‘Murdaugh: Death in the Family’ Stars Break Down Key Episode 7 Moments

[Warning: The following post contains spoilers for Murdaugh: Death in the Family Episode 7, “On the Road You Take to Avoid It.”]

The latest episode of Murdaugh: Death in the Family chronicles the beginning of the end for Alex Murdaugh (Jason Clarke): In the immediate wake of the double homicides, the entire family quite literally rallies around him, but by the end, he’s being escorted away in shame after several of his darkest secrets have been exposed.

The episode opens with Buster (Will Harrison) learning from Alex that his mother and brother have been murdered and arriving to see the horrors of the crime scene for himself.

For Harrison, the nature of his portrayal of the character changes in this moment: “He becomes, in the latter half of the series, kind of the way that you can view the story on a really human level… He is experiencing the tragedy firsthand as it’s unfolding for you as an audience member, so I wanted to bring a level of sensitivity and make sure that it was landing just how tragic these events were,” he told TV Insider.

Buster’s horrified reaction isn’t the only one that speaks volumes, either. When Alex and Buster tell his father, Randolph (Gerald McRaney) is surprised to hear Maggie is a victim and exclaims, “Who would do this to us … What has become of this family?!”

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McRaney said his final scene of the series is a punctuation mark about Randolph’s true priorities and perspective. “I think there’s a big part of Randolph that is really a decent man, but I think he has that character flaw that has endured for generations, that thing of, ‘No one can think that this family is imperfect.’ And I think that he has deluded himself to the point that he honestly thinks that outside influences have done this strictly to punish them for doing nothing, that they are guiltless, and this has been imposed upon them by outside forces,” he explained. “I think the news of Maggie’s death, especially, just tears him apart. His grandson’s death is awful. It’s terrible, but I think he had a special feeling for Maggie, and that, to me, was the part that was really, really sad, because Maggie is clean for the most part. It’s like she was the one who possibly could have saved this family, and it didn’t work out.”

The episode then follows the investigative team — chiefly, David Owen (Eric Goins) and Laura Rutland (Tyner Rushing) — as they conduct interviews and eliminate a slew of suspects.

Though Alex gets good news when Mark Tinsley (Tommy Dewey) informs Alex that the Beach family will withdraw their civil lawsuit against him, he then learns that his father is dead.

At the memorial service for Maggie and Paul, Alex delivers a stirring speech but reveals the truth of his emotional state when he corners his mother’s caretaker, Shelly Smith (Ursula O. Robinson), to insist he was at her home for much longer than she thinks before offering to help with her upcoming wedding. He also confounds Marian (J. Smith-Cameron) with his casual comment that whoever killed her sister and nephew must’ve thought about it for a long time.

The police get a major break in the case when Rogan Gibson (Callan Wilson) claims to have heard Alex’s voice in his final call with Paul, shortly before the estimated time of death for the victims. Laura then remembers how clean Alex was, despite saying he’d checked the blood-stained bodies before calling 9-1-1.

Disney / Daniel Delgado Jr.

We also see Mandy Matney (Brittany Snow) quickly launch her Murdaugh Murders Podcast in the wake of the news with her now-famous first words of the initial episode.

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This was a full-circle moment. “I was very familiar with the podcast. I was a huge fan,” Snow remembered. When she was contacted by series writer Bashir Gavriel about potentially playing Matney, she remembered, “For the first time in my entire life, I was overprepared for an interview, and I was meeting with the producers Erin [Carr] and Mike [Fuller]. I knew everything already. I was like, ‘All of my hours of research of true crime have paid off.'”

Alex and Buster retreat to Maggie’s beach house to regroup, and, in a deeply upsetting scene, they use the paint swatches that once symbolized Maggie’s hope for change as beer coasters.

Of the scene, cocreator Erin Lee Car Said, “Even though Buster loved his mother very much in our story, and in real life, there’s a certain thing of like, ‘She’s gone. That’s over. We’re not going to be painting.’ And the finality of that, that’s what I love about this writing team… The simple act of the cup going on the paint sample, to me, really, really mattered.”  

Meanwhile, Harrison said that his take on Buster’s behavior there is one of stepping up. “I wanted to highlight the fact that, in the aftermath of the tragedy, he is trying his hardest to pick up that Murdaugh mantle and assume the role that his father might have played… because he’s lost in the web of lies that he’s created. So watching him struggle with that and try to man up and do it the way that his family does it was really interesting to play with.”

Disney / Daniel Delgado Jr.

When Alex is confronted about Rogan’s revelation and is asked whether he killed Maggie and Paul, Alex seems stunned. Billy (Paul Schneider) takes charge to end the unexpected interrogation, but another one quickly follows. Alex is confronted by Randy (Noah Emmerich), the CFO, and the partners about his mismanagement of client funds. They’ve finally figured out his Forge scheme and are firing him, effective immediately.

Alex asks for and receives sympathy from Randy on a brotherly level when he reveals his addiction issues, but that won’t save his job. Alex takes his frustrations out on the house at Moselle — particularly a frozen jellyfish left over from his failed side hustle — before coming up with a solution. He summons Cousin Curtis “Eddie” Smith (Mark Pellegrino) and asks him to shoot him. Curtis is abjectly opposed and, after firing a warning shot to stop Alex’s fit, he accidentally knocks him to the ground and takes off, leaving Alex with a head injury that he claims was from a bullet.

At the hospital, David and Laura confront Alex over Eddie’s story and expose his lie about that encounter right in front of Buster. At the same time, Mark gets approached by the Satterfield son about representing them against Alex, and Sandy reveals that SLED is reopening the homicide investigation into her son, Stephen Smith. After Alex reads off the prepared statement from his brother about his resignation from PMPED and is carted off to rehab, Buster comes home to a massive mess … both figuratively and literally.

Just one more episode left to go until this case is closed.

Murdaugh: Death in the Family, Wednesdays, Hulu

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