The Thursday Murder Club ending explained: Breaking down the twisty murder

Elizabeth and her sleuths figured out who did it and why.
The Thursday Murder Club. Photo Credit: Giles Keyte / Netflix
The Thursday Murder Club. Photo Credit: Giles Keyte / Netflix

When it comes to The Thursday Murder Club, we get a look at how age is not restrictive. Honestly, I want to see this group team up with Matty in Matlock, as they all show just how overlooked they can end up being.

Caution: This post contains SPOILERS for The Thursday Murder Club

The Thursday Murder Club, based on the novel of the same name by Richard Osman, starts with Elizabeth, Ibrahim, and Ron recruiting Joyce, a new resident at Cooper’s Chase to join their club. No, this isn’t a backgammon club or a knitting club. The three have founded The Thursday Murder Club, and they spend their days solving cold cases.

However, they find a fresh case on their hands, and it doesn’t take them long to find out that Cooper’s Chase is under threat. Ian Ventham wants to flatten the retirement home for luxury flats, but is he the man behind the murder that the group of four are now going to solve?

The Thursday Murder Club
The Thursday Murder Club

Tony Curran turns up dead in The Thursday Murder Club

No, not the actor Tony Curran! There’s a character with the name, who turns up bludgeoned to death. This man happens to be Ventham’s business partner, who did not want to turn the retirement home into flats. It turns out that there’s a third business partner as well, Bobby Tanner.

Now Tanner is a mysterious man who is a career gangster and presumed dead for the last few years. He’s not as dead as many would expect, and with this reveal, it doesn’t take long to guess that Tanner and Ventham are involved in the murder of Curran.

When Ventham is killed, eyes turn to Tanner, but he has a cast-iron alibi. So, now the sleuths have two murder victims and are running out of clues.

Curran’s murderer and Ventham’s murderer are not the same, it would seem. Curran was murdered by accident, after he took the passport of Ventham’s Polish servant, Bogdan. All Bogdan wanted was his passport back so that he could visit his family, but Curran refused. When a fight broke out, Curran was killed.

The Thursday Murder Club
The Thursday Murder Club

The Thursday Murder Club ending explained: Who killed Ventham?

So, with Curran’s murder solved, the group needed to focus on Ventham. It turned out that this was linked to a cold case that Elizabeth’s cop friend, Penny, never handed over: The Woman in White.

One night, Angela Hughes was found stabbed and defenestrated. Everyone claimed it was a masked intruder, but Penny had worked out that it was Angela’s husband, Peter Mercer. When the police wouldn’t arrest him since he was “one of the boys,” Penny took matters into her own hands and killed Peter herself.

His body was buried on top of a coffin 50 years ago, and Bogdan had found this body. It was only a matter of time before Ventham reported this to the police, and while Penny was in a coma in the hospice wing, her husband knew all about it and wouldn’t see her name tarnished. So, he took matters into his own hands, killing Ventham with Penny’s fentanyl.

When John asks Elizabeth for some time with Penny before she calls it in, Elizabeth and the others know what he’s going to do. There is fentanyl and syringes close by. The two end up dying and being buried together in a bittersweet moment, where it’s clear that Ventham’s family is not going to get any sort of justice.

The Thursday Murder Club
The Thursday Murder Club

What happens to Cooper’s Chase?

The retirement home will live on, which means there is a chance for a sequel to The Thursday Murder Club. Joyce’s daughter, Joanna, is going to redirect millions of her company’s company’s money into the retirement home.

This means The Thursday Murder Club can continue working on their cold (and hot?) cases. Now we just need Netflix to greenlight more of Osman’s books.

The Thursday Murder Club is now available to stream on Netflix.

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