He was a two-dimensional plot point, memorable for all the wrong reasons. Osborne popping up in his jim-jams to congratulate himself was merely garnish. Eat your heart out, Betty Draper). Good luck to her. I hope she spends all of Mark’s money on foreign travel and pool boys. This nasty, exaggerated story played out against a backdrop of understated taste – the only understated thing about it. The ending and its various ambiguities will doubtless rankle those who prefer solid answers, but if you’re happy to live in tantalising uncertainty then this fresh update on the Christie original, twisted into a seamy tale of a man who cared only about himself, will more than satisfy. The UK edition retailed at fifteen shillings (15/- = 75p) and the US edition at $3.75. Louisa Mellor | The Pale Horse TV series on the BBC has now come to an end after two episodes. 'The Pale Horse' has its high and low points dictated by a rewrite on Agatha Christie's original story by Sarah Phelps. Mark’s tortured subconscious was where it was at, and his shift in our eyes from hero to villain was episode two’s true twist. The Pale Horse is a BBC One mystery thriller television serial broadcast in 2020 in two episodes. And so The Pale Horse was revealed to have two baddies: Bertie Carvel’s cartoonish serial killer Osborne and Rufus Sewell’s suave grieving husband. .cls-2{mix-blend-mode:screen}.cls-3{fill:none;stroke:red;stroke-miterlimit:10;stroke-width:4px}.cls-4{fill:red}, The Pale Horse ends with evil found out and murky justice done. Chicness abounded in this adaptation, from the beautiful Hermia, to Mark’s flat (thanks to production designer Jeff Tessler, no murder scene has ever looked so desirable) to director Leonora Lonsdale’s elegant frame compositions. Read more: the differences between Agatha Christie’s book and the TV series. Mark Easterbrook, you gutless, wincing turd, consider yourself punished. The Pale Horse is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 6 November 1961, and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company the following year. Then the couple’s nightcap, in which the newlyweds reached a level of antipathy usually reserved for those decades into a sour marriage, was unspeakably nasty. “God, you sound like such a wife,” he told her, promising that he would win. @Louisa_Mellor, Louisa Mellor is the Den of Geek UK TV Editor. Den of Geek She has written about TV, film and books for Den of Geek since 2010, and for…, The Pale Horse: cast, plot and more for BBC's Agatha Christie adaptation, BBC One’s The Pale Horse: explaining the ending, BBC One’s The Pale Horse: what’s been changed from the book, The Pale Horse part one review: Agatha Christie with a supernatural twist, The Pale Horse part two review: a stinging, dark conclusion. Read Louisa’s review of the previous episode here. Wealth + good looks + charm though, often throws a veil over guilt. The Pale Horse part two review: a stinging, dark conclusion. Episode two pulled the curtain back on that in a few telling scenes, the first his willingness to hurt Thomasina’s stepmother mid-interrogation, and then his slipperiness when a raging Hermia confronted him about the discarded suit. “Punish me” said Mark to that hospital corridor statue of Christ – the challenge of a man who believed he had the untouchable power of a god. The Pale Horse ends with evil found out and murky justice done. Cast Main. The moment Hermia dreamed about picking up that leg of lamb to brain the insufferable Poppy, she started to seem like a character one could love. Impeccably cast, he made Mark an extremely compelling kind of bastard. Beyond a vague misanthropy, Osborne’s psychology or motive barely came up. Of the two characters, The Pale Horse clearly found Easterbrook far more compelling. Bring on the champagne and the dancing girls. We should have spotted Mark’s true character sooner. The Pale Horse is a BBC One mystery thriller television serial broadcast in 2020 in two episodes. The series is an adaptation of Agatha Christie’s 1961 novel of the same name. Whether it was down to the Almighty or otherwise (this ambiguous ending invites a few interpretations, see here for a breakdown), Mark was made to suffer for his crimes. Curse lifted. The Pale Horse is a Dennis Wheatley-inflected offering from 1961. Obstacles removed. The Pale Horse was another triumphant bit of revisionist Agatha Christie from Sarah Phelps, bringing a level of sinister, eldritch paranoia to what could have been a dusty old whodunnit. It is, however, common to misunderstand the conclusion Phelps created for the series. Adapted by Sarah Phelps from Agatha Christie's novel of the same name and directed by Leonora Lonsdale, it stars Rufus Sewell and Kaya Scodelario. He’d already got away with one murder and looked to be getting away with two more. So chic and so miserable, she was like a catalogue model for 1960s gloom (vibrating exercise belt plus cigarette is a look. Sewell’s elegance combined with the romantic image of the handsome, grief-struck widow made it easier to believe that acidic, tightly wound Hermia was a jealous obsessive than to see Mark for what he truly was. Adapted by Sarah Phelps from Agatha Christie's novel of the same name and directed by Leonora Lonsdale, it stars Rufus Sewell and Kaya Scodelario. Major spoilers in our review…. He clearly hadn’t reckoned on being part of the Sarah Phelps-Agatha Christie universe, a place where scheming murderous toffs get the rope, or locked in a bunker, or condemned to a looping purgatory nightmare in which they’re stalked by a 1950s doo-wop hit and a giant turnip king. From the moment he covered his tracks and abandoned his mistress’ corpse to the rats, he should have been pegged as a wrong’un – before then even, due to the very fact that he had a mistress. Deflecting her (valid) questions, he deftly painted her as the unreasonable party, making her question her sanity with that insidious “You’re still taking your tablets aren’t you?”. Kaya Scodelario too, who had the short end of the stick in episode one, went through a similar transition in reverse as Hermia, going from unlikeably brittle to sympathetic. As our sympathies shifted from pitying his mental torture to enjoying it as justice done, Sewell’s performance remained magnetic. The woman staggering towards the police station, who collapses and dies just before she reaches it, … For one, Rufus Sewell breathes a sinister air to an otherwise whodunnit mystery — the actor is perhaps the only part about two miniseries that will not leave you disappointed. Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox! Cast Main. He didn’t, but Rufus Sewell did.