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Hulu’s latest limited series, Murdaugh: Death in the Family, turns the spotlight onto Maggie Murdaugh, too often reduced to a footnote in the infamous true crime saga involving her husband, Alex Murdaugh. Co-created by Erin Lee Carr and Michael D. Fuller, the series aims to explore Maggie’s life, resilience, and silenced voice.
A Woman Behind the Headlines
Until now, Maggie Murdaugh was mostly portrayed as one among many victims in the unraveling of the Murdaugh family legacy. Previous documentaries, like Netflix’s Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal and HBO Max’s Low Country: The Murdaugh Dynasty, largely featured her in the shadows. Her identity was often distilled to a single line on Wikipedia: “an American socialite.” Not only reductive, but painfully impersonal.
This new Hulu series pushes back against that erasure. It doesn’t attempt to relitigate the crimes of Alex Murdaugh, who was convicted of killing both Maggie and their son Paul in 2021. Instead, it gives Maggie a voice, a past, and a presence.
Patricia Arquette’s Emotional Role
Patricia Arquette steps into the role of Maggie, delivering a performance that’s thoughtful and quietly powerful. Known for her nuanced acting in projects like Boyhood and Severance, Arquette brings warmth and complexity to a woman trying to keep her family from falling apart. To read Pluribus finale shocks fans as season 2 faces long wait
Describing Maggie as a “Southern woman” deeply committed to her family, Arquette spoke openly about the emotional gravity of the role. “I wanted to honor her, I wanted to honor women who go through these mechanisms in dysfunctional marriages,” she said. That line hit me. You can feel Arquette carrying that mission in every scene, especially in the small moments—an anxious glance, a forced smile—that hint at a life quietly unraveling.
The Intimacy of Scripted Drama
For co-creator and director Erin Lee Carr, the shift to scripted drama was essential. Known for documentaries like Britney vs Spears, Carr sees fiction as a way to explore the emotional terrain often lost in factual retellings. “What scripted television does… adds new insight and really shows the spaces between people,” she explained.
That observation rings true in the series. Where docuseries stack facts and footage, Murdaugh: Death in the Family leans into silence, conversation, and the emotional gaps that tell you everything a courtroom transcript cannot. You sit with Maggie in her kitchen, watching her hold in the things she knows and fears but won’t say yet.
Charting Maggie’s Emotional Journey
Michael D. Fuller, the series’ co-creator, said that by episode three, “This lightbulb that’s been inside of her starts to flicker on that she didn’t know was even there.” That flicker is the key to this series. It’s slow, sometimes painfully so, but honest. The show doesn’t rush Maggie toward revelation. It allows her to be hesitant, scared, supportive, confused—in short, real.
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- A departure from the true-crime formula
- A grounded, performance-driven narrative led by Patricia Arquette
- A feminist-leaning retelling that respects its subject
- A more intimate and emotional examination of a story we thought we already knew
This series delivers.
There’s no denying that stories like this need to be told carefully. Carr and Fuller approach it gently, keeping the focus on Maggie’s humanness. It’s not about rehashing the gruesome details; it’s about understanding how someone gets caught in a storm without even realizing the clouds have gathered.
A New Perspective on a Familiar Tragedy
Murdaugh: Death in the Family premieres its first three episodes on Hulu this Wednesday. For those of us who’ve spent the last few years watching headlines and documentaries chew through the Murdaugh name, this feels like something different. Thoughtful, empathetic, and necessary. Maggie Murdaugh was more than a victim. This series attempts to make sure we never forget that.
