The Pale Horse Premiering March 13th Is A Provocatively Thrilling Drama That Fully Lives Up To The Hype

You will believe. And then possibly be disappointed, but maybe not.

Photo courtesy of KS95.com

Author Agatha Christie’s work The Pale Horse has seen its share of screen adaptations, but not one quite like The Pale Horse circa 2020. It’s both enthralling and confusing, yet you’re not sure of what to fully invest your emotions in. The mini-series, directed by Lenora Lonsdale and written by Agatha Christie (technically) and Sarah Phelps, takes you through the life of antique dealer Mark Easterbrook who has found himself in the center of a murder mystery only London can afford us. His name, along with several others in town, has appeared on a list found on a local women’s corpse and no one has any idea as to why. A local shop keeper by the name of Zacharia Osbourne, whose name also appears on the list, is obsessive about who and why the names are on the list, and why nearly everyone on the list is now bereft of life, except himself, Mark, and someone called Ardingly. An inspector from the local police department has also inserted himself deeply into the mix, making Mark’s affair with another individual on the list (who is also dead) more costly than ever. A tip from Mr. Osbourne implicating a peculiar trio of women in the deaths of almost everyone on the list has Mark running all over the countryside trying to find who the real murder is without the police interfering. It’s a plot that is old as time, but in Agatha Christie’s hands, it seems somewhat fresh. Now, here’s where we find ourselves at the cross-section of oh that makes sense and wait, what?

The coven waits for your request. Fortunes told? Tea Leaves read? Route to the closest Teso? We need milk and the GPS isn’t working out here in Deeping.

Photo courtesy of The Pale Horse IMDb.

The trio of women who Osbourne points to do seem to have an uncanny role in the deaths of many individuals over the past year, but how and why gets crammed into the storyline at odd points. The intense scrutiny of Mark Easterbrook by Inspector Stanley Lejeune gets a bit confusing because there’s no evidence Mark has anything to do with the murders other than his name being on this mysterious list, and that he’s an arrogant rich guy. Osbourne suffers little prodding by the police even though the dead woman who wrote the list worked for him. Small misstep but the missteps seem to grow larger until the finale, and that’s where it really gets squiffy.

Maybe it was me. Or maybe it was you. Or was it a dream? At this point anything is possible. Photo courtesy of The Pale Horse IMDb.

With the police being full-on that Mark is responsible for something bad, like possibly the murder of someone not officially linked to the case but someone who should be officially linked to the case, and with Mark knowing several pieces of the current case but unable to say anything to the police out of fear of somehow being linked to the untimely death of aforementioned person who should be linked to the case, things get wildly out of hand when fear takes over and Osbourne finally convinces Mark that the trio of women the deaths seem to lead back to are witches and are coming for him and Mark, for reasons never discussed. They are also responsible for the deaths of everyone on the list, but Osbourne never eludes to why, only that they are coming. For them. For no reason, presumably. I don’t know.

With the briefest and most mundane interactions with the witches, Mark is made whole, by them, and has no more cause for concern of being murdered by the mystics.  Once home, and after a few well-timed attempted murders that don’t go quite right, Mark figures out who the real murder is, takes care of business, and then, well your guess is as good as mine, or anyone elses.

It would appear that the viewer can somewhat come to their own conclusion as to how the mini-series ends, not really in a Choose Your Own Adventure way, but more in a We’ve Given You Material Now You’re On Your Own sort of way, and I think that has a lot of people confused and irritated. I didn’t read the book, but the storyline in the adaptation doesn’t come to a reasonable conclusion, one that anyone watching the series should be able to recognize or identify. Loose ends are completely acceptable, but there’s still direction in those leftover questions of who did what and why. I still think this is a fantastic mini-series, with gorgeous shots, brilliant dialog, and a beautiful score, but the ending is a bit frustrating.

Official Trailer can be seen here

The Pale Horse IMDb can be found here