Agatha Christie's Poirot: Curtain: Poirot's Last Case
November 23, 2022 8:02 PM - Season 13, Episode 5 - Subscribe

An ailing Poirot and his old friend Captain Hastings travel to Styles, the location of their first mystery almost three decades earlier, to try to stop a serial killer from continuing their spree.
posted by Carillon (3 comments total)
 
The end of the series! I'm amazed that someone that has so many episodes and truly tackled an extensive corpus, could have such quality and verve even you then end. Suchet is just amazing in this role, he really both sticks to the text, but also owns the role? It's very hard to watch other interpretations. Maybe Christie got sick of her little Belgian detective, but I haven't and I don't think the team behind these did either.
posted by Carillon at 10:50 PM on November 23, 2022 [3 favorites]


I am NOT going to watch this on Thanksgiving.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 8:31 AM on November 24, 2022


Well that was very somber. I’d read the book long ago so I knew how he ended but not the plot except for his controversial resolution and that he was reunited with cher Hastings. The show was much more affecting than the novel and unusually for Christie, the plot was less interesting and the characters more lifeless than normal, with the focus on the two old friends.

Before watching, I went back to rewatch The Mysterious Affair at Styles, because I thought that plot might figure in this one but no. In fact it was even more irrelevant because the two episodes were actually filmed at different stately homes and the ending of the earlier episode had the eldest son inheriting the house and the money so the script could’ve included a line about the disappearance of the Cavendish family since so much was made of Poirot’s return to the house.

My favorite part was Poirot’s line that Hastings was responsible for the death of Dr Franklin’s wife. I thought it had to do with the pills Hastings stole from Allerton but the revolving bookcase was so much better and so hapless Hastings. The only thing I do not understand is why Poirot was wearing a false mustache. The show seems to imply that clean shaven was part of the disguise to pass as Norton but that’s ridiculous. I think in the book it was just vanity (and discovered after his death)? (And why was the charade even necessary that Hastings should see “Norton” return to his room?) Because the sudden lack of mustache made it look like David Suchet fired the gun, not his character. Ugh.

For all my criticisms about the rewriting of the plots, it was a really well produced series, the locations, clothes, and cars were fun to see. The main continuing characters were excellent. That it ran for 24!! years is amazing. People who watched it as it originally aired had a real journey and the ending must have been overwhelmingly sad.

I just discovered that his obituary was published on the front page of the NYT, August 6, 1975. I thought to check because I remember learning in college that Sherlock Holmes was still alive because if he were dead, his obituary would’ve been published in The Times.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 9:43 AM on November 27, 2022 [1 favorite]


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