As a Fridge subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
Fridge Brilliance
- The tiny Adaptational Alternate Ending moment seems odd that Wargrave would come to taunt Vera as she starts to hang herself, until you remember in the books that it was a drunk Hugo who told Wargrave what his lover did. Here, we never see Hugo turning to alcohol and in fact promises that if he could find the proof that Vera let Cyril die on purpose, then he would see her hang. So it's highly possible that Wargrave, if Hugo was his informant, wanted to verify that Vera was guilty before carrying out the sentence to the end. Because he wasn't just committing murder; he was respecting a bereft uncle's wishes.
- At the climax, Wargrave delivers a Motive Rant to Vera while she's hanging precariously from the noose, in which he explains why he did what he did. Why? It could just be Wargrave wanting to reveal his perfect crime to someone before he dies, but there's another possible explanation. While begging for her life, Vera points out that there are no more bullets for Wargrave and offers to help him throw the blame on Lombard if he'll spare her. After Wargrave points out some possible holes in her proposed story, Vera assures him that "they believed me last time," and it's only after this that Wargrave pulls away the chair she's balanced on and leaves her to die. While Vera's crime is arguably the most abhorrent, it's also the most potentially ambiguous — her story is very plausible, she's already been cleared by a coroner's court, her innocent act has been incredibly convincing ("What a beguiling woman you are, Miss Claythorne!"), only two people know for sure exactly what happened in her case and one of them is dead. While he certainly suspects, Wargrave can't actually know for certain that it wasn't just a tragic accident in her case... until she herself tells him that it wasn't. Wargrave isn't just gloating or explaining the plot for the audience; he's baiting Vera so that he can confirm for himself that she is a murderer before he carries out her "sentence".
- Wargrave may also have had another reason to talk to Vera instead of simply letting her hang herself without interference linked to how guilty he found her. In the book, he says that he wanted to save the guiltiest people for last so that they would experience the greatest psychological torment and the most painful deaths. Vera had, in spite of everything that happened, managed to enter a strange sort of zen state where she believed herself to be the final surviving heroine who had bested the treacherous villain Lombard and would now gracefully accept her fate to reunite with Cyril, but Wargrave revealing himself to her destroyed that small bit of peace of mind and turned her into a pathetic, flailing woman who realized that she had made the worst decision possible in killing Lombard instead of listening to him, experienced a lengthy period of agony from the noose literally tightening around her neck as Wargrave talked to her, and only confirmed that she was a Manipulative Bitch who lied to everyone about Cyril's death and was willing to throw the man she had seemingly fallen in love with under the bus to save her life through her desperate attempts to bargain with Wargrave. By not letting Vera calmly hang herself and instead making it clear to her that she had not in fact "won", Wargrave both exposes Vera as the Asshole Victim she is and ensures that she suffers the most prolonged and painful death of the cast as the one he considered to be the guiltiest.
- And why is Vera Wargrave's "favourite"? Because she's both the worst murderer of the lot and is also the most convincing in her innocent act. It's far more satisfying to expose, break and destroy her than, say, Anthony Marston, a little brat who's too self-absorbed and narcissistic to even bother pretending he didn't do it.
- Another reason for Wargrave to have the conversation with Vera prior to making sure she dies is because the judge IS a sadist. He was just so moralistic that up until his gambit, his morality only allowed him to express his sadism by sentencing people to death. In this instance, he finally has an opportunity to have a one-on-one conversation with a woman who is going to die because of him. It also gives him the chance to do in dialogue what he did with the letter in the novel. Chatting with Vera gives him the opportunity to gloat about how he's gotten away with it and let at least one other person know how clever he's been. Wargrave's sadism is demonstrated by the fact that he allows Vera a full five minutes to think that she can convince him to let her out of the noose, then coldly reminds her as she begins to strangle to death that she forgot to factor in the bullet he's going to use to kill himself with. He lets her believe she can still live for a few moments before his ultimate act reveals he never had any intention at all of ever sparing her life.
- Characters who express guilt and regret early on get quicker, more dignified deaths. Ethel, who is so guilt-stricken over her complicity in a murder she went blind, is sedated and poisoned, and dies quietly in her sleep after only a few minutes of terror and distress. General MacArthur, who wishes he had stepped aside and let his wife and her lover be together for the short time she had left, is given enough time to accept his impending doom and take a seat on the cliffs watching the sea before being clubbed in the back of the head.note
- Blore, by contrast, expresses remorse very late in the game, after spending three episodes lying and denigrating his victim, so he receives no such courtesy.
- Conversely, Marston is killed first because he doesn't understand what he did was wrong, and so the mind games would be absolutely pointless. However, his death by cyanide poisoning is as painful as it is undignified.
- The use of "Soldier Boys" instead of "Indian" or "Nigger," and "Soldier Island," works so well in the series, and not only because it removes unnecessary, racist artifacts of the language. In the screenplay, the Great War looms over the entire cast like a storm cloud. Those who remember living and fighting in the war (especially Armstrong and Macarthur) are deeply scarred by it. The use of the world "soldier" just brings this nightmare back to those that remember.
- It's not the only nightmarish war looming over events either, although the characters don't know it. The story is set in late August 1939.
- It is hinted at though, as when Lombard remarks, "There's always another war..."
- It's not the only nightmarish war looming over events either, although the characters don't know it. The story is set in late August 1939.
- At the beginning of the series, Vera becomes uncomfortable with Lombard ogling her on the train and moves to sit in the same compartment as Wargrave. This cleverly foreshadows Vera's ultimate fate — her distrust of Lombard in spite of their sexual attraction to each other causes her to abandon him and enter a place where Wargrave lies in wait.
