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With the over-the-top characters, sets and story, it’s easy for HBO Max’s “The Undoing,” to become soapy. But it only works to the advantage of all of the intrigue and action in the limited series.

The series, which aired its final episode Sunday, features Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant as Grace and Jonathan Fraser. The married couple, who are both doctors, have an idealized life in New York City with their son Henry. Grace and Jonathan are both doctors, but they work in different fields — Grant’s character is a pediatric oncologist and Kidman’s is a therapist.

Despite the family’s idyllic life, the plot is shaken by the introduction of a much younger mother, Elena Alves, whose dead body is found the night of a school fundraiser attended by Manhattan’s most elite.

Viewers are blissfully unaware of the Fraser family’s connection to the crime until Jonathan goes missing, which is when we realize he’s the primary suspect. The pieces fall into place: Jonathan was having an affair with Alves and has fled the scene.

Throughout the next few episodes, Grace is followed by the press, a duo of detectives and Alves’s husband. As the story unravels, we’re not sure who’s killed Alves. Grace’s son, father and friends all have their secrets, and Jonathan is repeatedly questioned, leading to the unforgettable moment where he says “I didn’t kill the family dog… I killed the family sister.”

It was impossible for me not to draw comparisons between this series and “Big Little Lies,” which also stars Kidman and was created by David Kelley. Both shows are set in a wealthy community of parents and end in a trial, and both of Kidman’s characters have a violent husband who fathers a child with a young mom.

But as I kept watching, I realized there’s little to compare between the shows aside from Kidman’s equally mesmerizing performances as a scorned wife. The shows are different in style and tone, and the characters and stories move in different directions.

Grace analyzes marriages for a living, but when it comes to her own, she doesn’t give us much. She is an unreliable narrator who is too wrapped up in the mystery to trust. She sticks by her husband, ignores the signs and helps to defend him. We even suspect her guilt rather than his.

She walks around the Upper East Side with her distinctive red curls and brightly colored velvet coats, going about her business and seeming just as clueless as we are, but she isn’t. She seems to be the innocent, unsuspecting wife who was thrust into a serious situation where she doesn’t belong. Why wouldn’t she stand by her charming husband — played effectively by the charismatic Grant — when he vehemently denies his guilt, defending himself and his love for Grace constantly?

Even as we don’t trust Grace — she may know more than she’s letting on — we are the same as her, all blindsided by Jonathan and assured of his innocence until the proof is spelled out in a grotesque murder sequence.

Was it too obvious for Jonathan to be the killer, or were we simply fooled by the man who saves children’s lives every day and shows kindness toward many? We even feel sympathy for Jonathan right before the final reveal as he cries when anticipating being separated from his son forever. The world was fooled by an amiable, rich white man, but he didn’t get away this time.

Published on December 2, 2020 at 6:30 pm