You guys. Remember that time I said I was going to try to watch new movie releases and do more wig reviews in preparation for the weirdest Oscar season ever? Well instead I watched a lot of prestige TV. So. Here we are! Movies be damned, there are a lot of tv shows with women in bad red wigs and I watched them! The Undoing is one of those shows. Having already suffered through two whole seasons of Nicole Kidman in another David E. Kelley prestige HBO show (AND THE HORROR OF HER WIGS!) I wasn’t sure if I could stomach another one, but you guys - this one is TOTALLY DIFFERENT. It’s in NYC and her wig is curly not straight!!! Let’s discuss (and a whole lot more!) I will be going episode by episode...
First off, I love that this episode name is just the same name as the show. I can already tell we are in for some real creativity with this show! Anyway, we meet Nicole Kidman who probably has a character name but who cares! She is super rich and married to Hugh Grant which I absolutely love as a fan of the Paddington movies - she is the villain in the first one and he is in the second - and this show already feels like a villain supergroup movie because I definitely hate both of them. They’re both doctors, their palatial house looks like a magazine, and they have a seemingly well adjusted tween who doesn’t look like either of them (but he is the kid actor from A Quiet Place and Ford v Ferrari so ok I guess he can act?) Their one problem is that said kid wants a dog but they can’t have one because Nicole Kidman tells the kid that Hugh Grant once accidentally allowed his family dog to run into traffic and his family blamed him and that definitely sounds like a lie! A big little lie!!!
Speaking of which, Nicole Kidman’s wig. As we know from my harrowing journey through her Big Little Lies wig, David E. Kelley likes her as a redhead and I hate all her wigs. This wig harkens back to the 90s when she was still a scientologist and didn’t wear wigs all the time (what a different time!) Unlike back then, Kidman now has a new terrifying face to match her terrifying wigs. Truly, I don’t know what plastic surgeon she pissed off but her mouth is in a constant Joker grin and she is barely able to move parts of her face anymore? The wig is a tangled mess but the true horror is the seamwork - the part is from places not real and also imagined and the texture is something close to a Halloween fright wig.
Which brings me to the real theme of this show: Nicole Kidman’s addiction to midweight duster coats. She owns them all, y’all. We first see her in this green velvet number which looks like a robe, spans no seasons, and also carries you nowhere. BUT paired with this red curly mess, it does look like she is paying homage to Bette Midler in Hocus Pocus, and for that I say: amen. And also: PLEASE PUT A HEX ON THIS ENTIRE SHOW PLEASE.
Now to the plot??? Nicole Kidman sends her kid to a fancy schmancy private school and she is on some fundraiser committee with her only gal pal, Lily Rabe (praise be!) plus some other harpies that definitely won’t matter to the rest of this show at all. Also present is a new interloper of indeterminate ethnicity who has the audacity to be young, attractive, bearing curly hair WITHOUT a wig, and a small child who she has to feed from her own perfect bosom. THE HARPIES ARE SO PISSED BY BREASTFEEDING Y’ALL.
Anyway, this interloper chick is definitely weird and shows up at Nicole Kidman’s gym (where she does rigorous foot pointing exercises and somehow tames her wig back, kind of). The chick approaches Kidman in the buff with a combination of aggressiveness and openness that makes Nicole Kidman really uncomfortable though I definitely choose to believe that she’s mainly intimidated by bitch’s non-wigged hair.
Fast forward to the school fundraiser where Nicole Kidman switches up her midweight duster coat obsession for a friggin cape IF YOU CAN EVEN and all the harpies are present in their best dresses which could all definitely be worn to the Golden Globes and somehow the interloper is there also in a gown. HOW DARE SHE! THE HARPIES ARE PISSED! So is the vile Donald Sutherland (Nicole Kidman’s dad who just HATES Hugh Grant for reasons unknown).
But Hugh Grant leaves for a medical conference just as....dun dun dun....the interloper is murdered!!! ALSO NICOLE KIDMAN CAN’T REACH HUGH GRANT. Also he left his cellphone in a random junk drawer! I refuse to believe this magazine apartment has a junk drawer! Kidman’s wig magically stays halfway up without use of pins or elastics because that is just how horrifying this wig is! This show is so stupid!
So Hugh Grant is fully on the lam and mainly NOT at that medical conference which may or may no exist but Nicole Kidman is not interested in googling it and that hot interloper remains to be murdered. Also Nicole Kidman’s wig is still a tangle of complete and utter nonsense AS IS THIS SHOW. Also this wig has two settings: dried out desert or oily sweat lodge. This episode starts on sweat lodge. Anyway, Nicole Kidman goes looking around for Hugh Grant and only finds more questions at his hospital and then goes to her job where she is kind of an ineffectual couples counselor. Also David E Kelley/Nicole Kidman prestige HBO shows I guess always require some couples counseling that is highly questionable.
ANYWAY! I forgot to mention that the lead investigator in this murder is Edgar Ramirez who is hot but also kind of shifty. He starts questioning Nicole Kidman about all kinds of crap involving Hugh Grant and then lays down some hard truths: HUGH GRANT SUCKS!!! He got fired from his hospital job curing children’s cancer after he got too close to one of his patients’ moms and DUH IT’S THE HOT INTERLOPER. Nicole Kidman has to gather a calming circle of midweight duster coats to even deal with this new development.
I really love that Hugh Grant is basically just starring as himself in the mid 90s (REMEMBER DIVINE BROWN?) and I’m kind of here for it. Regardless, Hugh Grant is now the prime suspect in this whole mess and Nicole Kidman’s beautiful magazine apartment is now being completely pulled apart and all she can do is look at her terrifying face and touch it with her terrifying talons and pack up all her midweight duster coats and get the eff out of there. BUT TO WHERE?!
DUH NICOLE KIDMAN OWNS A BEACH HOUSE OBVS. So she drives out there and is somehow able to braid her damn wig! HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE. THE WIG IS VERY UPSET ABOUT IT AS AM I. She and her tangled tiny braid (she has so much hair in that wig - why is the braid so small??) stare out into the ocean a lot and ignore her child. Also new coat alert and this one is PLAID!!!
And then Hugh Grant shows up and is super creepy and chokey. He tries to explain his actions and confirms his affair with hot interloper which is basically just all a plot synopsis of Fatal Attraction but says that he definitely did NOT murder her. WE SHALL SEE ABOUT THAT. Nicole Kidman calls 911 anyway.
OMG GUYS THIS EPISODE STARTS WITH EDGAR RAMIREZ SHOWING UP AT NICOLE KIDMAN’S BEACH HOUSE IN A HELICOPTER. How much money is the NYPD really willing to spend on Hugh Grant? All of it? Anyway, Hugh Grant ends up in jail (which is not as fabulous as his prison time in Paddington 2) and we find out that he fathered that baby the hot (murdered) interloper had and willfully breastfed in front of those harpies in episode 1. THIS SHOW IS WILD AND ALSO STUPID.
Speaking of wild and stupid, Nicole Kidman visits Hugh Grant at Rikers and we are led to believe that Rikers Island has a COAT CHECK?!?!?! Look: she shows up in one of her millions of midweight duster coats and in the visiting room she has none. ARE YOU KIDDING ME, SHOW?!?!?! THIS ALSO HAPPENS TWICE BECAUSE THEY CHECK BOTH HER AND HER SON’S COATS THE SECOND TIME WHAT.
Hugh Grant maintains his innocence and somehow Nicole Kidman’s bent ass wig is convinced and they hire a fabulous defense lawyer which the vile Donald Sutherland is none too thrilled about paying for and spends lots of quiet time at the Frick Museum about it also WTF show you’re willing to pay for the Frick and not frickin wigs. Also Nicole Kidman is confronted by the hot interloper’s husband and it does not go over well. No social interactions in this show make any sense, also.
In the end, Nicole Kidman gets ANOTHER midweight duster coat, Edgar Ramirez questions Nicole Kidman AGAIN but this time with video surveillance footage of her walking outside the hot interlopers studio...the night she was murdered and YES IN THAT DAMN CAPE. WAIT WHAT?! Also even in surveillance footage, Nicole Kidman’s wig is a mess.
This episode introduces the idea that Nicole Kidman really likes taking walks. Long walks, nighttime walks, sleepwalks? Nobody knows, especially Nicole Kidman. When asked why she was walking near the murdered interloper’s studio, Nicole Kidman just kinda shrugs and says “I take walks!” AND EVERYONE BELIEVES HER!!! WTF IS THIS SHOW. It should be noted that this long walks are taken in her usual midweight duster coats (WHICH ARE SUBTLY DIFFERENT COLORS AND FABRICS FROM OTHER MIDWEIGHT DUSTER COATS SHE OWNS) and very not sensible boots. Her walks can last between 10 minutes and 10 hours and who is to say where she even goes and who she is followed by? Maybe the interloper’s husband follows her around or maybe it’s in her head? Maybe she murdered the interloper and didn’t quite remember it? Regardless: it’s a lot of walking and it is EXHAUSTING for us all and finally Nicole Kidman just passes out in Central Park after minutes or hours of walking around and a bunch of kids form a literal calming circle around her and my eyes rolled into the reservoir.
This episode is also all about money, hunny! Nicole Kidman has a lot of it - so much that it was revealed in the last episode she didn’t even notice that a lot of it was missing from that time Hugh Grant lost his job and didn’t tell anyone for a few months except the vile Donald Sutherland who loaned him $500K AND NO ONE KNOWS WHERE THAT MONEY WENT!!!! Well I hope you kept your check book out, Donald Sutherland because now you need to pay $2 MILLION DOLLARS to get Hugh Grant out of jail. Ok? OK. ALSO DO YOU JUST OWN THE FRICK MUSEUM????
So now Hugh Grant just lives in his old magazine apartment which has somehow returned to magazine status after Edgar Ramirez and a thousand cops completely ransacked it. Also now Nicole Kidman and the son live at the vile Donald Sutherland’s house so all is...well? Well no not really because Nicole Kidman STILL HAS THAT DAMN WIG.
AND THAT ISN’T EVEN THE MOST HORRIFYING PART OF THIS EPISODE! That came when Hugh Grant, now free from jail and left to his own devices, visits the interloper’s widow and children! WHAT IS HE DOING!! Somehow, interloper’s husband lets Hugh in and lets him hold the baby which he fathered. AND THEN HUGH REVEALS HE’S MET THIS BABY BEFORE AND OFFERS TO TAKE CARE OF IT! WHILST ON TRIAL FOR MURDER! THIS SHOW!!!!!
WHAT IS EVEN DONALD SUTHERLAND’S APARTMENT?!?! It has a balcony, and it seems to have a balcony cover because no one gets wet when they go out on the balcony and it’s raining. Rich people really live in a different climate zone than the rest of us garbage people. Regardless, Nicole Kidman’s frizzy wig is at PEAK FRIZZINESS on this balcony.
Anyway, the trial of the goddamned century is finally here!! And Nicole Kidman’s wig part still remains an elusive mystery. What is being kept in there? NO ONE CAN SEE ACTUAL SCALP OR ANSWERS. Another question: why did everyone bring their kids to the trial where they could see very upsetting pictures (that I didn’t even look at!) of the murdered interloper. CHILD ABUSE! ALSO! WOULD EVERY SINGLE GODDAMNED CABLE NEWS NETWORK REALLY COVER THIS CASE SO CLOSELY??? I guess it’s not an election year in this alternate reality.
Which makes this scene where the whole family dines out and no one bothers them at all the more improbable. Also completely insane? At one point, Hugh Grant just storms out of the dinner and into the bar area of the restaurant (omg remember restaurants?) and Nicole Kidman follows him there and they have a very intense conversation about family secrets literally in the entrance of a busy restaurant. WHAT REALITY IS THIS SHOW IN?!?!?! The family secret? Remember that time Nicole Kidman told their son that he couldn’t have a dog because Hugh Grant accidentally killed his family dog? IT WASN’T A DOG IT WAS HIS 4 YEAR OLD SISTER. WHAT IN THE DAMN HELL!!!!
Nicole Kidman attempts to corroborate this insane story that she has never ever heard before with Hugh Grant’s family who don’t return her calls but do facetime her out of the blue in the middle of the night. Sure! And who is Hugh Grant’s mom? TONY AWARD WINNING ACTRESS ROSEMARY GODDAMNED HARRIS. WHAT. Not only does she confirm that Hugh Grant definitely accidentally killed his sister, but he also was never ever upset by it! Sure looks like Hugh Grant is a sociopath! MMkay!
Oh and then in the final moments of this episode Nicole Kidman finds the murder weapon - a sculpting hammer - in her son’s violin case. THIS SHOW IS A FRIGGIN LUNATIC.
Episode 6 - The Bloody Truth
So at this point in this show, I have fully gone. I don’t even know what is real or fantasy at this point: all I know is that Nicole Kidman’s wig is my nightmare. ALSO! She has a new midweight duster coat and it is the absolute most outrageous - a silk embroidered number you can literally wear NOWHERE EXCEPT FOR THE MURDER TRIAL OF HUGH GRANT.
The main concern in this episode is how Nicole Kidman’s son happened to get ahold of the murder weapon. So he just found it....in the beach house fire pit?!?!?! WHAT A DUMB PLACE TO PUT A MURDER WEAPON WHEN YOU HAVE AN OCEAN INCHES AWAY TO FLING IT INTO! Even dumber: this show wants you to believe that this 12 year old kid would have the wherewithall to put this murder weapon through the dishwasher - TWICE!! Vulture and I both say NAH to that.
Anyway, Nicole Kidman’s wig which is somehow pushed back with clips unknown spends a lot of time in a robe (or a coat? WHO KNOWS AT THIS POINT) making secret phone calls to Lily Rabe (who I am happy is back because she’s kind of the only fun part of this show). WHAT IS NICOLE KIDMAN UP TO?!?!?!
Much like Big Little Lies season 2, it all comes down to Nicole Kidman taking the stand. BORING! Hugh Grant is all but gonna win this thing and then Nicole Kidman gets up there and totally backs him up...until she is cross examined by the prosecuting attorney (WHO IS OLD PALS WITH LILY RABE) and magically knows all about Rosemarry Harris’s facetime! Now everyone knows that Hugh Grant is a child murderer and sociopath! AND HE IS PISSED!
The final sequence of this show is just far too insane to even fathom BUT basically before definitely being found guilty, Hugh Grant texts his son and they meet for breakfast but then breakfast turns into a car chase upstate! It is never explained how Nicole Kidman would allow her son out of her sight OR how Hugh Grant wouldn’t already be tailed by cops but whatever! Also not explained: how Nicole Kidman is able to issue an Amber alert for her kid and then get into a GODDAMNED HELICOPTER and follow Hugh Grant north and then land on the very bridge he’s about to jump off of but WHO CARES!! THIS WHOLE SHOW IS WHO CARES BECAUSE IT TURNS OUT HUGH GRANT WAS THE MURDERER ALL ALONG JUST LIKE WE THOUGHT IN EPISODE 1 AND EVERYTHING ELSE HAS JUST BEEN A MIDWEIGHT DUSTER COAT FASHION SHOW!!! ALSO THE WIG SUCKED! GOODBYE YOU TERRIBLE STUPID SHOW!
