In episode five of Netflix’s The Beast In Me, a tipsy Nile Jarvis (Matthew Rhys) sings and grooves to Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer” while hanging out at his neighbor Aggie Wiggs’ (Claire Danes) house. In response, she promptly asks, “You don’t think this is just a little on the nose?” After all, Nile has been accused of murdering his missing first wife, and Aggie suspects he might be involved in a local teen’s disappearance as well. The show’s true curveball is that it doesn’t wait long to reveal if Nile is, in fact, a psycho killer. (In the previous outing, he furiously bashed in the skull of the FBI agent obsessively investigating him. And he actively plots to take down a politician speaking out against his latest New York City real estate development.) Gabe Rotter’s series revels in developing Nile’s slimy attitude and heavy ego, using that to explore his sociopathic tendencies over eight installments and sidestepping the questions of whether he is guilty and who the criminal might be.
It’s not like the enduring pleasures of a formulaic whodunit—chasing clues and suspects for a (hopefully) rewarding payoff—aren’t easily accessible on TV right now. This year alone, Hulu’s returning Only Murders In The Building, FX’s The Lowdown, Prime Video’s Ballard, and Netflix’s The Residence, among others, tackled the format. However, another pattern has prominently emerged, seen most recently in The Beast In Me and Task, that feels like a wholly different yet invigorating crime drama. Both shows set the expectant guessing games aside for the most part. Don’t mistake that for a lack of tension, though. By telling the audience about the culprit’s identity early on rather than letting the suspense simmer throughout the season, they build intense character dynamics, motivations, and themes that are difficult to shake off by the end.
As Nile and Aggie indulge in psychological warfare, The Beast In Me pits them against each other to escalate the anxiety as we see both sides of the battle. There are no other red herrings, alibis, or whodunit tropes. A far more bleak and moving Task does something similar. FBI Agent Tom Brandis (Mark Ruffalo) forms a team to nab thieves targeting a gang’s trap houses in Delaware County. Unlike in his previous Pennsylvania-set HBO drama, the thrilling Mare Of Easttown, creator Brad Inglesby doesn’t solve this mystery solely through the lens of a tough yet vulnerable detective. Instead, Task immediately expands the POV to include Robbie Prendergast (Tom Pelphrey) and his loved ones.
With the help of a couple of friends, Robbie steals from the Dark Hearts to avenge his brother’s death at their hands. Except, as seen in the premiere, his night takes a violent turn when a shootout occurs during the break-in. His targets die, and Robbie essentially kidnaps their surviving boy, giving Tom another case to solve. With this, Task sets up the opposite of a straightforward whodunit. It’s not even a howdunit or whydunnit, although those aspects are woven into the show’s fabric. There’s intrigue in watching Tom fit the puzzle pieces and catch up to what the viewers already know, all while handling a shattering personal crisis. Simultaneously, Task meaningfully digs into Robbie’s agenda and empathizes with his own crushing backstory and the grief and guilt that channels into total self-sabotage. Tom and Robbie’s paths finally converge in an exhilarating fifth episode and come to a head two installments later in a meet-up that is equally poignant and action-packed.
The Beast In Me, on the other hand, derives tension from Nile and Aggie’s constant push and pull. She risks her life to investigate him, but it’s also a distraction from her own suffering of losing her child in an accident while she was driving the car. And Nile attempts to mask his murderous rage with charm, which leads to plenty of nail-biting sequences between them. TBIM and Task, despite their tonal differences, mine from how the two leads—the good guy and the bad guy, so to speak—engage with each other. Another through-line comes from how both dramas smartly deal with the fallout of the events rather than showing us what might’ve led up to them.
Like Task and The Beast In Me, Netflix’s Adolescence also successfully answers its big mystery quickly. Episode one closes with the confirmation that 13-year-old Jamie Miller (Owen Cooper) killed his classmate, with the remaining three installments unpacking the tragedy in heartbreaking detail instead of delivering twists. And every episode of Poker Face (much like its inspiration, Colombo) begins with showing the murder before amateur sleuth Charlie Cale (Natasha Lyonne) connects the dots. Even Apple TV’s latest sci-fi saga, Pluribus, unveils early on the truth about the alien virus that has affected the population, save for Carol Sturka (Rhea Seehorn) and a dozen others. Vince Gilligan‘s show mines from her dystopian circumstances to build the suspense on what the Joined want next rather than letting the ambiguity of who they are linger, a pointedly different playbook from the puzzle-box mystery of Severance or recent subpar thrillers like Untamed, The Better Sister, and All Her Fault. And when the results are this absorbing, it’s hard to complain about flipping the script.
Saloni Gajjar is The A.V. Club‘s TV critic.
