I’ve watched shows, movies, read comics or listened to podcasts where there is a lot of build up around a mystery, only for the end to be lackluster. In these the journey itself was more riveting than where we ended up. What are some instances where the answer lived up to the hype?
extremely good question to ask OP.
thinking on it right now, perhaps Moon (2009)
Yes! I think this qualifies.
Basically every episode of Columbo. The mystery isn’t the crime, but how he’s going to solve it.
The subgenre Columbo falls under is a “howcatchem” or an inverted detective story, as opposed to the more typical “whodunnit”.
Just in case OP likes that setup and wants to keyword search for more. One I like and has a second season in works is Poker Face starring Natasha Lyonne.
The closest I’ve watched in the last decade to something like this may be BBC’s Sherlock. Does that fall in the same category?
It’s been a while for me and I never did watch all of them, but no, I think Sherlock is a whodunnit, heavy on the drama, plus the twist of some narration from Watson’s blog.
The first episode opens with several people seemingly taking a pill to commit suicide. But someone is making them do it somehow. We don’t know who, we don’t know why. Who did it? Whodunnit genre.
Where if it were a Howcatchem genre, the identity of the baddie is revealed up front and the episode is about how the detective figures it out and nails them. How did the detective catch them? Howcatchem.
Monk, if you ever saw that one, would sometimes do whodunnit episodes and sometimes howcatchem episodes.
Not sure the genre or trope, but Poker Face (and 6 Feet Under), the additional subgenre for me is “who’s gonna die in the first scene”.
Yeah, I would call that a “killer of the week” format. There is a new crime/murder every week. Sometimes there is a season-long story as well (Natasha Lyonne’s character running away from the Vegas baddies) and sometimes it’s just the killer of the week story. Murder, She Wrote is a good example of the latter; you can watch MSW episodes in pretty much any order, it doesn’t matter because each episode is basically self-contained. Any story external to the killer of the week is just to service actors being replaced or setting Jessica Fletcher in different locations beyond her hometown so she can face a new killer of the week. MSW is a whodunnit and also a killer-of-the-week show.
When it was first released, The Sixth Sense ending blew everyones’ minds.
Usual Suspects and Se7en as well.
My youngest sister has never watched Sixth Sense so that’s the plan the next time one of us visits the other.
I suspect even though she doesn’t know the twist, it has invaded pop culture references and memes enough that she will figure it out early on in the movie. I remember even just knowing there was A Twist^TM was enough for me to spot what was coming much earlier on than the reveal. Really looking forward to seeing what she thinks of the movie from her Gen Z perspective.
I definitely think this movie popularized the “but it needs a twist at the end” trend.
+1 Usual Suspects for sure. That movie blew my mind.
All three great answers. I thoroughly enjoyed them. I’ve been trying to get my wife to watch Se7en or Usual Suspects for years.
I never watched sixth sense but I’ve already had it spoiled :(
Not sure if it’s what you’re looking for, but I’d say the mystery of the dead bear cub in central park 10 years ago. This was minor news back then and basically was forgotten about, until RFK Jr. (former third party presidential candidate) admitted to being the person behind it, confessing it to a confused Roseanne Barr.
I’ve never heard him speak. What an odd quavering voice he has!
He has a neurological condition, spasmodic dysphonia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spasmodic_dysphonia)
Fascinating, thank you.
Maybe not the best example, but The Prestige was very fun. I thought the reveal was worth waiting for, it sort of felt like a whodunit.
Id say quite a few Twilight Zone episodes had endings that were better than the mystery. But of course, there were just as many episodes where the opposite was true.
If you haven’t seen it or heard anything about it, I think Memento applies.
I loved Memento, very good example.
Primer
The mystery is working out what’s going on. The answer is a way cooler outcome than what you thought going in.
Most Brandon Sanderson books.
The Sixth Sense. I didn’t predict the twist because I didn’t know it had a twist, so when it dropped, it absolutely delivered.
Same with Memento, but less so, because I was actively trying to work out what was happening. The twist caught me by surprise, but I knew some sort of reveal was coming
The man from earth (2007). Low budget but a great movie, particularly if you know nothing about it beforehand.
And whatever you do, don’t watch the sequel. It’s quality is the exact opposite of the first movie.
Tana French novels often live up to the hype, at least for me.
