Been in trouble with the law since the day they was born.
Basing a scripted show on a real-life criminal case means sacrificing a certain degree of potential surprise. Murdaugh: Death In The Family acknowledges this not only with its title, but also its opening scene. It’s 10:06 PM on June 7, 2021. There are two corpses on the Murdaugh property. Alex Murdaugh (Jason Clarke), sweaty and blubbering, calls 911 and reports that his wife and his child have been shot and “it’s real bad.” Death in the family Murdaugh: got it.
Then time rolls back to February 22, 2019. At first glance, this is about as far from “real bad” as you can get. Alex is with a couple of buddies trying out their new guns on some model deer. Alex’s wife Maggie (Patricia Arquette) is on the phone, arguing about how many porta-potties they’ll need for 200 guests. The local news is reporting that Randolph Murdaugh III (Gerald McRaney) — Alex’s father and law partner — is about to receive the Order Of The Palmetto, the highest civilian honor in the state of South Carolina.
But the Murdaugh family dynasty isn’t entirely unblemished. Alex and Maggie’s younger son Paul (Johnny Berchtold) didn’t come home last night, and when he does roll up, it’s with a large tree branch stuck in one of the wheel wells on his truck; everyone assumes he was driving drunk, and no one is particularly shocked about it. Alex can’t start his workday without taking a couple of painkillers from the chewing tobacco can he hides them in and sticking them under his lip. Alex is confident about the personal injury case he’s pursuing — his client was paralyzed in a traffic collision — but back at the law office, his older brother Randy (Toby Emmerich) can’t help bringing up Alex’s client’s past DUIs as prejudicial for the jury, and Randolph thinks leaving the case with them is a dice roll. When Alex complains to Maggie about Randy undermining him, she tries to redirect him by getting flirty to a song on the stereo. It doesn’t work.
Celebrating the latest family triumph — Alex and Maggie’s son Buster (Will Harrison) was just accepted to law school, having secretly applied rather than risk the many alumni in his family pulling strings on his behalf — is short-lived: Maggie is upset to see someone named Eddie calling Alex, and doesn’t want him to go deal with Eddie’s latest crisis. When Alex ignores her concerns and angrily squeals off, Maggie asks the family’s housekeeper Gloria Satterfield (Kathleen Wilhoite) if she’s found any of Alex’s medication around the house; evidently Maggie has searched herself and found nothing, but his behavior is giving her pause.
Of course, we know Maggie’s right about that, and she’s right about Curtis “Eddie” Smith (Mark Pellegrino) too: the situation Alex has to handle for him is a jellyfish harvesting operation in the process of getting raided by the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control. Alex tells Doug Brailsford (Chris Greene), the ranking agent busting the company, that their permit from the county is pending, but “pending” and “approved” aren’t the same and Doug’s going to need Eddie and his staff to release all the fish on their boat. Alex wonders aloud what might happen if he said “fuck y’all” and continued what they were doing, but Doug says he wouldn’t do that, and Alex tells Eddie to shut it down.
The next day, the whole family gathers for Randolph’s award ceremony. Maggie’s sister Marian Proctor (J. Smith-Cameron) is also in attendance, and in Maggie’s room as she gets ready for the party she’s throwing for Randolph that afternoon.
