The Thursday Murder Club Ending Explained: Netflix’s latest release brings to life Richard Osman’s bestselling mystery in a cinematic form. Directed by Chris Columbus, the film stars a stellar ensemble: Helen Mirren as Elizabeth, Pierce Brosnan as Ron, Ben Kingsley as Ibrahim, Celia Imrie as Joyce, Naomi Ackie as PC Donna de Freitas, Daniel Mays as DCI Chris Hudson, David Tennant as Ian Ventham, Geoff Bell as Tony Curran, Tom Ellis as Jason, Henry Lloyd-Hughes as Bogdan, and more. Their collective performances balance suspense with moments of humour, perfectly capturing the spirit of Osman’s novel.
The Thursday Murder Club Recap
The movie The Thursday Murder revolves around Cooper’s Chase, a seemingly peaceful retirement home that turns into the unlikely centre of a double-murder investigation. There you have residents Elizabeth, Ron, and Ibrahim—who are later joined by Joyce—who gather each Thursday to speak about cold cases. What started out as a pastime gets real when a murder happens just outside their front doorstep.
Elizabeth, whose secret MI6 background only slowly emerges, is in low-key leadership. Ron, a former passionate campaigner for a union, contributes fervour and conviction; Ibrahim, a retired psychoanalytic specialist, contributes psychiatric expertise; Joyce, a retired nurse, is drawn in reluctantly but ultimately proves irreplaceable. Out of such people is constituted The Thursday Murder Club.
The team initially reviews decades-old murder of Angela Hughes, a young adult murdered in a dubious circumstance during the 1970s. Before completely untangling this thematic concern, a fresh murder disturbs Cooper’s Chase: Tony Curran, one of the co-owners at the facility for retirees, is murdered in the aftermath of a public argument between him and his partner, Ian Ventham.
Suspicion at headquarters falls naturally on Ian, whose ambitions for knocking the home down and replacing it with high-class apartments had already made him unpopular with his partner and with the retired residents. But when the Thursday Murder Club digs a little deeper, it unravels a plot involving secret investors, decades-old mafia ties, clandestitous assignations, and buried bones—all literally in the cemetery next door.
Netflix The Thursday Murder Club Ending Explained
Who Killed Tony Curran in The Thursday Murder Club Movie?
Tony Curran’s killing at first appeared to result from his own quarrel with Ian Ventham, but proved otherwise. It was The Thursday Murder Club which revealed that it was actually committed by Bogdan, a Polish labourer hired to take care of the cemetery. Tony had been mistreating his immigrant labour by taking their passports away from them, so they were helpless and immobilised.
Eager to make his ailing mother a visit in Poland, Bogdan pleaded with Tony repeatedly for his passport. When Tony refused it, tempers rose and their quarrel concluded in a lethal argument over Tony’s murder. Despite Bogdan’s insistence that it was not premeditated, Elizabeth pieced it all together when she learned about Tony’s worker abuse by their covert third investor, Bobby Tanner.
The best evidence would come in an unlikely form—the husband of Elizabeth, Stephen. Stephen was fighting dementia and documenting his games as a form of information preservation. On one such recording, Bogdan had secretly confessed to Stephen in his assumption that Stephen’s forgetfulness would render it safe. Stephen’s recording device had actually taped his statement, though, leaving police with their coveted evidence. Between desperation and survival, a tragic Bogdan paid for a crime sired in exploitation.
Was Elizabeth Successful in Solving the Angela Mercer Case?
Earlier in the 1970s, around the time when murders occurred at Cooper’s Chase, however, the Thursday Murder Club had been investigating an unsolved 1970s murder by Angela Hughes. Her lover at the time was Peter Mercer, and he had blamed an intruder in a mask for killing her. People had suspected Peter himself, but nobody was convicted.
The truth was Penny Grey, a hard-boiled detective and Elizabeth’s companion, had already convicted Peter decades prior. Confounded with a misogynistic police force aloof about pursuing prosecution, Penny had seen fit to take the law into her own hands. She murdered Peter and, with her husband John’s help, secretly buried his body in the cemetery in which Cooper’s Chase is located.
When Ian had had the cemetery reopened for redevelopment, the skeleton had been unknowingly unearthed. Elizabeth immediately knew what had occurred. She understood Penny had murdered Peter in order to safeguard Angela’s memory, and John had spent a lifetime covering up for it. Through her own means, in a twisted sort of victory, Elizabeth had solved the Angela Mercer case and verified what Penny had known all along, though it revealed just how much suffering and secrecy had been festering underneath.
What Happened in the Protest and Who Killed Ian Ventham?
Ian was selfish and arrogant; he instigated a plan for levelling Cooper’s Chase despite strong opposition. People protested in an effort to stop it, and tempers were high.. It was during this confrontation that Ian suddenly collapsed, and later we get to know that he was injected with a lethal dose of fentanyl.
In the end of The Thursday Murder Club, it was revealed that the killer was Penny’s husband, John Gray. When there are excavations in a cemetery which would uncover Mercer’s bones, John knew his building would expose his wife’s secret and ruin her reputation. John was a retired vet when he killed Mercer by lethal injection, so Ian would not follow through on his intentions.
Though it shocked everyone, for John it was an act of faith—to protect Penny, now in a coma, and to protect the honour of a woman he loved. His actions blurred crime and loyalty so indistinguishably that Elizabeth and even the club were torn between compassion and judgment.
What Happened to Cooper’s Chase in the End?
ith Ian and Tony’s deaths, Cooper’s Chase was owned exclusively by Bobby Tanner. Tanner, once a notorious gangster, had transformed himself into a florist—but his questionable business practices, particularly his exploitation of immigrants for cheap labour, provided a wedge for Elizabeth: she made a proposal: Tanner would end his exploitation business and would sell Cooper’s Chase to someone she would pick.
That would ultimately be Joanna, Joyce’s daughter, a hedge fund specialist who had a strong interest in this because of what the community had given her mother. As the film ends prior to the sale becoming final, it is heavily implied that Joanna would purchase Cooper’s Chase, preserving it as a residence for its elderly rather than seeing it demolished for financial gain.
The story closes with John Gray’s heartbreaking decision to end both his and Penny’s lives using the same fentanyl that killed Ian. He wanted to spare her from lingering in a coma and ensure they left the world together. Their deaths were mourned by the community, with Ibrahim delivering a moving eulogy.
Eventually, Cooper’s Chase survived as a haven, the Thursday Murder Club proved their brilliance, and justice, bent though it was and morally flawed, was served. The end leaves a window for a sequel or several sequels while remarking that even in their golden age, Elizabeth, Ron, Ibrahim, and Joyce aren’t quite ready yet to hang up those detective hats.
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