Ignore the moaners and enjoy watching rich people suffer
For some peculiar reason, and let’s just call it the spirit of 2020, I am really enjoying watching rich people suffer, on TV at least. It is an increasingly popular and extravagant genre, its property porn leanings masking serious sadism when it comes to inflicting trauma on the ineffably wealthy. You came for the coastal vistas, you stayed to see these people’s lives fall apart in murder, betrayal and those gigantic glasses of wine that moneyed women glug to show they may be beautiful, but they have problems too.
The Undoing was inescapable television, the Bodyguard of 2020, watercooler drama in a year without the watercooler. It starred Hugh Grant and Nicole Kidman, both now titans of Good Telly, and sailed to a climax last week, finally revealing whodunnit after weeks of teasing. I am about to discuss whodunnit, so if you are behind, please don’t read on. But the revelation that it was the most obvious culprit seems to have infuriated a surprising number of viewers, who felt misled by the fact that it could have snipped out episodes two to five and essentially taken us to the same place.
