Gracepoint and the Meaningful Red Herring

Gracepoint and the Meaningful Red Herring

by Matthew Butcher, M.A.

Murder mysteries are sometimes too easy. In order to put off the audience, the investigation proceeds chasing down the likeliest of subjects. The audience, however, follows these red herrings, avenues to make us look away from the real clues until we are surprised with a satisfying, twisting ending.

In reality, the audience knows these are red herrings. Whether it’s because we just think it’s too easy, or we look at the clock and realize it’s too soon in the show, we know these are false leads. We follow because we know they are dropping clues that we need for the real killer. Gracepoint, a ten-episode murder mystery, used a few red herrings that led deeper into the mysteries of the town. However riveting, these revelations did little to reveal the actual killer. What they did reveal, though, is a far more satisfying culmination to the mystery.

For several episodes, the mystery focused on that enigmatic older woman from the trailer park and her intense background story. Her husband was abusing their oldest daughter and when he moved on the younger daughter, he killed the older as she protected her sister. There was a trial, and the news focused on the mother and the idea that she must have known what was going on in her own house. The distinct impression and tone of the show leads the audience to believe that she must have been in on it. But then this avenue of investigation was closed off—the audience knew that while this was a dark and secret mystery, it had nothing to do with the actual killer, especially the fact that it was several episodes before the finale—the audience knows the mystery is not going to reveal itself that soon.

So what Gracepoint does is pretty brilliant. It uses the themes and ideas of the old woman’s red herring, whether she knew or not, and places it square on the shoulders of the wife of the killer. In a way, this preempts any of the audience’s preconceived notions on whether the wife of the killer would know about it—almost as if when constructing the mystery they realized that it was a little unbelievable that the wife couldn’t have known. This also now makes us empathize with tow characters whom we have known throughout the show, one of whom we thought may have been the killer for several episodes.