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Original poster

The Pale Horse

184 replies

unique1986 · 09/02/2020 20:17

BBC 1 9pm

Enjoy

OP posts:
AndwhenyougetthereFoffsomemore · 16/02/2020 22:14

I reckon that somehow the 'witches' and the new wife were taking some sort of control (despite not actually having had anything to do with it...) but I couldn't work out a) how b) what exactly the control was.

Tiredmum21 · 16/02/2020 22:15

Glad i wasn't the only one who didn't get it! So was he dead in the end?

Nonnymum · 16/02/2020 22:17

can someone explain the ending .
I think he's dead.
It's a long time since I've read the book but if I'm remembering right this adaptation is completly different. Cant say I enjoyed it much either.

KimikosDreamHouse · 16/02/2020 22:17

I enjoyed the 1st episode

The 2nd was shite

Yes.

lightyearsahead · 16/02/2020 22:19

Oh bugger, just come on here for someone to explain the ending......looks like I am out of luck. I have no idea.

KimikosDreamHouse · 16/02/2020 22:22

Just re-watched the last minute. None the wiser. He is definitely dead because it's reported in the newspaper but beyond that, no idea.

ColleysMill · 16/02/2020 22:22

Is he dead then and in purgatory reliving his first wife's last moments???

BinkySodPlop · 16/02/2020 22:25

I assumed that he had died (of what?) and was reliving that scene as his hell. The instant recovery of the wife?? Murder of the police officer?? Definitely not in the book! The ITV Marple version was on the other day, and I watched it again, as I didn't recognise the BBC story, and although the book didn't have Miss Marple in it, it wasn't far off overall. The BBC version bore no resemblance in characterisation, motive or method. Oh well! We have the Kenneth Brannagh Death on the Nile later this year.

APatchyTomCat · 16/02/2020 22:25

I'll admit, it's Sunday, I've had a few wines. But even so, wtf was that ending about?

Did the witches power exist after all?

Cohle · 16/02/2020 22:35

I thought the ending was the witches predicting to his wife what was going to happen to him (dying in the same way as his first wife).

Christ that second episode went downhill though.

stumbledin · 16/02/2020 22:38

I think he is dead and in purgatory because he's had tried to present himself as an innocent victim.

But am now thinking they are implying the second wife in fact visited the 3 witches to get her wish, the death of the first wife (or it was just an accident which he covered up?) and / or she then asked for him to be got rid off because he was not turning out to be the dream husband.

Why else did the 3 witches turn up in her hospital room. He had tried to pay they to reverse her wish and so she nearly died, but because she came back he had to die??

Just rambing as realised I am not sure I care!

I always watch thing like this for the stage sets, costumes etc.. And finding out that didn't think any part of London looked like the square - but someone on here mentioned it was Bristol.

And thought the village couldn't be Sussex, more like the Cotswold.

So the real story is a man sort of predicted who might want a relative dead and then lured them into thinking witches could make it come true, but in reality he was just a serial killer?

stumbledin · 16/02/2020 22:43

@AndwhenyougetthereFoffsomemore

No not the ABC murders and admit this is a total thread derail. But the very last Poirot with David Suchet was with him very ill in a wheel chair and being taken by his old friend Hastings to some gloomy house to recuperate.

During this episode he dies but leaves clues for Hastings to solve the crime. But it was all totally depressing and very, very different in style from the early ones which were more like light comedies.

I just wondered if anyone had read the actual book. although didn't Christie kill him off in one book because she found him a bit silly, but the outcry from her fans was such that she had to bring him back. A bit like Sherlock Holmes.

Sunshinegirl82 · 16/02/2020 22:44

Mark Easterbrook murdered his first wife in a rage. I think the witches visited the second wife to save her and deal with Mark by killing him off/cursing him. I don't think she was involved at all otherwise (apart from being married to an arsehole who was slowly driving her mad).

BakewellTarts · 16/02/2020 22:47

@stumbledin that's Curtain which I think she wrote out of order and put in a safe to be released after her death. The David Suchet adaptation follows the book closely.

BakewellTarts · 16/02/2020 22:48

I think she wanted to finish off Poirots story herself.

SingingSands · 16/02/2020 22:51

I feel like I missed an episode between 1 and 2?! Too many gaps and I didn't like the ending either.

Ellapaella · 16/02/2020 22:52

The witches told him when he went to see him that the curse would be lifted, he kept saying he didn't feel any different but they assured him everything would change.
Was this because they knew he was going to die? The curse he felt was the uncertainty of not knowing when something would happen to him and it was lifted once he was actually dead?
I was really confused by the whole thing..

KimikosDreamHouse · 16/02/2020 22:55

When did he die?

Clawdy · 16/02/2020 23:00

I assumed he died in the fire he started. Isn't that what the newspaper headline said?

RustyBear · 16/02/2020 23:01

During the war, AC wrote two books which she put away in a bank vault 'in anticipation of my being killed in the raids' as she said in her autobiography. One was a Poirot - Curtain, made over by deed of gift to her daughter Rosalind, the other was the Miss Marple, Sleeping Murder, for her husband Max. (Apparently Sleeping Murder was originally called Cover Her Face, but while it was in the vault, PD James wrote a book with that title) Although Curtain was last Poirot, Sleeping Murder is not really the last Marple - re's nothing in it to suggest it's her last case and she seems a lot younger and more active in it than, for example Nemesis

SisterAgatha · 16/02/2020 23:04

I read the wiki synopsis to see if I could make sense of it and now I’m completely confused. Seems to be a different story entirely, only similarity being 3 witches.

mum2jakie · 16/02/2020 23:06

This adaptation bears absolutely no resemblance to the original book, so don't have a clue what the ending meant?!

KimikosDreamHouse · 16/02/2020 23:09

There's an explanation on Den of Geek but it's not very convincing.

www.denofgeek.com/uk/tv/agatha-christie/69797/bbc-one-s-the-pale-horse-explaining-the-ending

Wearywithteens · 16/02/2020 23:10

This reply has been withdrawn

This has been withdrawn at the poster's request.

HairyDogsOfThigh · 16/02/2020 23:10

I came on here hoping someone would have understood the ending.

I agree with pp episode one - enjoyable. Episode 2 - crap.

The newspaper said that he'd been found dead at his home, so he couldn't have died in the fire.

I thought that maybe his first wife had asked the witches for him to be killed, because she knew he was going to marry again (and she assumed their marriage was going to fail, rather than him killing her). I thought that worked as a reasonable twist that he'd killed her which brought about his second marriage which caused her to wish him dead, so indirectly he'd caused his own death by killing her.