The Lie You Married
Jonathan Fraser killed Elena Alves. Of course he did.
I know, I know—The Undoing spent six episodes making us doubt the obvious. Surely the husband who the show immediately presents as suspicious can't actually be the killer, right? There must be a twist.
There isn't. Jonathan did it. He beat Elena to death with a hammer because she was going to tell Grace about their affair. And somehow, that simplicity is more devastating than any twist could have been.
Because The Undoing isn't really about solving a murder. It's about watching Grace Fraser—a brilliant therapist who reads people for a living—come to terms with the fact that she married a monster without ever seeing it.
Jonathan is charming. Jonathan is handsome. Jonathan saves dying children. Jonathan lies without hesitation, manipulates without effort, and kills without remorse. And none of these things contradict each other. That's what sociopathy looks like in the real world: not obvious evil, but selective humanity. Jonathan genuinely loves his son. He's not pretending to be a good doctor. He simply lacks the capacity to see other people as fully real.
When Elena became an inconvenience, she stopped being a person and became a problem.
Jonathan solved problems his whole life. This was just one more.