Murdaugh: Death in the Family is coming to an end with a glimpse at Alex Murdaugh‘s high-profile trial.
In Us Weekly‘s exclusive clip from the Wednesday, November 19, finale, Alex (Jason Clarke) takes the stand after being accused of Maggie Murdaugh (Patricia Arquette) and Paul Murdaugh‘s (Johnny Berchtold) deaths.
“Do you think you lived a life of privilege?” the prosecutor asks, to which Alex, 57, replies, “I think you could say that.”
Opposing counsel pushes back against Alex’s version of events.
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“In June of 2021, you were suffering from drug addiction, your father was ill, you were coming to a point of a financial crisis, isn’t that true?” he asks Alex. “Issues that you lied to your father about. You lied to your brothers? You lied to your sister-in-law? You lied to your colleagues and law partners and clients.”
After the prosecutor asks whether Alex is “a family annihilator,” the inmate replies, “I would never hurt Maggie. I would never hurt Paul — under any circumstances.”
Alex’s defense didn’t land for the prosecution. “You say that but you lied to Maggie. You lied to Paul,” the attorney fires back. “If you admit that you lied to all these people, why should we believe you are telling the truth now?”
Based on the “Murdaugh Murders” podcast, the Hulu series, which premiered in October, followed journalist Mandy Matney as she investigated and blogged about the powerful family leading up to and in the wake of their downfall.
Matney began looking into the Murdaughs and their alleged crimes after Alex’s son Paul Murdaugh’s indictment for friend Mallory Beach’s wrongful death. Alex later killed Paul and his mother, Maggie Murdaugh, in 2021. Alex was found guilty on all four counts related to their murders.
Alex was previously accused of misappropriating funds from his law firm, clients and the government through a scheme involving embezzlement, wire fraud and money laundering. He is currently facing a total of 102 grand jury criminal charges and 19 indictments relating to fraud and drug offenses. He was disbarred, had his assets seized and is serving two consecutive life sentences for the murders of Maggie and Paul.
While speaking exclusively to Us in October, creators Michael D. Fuller and Erin Lee Carr shared the extensive research and outreach that went into the series.
“For anyone who knows the real story, it’s sprawling and it’s complex. The thing that was my guiding principle that I tried to imbue the process with is we might not always be able to do the [full] truth because [of] the restrictions of episode count and the running time. But let’s always try to be aware of what the truth is,” Fuller shared. “Then let’s make sure that in our story’s truth we know why we made this decision. We know why we made this adaptation choice.”
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The priority was to have “utmost respect and reverence” to the victims depicted on screen.
“We were able to talk to a lot of people directly involved in it for their perspectives for research purposes. I can’t name who they are but we really wanted to do hour-long pre tapes,” Carr explained. “And Michael always had this thing where we would do one-on-ones with each principal actor before the episode was shot.”
Carr didn’t rule out hearing from the Murdaugh family after the show’s release, adding, “I don’t know what the future holds. I hope what we put together was something insightful and articulate. While it is incredibly painful, Buster will see it. But I can’t speak to their reactions. We just know what we did and we put out into the world.”
Fuller, meanwhile, insisted they “approached everything with an abundance of sensitivity” when it came to outreach.
Murdaugh: Death in the Family concludes on Wednesday, November 19, on Hulu.
