‘The Undoing’ Episode 5: Is the dead dog story a lie? Here's the ugly truth behind Jonathan's sociopath instincts
WARNING: Spoiler Alert for ‘The Undoing’ and the 2014 novel ‘You Should Have Known’
Jonathan Fraser (Hugh Grant) is the prime suspect in the brutal murder of Elena Alves (Matilda De Angelis) on HBO's ‘The Undoing’ after he had an extramarital affair with her. But now, he seems to have got lawyer Haley Fitzgerald (Noma Dumezweni) and Grace Fraser (Nicole Kidman) on his side. In the last episode ‘See No Evil’, he foolishly even took a chance to visit Fernando Alves' (Ismael Cruz Córdova) home and held his baby daughter in his arms.
The episode ended with an explosive interview where Jonathan confessed, “I do not pass myself as honorable, because I am not. I was unfaithful to a wife, who I love. I hurt her. I hurt my son. But those things are unforgivable.” When he was asked, “You do admit that you are cheater, but are you a killer?” Jonathan exclaimed, “That I'm not guilty of.”
During the interview, he was also asked why he fled from the crime scene and he defended himself saying, "Because I was in shock... I did not feel at all like an innocent man. I was guilty of infidelity and I felt pretty certain that I was the cause of her death which is not to say that she died at my hands but I felt it was possible even that someone out of jealousy or in a fit of rage did it. I had made love to her, it could have possibly triggered the killer. Maybe he saw. (Hinting at Fernando)."
But, it doesn't seem logical to drop him off the suspect list so soon. There are many loopholes in the story he has baked and there is a strong possibility Jonathan could be a psychopath. Many fans are suspicious about the dead dog story Grace told Henry at the beginning of the show. When Henry pressed his dad to get a dog, his mom told him that Jonathan had a pet dog long back and his family blamed him for its death. Was it fabricated or a blatant lie?
“The dead dog story seems like a lie — Grace cannot be trusted,” one Reddit fan said. Another speculated, “Maybe he's a psychopath and killed the family dog! In the book Jonathan was accused of killing his brother (by his parents) or Grace has a multiple personality disorder and her dad is trying to help cover it up by framing Jonathan.”
A third said, “the story about the dad’s dog getting run over as a kid sounded made up to me too. Don’t know what significance that holds but it was pretty obvious and deliberately put there.” And a fourth added, “Maybe it is Jonathan after all. Double life-having, sociopath dog killer? Maybe his parents suspected his evil from the beginning? And what was with his weird flustered tie-tying? Maybe Grace is so sure of herself and her brand of therapy that she is too proud to see the obvious thing we all know?”
In Jean Hanff Korelitz's novel, ‘You Should Have Known’, Jonathan had hidden the fact that he had not one but two brothers. He never spoke about his younger brother named Aaron, or how his family believed he was responsible for his death. Shockingly, Jonathan’s parents, and his younger brother Mitchell, told Grace that Jonathan had never shown any remorse about his brother’s death. Jonathan turns out to be a psychopath in the book. Towards the end, Grace receives a letter from Jonathan with his confession that he indeed killed Elena and the mystery is solved.
But, if the series turns out to have a different ending than that of the book, these theories could also be valid. “My theory is that Grace is actually the one who killed her dog when she was little, and Jonathan knows this and that's why he won't get a dog for Henry. This scene had too much screen time to not be relevant. I think Jonathan is extremely scared of Grace, but hides that from her. Hence his affairs. Grace said it herself to her patients: People cheat to gain the power back. And she stared at the one man holding his partner's arm for entirely too long. I think Jonathan is petrified of Grace, and Grace has her dark side repressed because she is a hypnotherapist, but has breaks like we saw at the end of last night and that she killed Elena,” one fan posted.
Another said, “Grace did it, dissociatively. To Elena and possibly to Jonathan after. Small details in the way she psychoanalyses, multiplied by the forced interactions — these gave me pause. Her control when she lied about the dead dog was the ringer. She knew it would never be challenged nor corroborated. Plus, her Dad was sus of Jonathan which makes me think maybe he has an inkling about an affair; and also explains why Elena was staring and then crying followed by a swift departure.”
Too many questions and not enough answers. While we don't know what really happened and who killed Elena Alves, this whodunnit murder mystery seems more complicated than ever. Share your thoughts about the killer in the comments below.
‘The Undoing’ premiered on HBO on October 25, 2020, and more episodes in the six-episodic series will air every Sunday from 9 pm ET to 10 pm ET. Catch the fifth episode ‘Trial By Fury’ on November 22, 2020.