engineering help today from James Yost with Mixing by Mike Kuman. Next week. It is our year end show In an absolutely incredible feat, we will seamlessly unite all the cultural and political happenings of this crazy year under a single theme.
Yeah, I don't know. Will we succeed? Will we fall on our faces? No, absolutely not. Join us next week to find out.