Abhiroop Das
Helmed by Chris Columbus, Netflix’s ‘The Thursday Murder Club’ adds a unique spin to whodunit narratives with its protagonists, Elizabeth, Ron, Ibrahim, and Joyce. Each of the retired friends comes from a background of expertise in their respective fields, and they meet every Thursday to rack their brains on cold cases. However, things go up a notch when their Coopers Chase Retirement Village turns into ground zero for a real murder. What follows is an ever-expanding conspiracy that goes from wealthy businessmen and celebrities all the way to the criminal underworld. Faced with a challenge, the four friends launch an informal investigation and begin to piece together all the clues at their disposal, and make their way to the truth. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Angela Hughes’s Case Has a Layered Past
The cold case of “the woman in white”, also described as “the woman who fell down the window,” appears as our first glimpse into the Thursday Murder Club’s weekly gatherings, where they make whodunits out of older unsolved cases to kill time and stimulate their brain muscles. The woman’s case stands out as a uniquely difficult one due to the scarcity of information surrounding it. Elizabeth paints a picture: it’s the 1970s, and in the East End of London, a man makes his way to his home in the dead of the night. Except, moments before entering the premises, he witnesses his lover being stabbed in the chest with enough force that she is flung out of the window. The culprit, described by the partner as a masked intruder, makes a quick exit. While the man gives chase, he is ultimately unsuccessful, and upon returning to the scene, he finds his lover dead.
Although the case is eventually closed due to a lack of any leads, the Thursday Murder Club is quick to point out the suspicious behaviour of the lover. To begin with, he is the only witness to this gruesome scene, which conveniently happened right when he reached home. Secondly, instead of aiding his partner, he chased the murderer. A closer look at his past reveals that he had an army background, which made it all the more plausible that he could have provided some necessary first aid. What seals the deal is the fact that shortly after the initial complaint, the man went missing, sealing away any chance of the case being solved. However, much like Detective Penny Grey at that time, the members of the club remain convinced that it was the partner who actually did the killing, and that there was no masked intruder in the first place.
The Thursday Murder Club’s belief is vindicated when the bones of a man named Peter Mercer are discovered in the graveyard, intentionally planted to cover up a suspicious death. In a surprising turn of events, Mercer is revealed to be the partner of the dead woman. While he was supposed to have disappeared, in reality, he was killed and disposed of, and this adds a new twist to the mystery. The grand reveal ultimately comes to Elizabeth while she is looking through Penny Grey’s case files. There, she discovers that one of the files, detailing the woman in white’s case, was hidden all along. Upon reading it, she finally connects all the dots, and the girl’s true identity is revealed to be Angela Hughes. Although her murder mystery is formally unsolved to this day, it appears that Penny reached a firm conclusion of her own and decided to bring the culprit to justice.
Related
Angela Hughes’s Killer Ultimately Pays For His Crimes
Elizabeth explains to the rest of the group that Penny’s expression in every documented photograph of the case is one of hatred and fury towards Peter Mercer. As such, when the law enforcement system let him walk free, with no repercussions whatsoever, it is possible that Penny decided to take matters into her own hands. The protagonist makes the bold claim that Penny was the one who killed Peter and then buried his body with the help of her husband, John Grey. When she presses further, John confirms the truth, stating that she was frustrated with abusers not paying for their actions, and that resulted in her taking a drastic step. While her actions might have been well-intentioned, that does not change the fact that she committed a crime.
Penny Grey’s actions recontextualize several scenes from earlier in the movie. It adds context to why she intentionally chose to hide the case from her friends. While there is the fear of getting caught, there is also the idea of this being a solved case. The Thursday Murder Club primarily exists to shed new light on the cases that were abandoned back in Penny’s time as a Police Detective; as such, it made vague sense for her not to bring Angela Hughes’ case up. However, in doing so, she created an unresolved case of her own, creating a negative feedback loop that leads to her husband, John, being entangled in larger problems down the line. By the time the truth comes out, Penny is already in hospice care and at death’s door. Thus, Angela Hughes’s case serves as a watershed moment not just for her career but also for her life and the legacy she leaves behind.
