‘Murdaugh: Death in the Family’ Stars Break Down Key Moments in ‘The Prince’

[Warning: The following post contains MAJOR spoilers for Murdaugh: Death in the Family Episode 5, “The Prince.”]

Ahead of the premiere of Murdaugh: Death in the Family, cocreator Michael D. Fuller told TV Insider that the series would dig into the life and mysterious death of Stephen Smith, with some new insights coming directly from his mother. And in Episode 5, “The Prince,” we’re finally getting to see that play out.

The episode begins at Sandy Smith’s (Rhoda Grifis) house as Stephen reveals to his mother and sister that he’s planning to meet a mystery man, whom he later refuses to name but calls “The Prince.” As excited as he may be about his love connection, he then experiences a bit of bigotry as passersby use slurs against him and a friend. Still, we see Stephen experiencing joy and optimism about his future in medicine before his roadside death becomes a part of the Murdaugh saga.

For Mandy Matney, the Murdaugh Murders Podcast creator-turned-show executive producer, featuring Smith during his life was an essential element of this adaptation: “The Stephen Smith story is a very tough one to tell, and it’s a story that the media gets wrong very often,” she said. Matney, who connected Fuller and cocreator Erin Lee Carr with the real-life Sandy Smith to hear stories about her late son, said the portrayals made the grieving mother proud. “I think they did a really great job. Showing Stephen before he died, I think that’s so important. They did that with every single one of the victims in a very intentional way, to not just have them be remembered for how they died, but how they lived and who they were as people.”

Disney / Daniel Delgado Jr.

When the news does come that Buster’s (Will Harrison) name is being associated with the investigation into Smith’s death, the family is busy preparing for the annual Watermelon Festival, for which Maggie (Patricia Arquette) is dutifully making a big float for the family to ride through town on, while Alex (Jason Clarke) is trying to maneuver his way out of the pending motion to turn over his financial records.

While Maggie and Brooklyn both encourage Buster to ignore the articles and comments suggesting he had something to do with Stephen’s death, he can’t help but look — and blame Paul (Johnny Berchtold) for the boat wreck making their name a “clickbait joke show.” Still, Buster maintains a stoic air in the face of being labeled a murderer, which was something the actor portraying him worked hard to achieve.

“It was an interesting line. There’s so much out there on this case… You have so much footage of Paul and the rest of the family, and it was a little bit lacking in terms of the research you can do on Buster because hold holds it a little more closely to his chest,” Will Harrison told TV Insider. (It helped, of course, that his hair, contacts, and clothing made him indistinguishable at times from the real person. “It was definitely the most intense transformation that I’ve gone through, and it’s so helpful as an actor to walk out of the trailer and look in the mirror and not recognize the person looking back at you. It helps you kind of blend away into it,” he said.)

Maggie has her own complications, though, when her card is declined at the grocery store, and she can’t log into the family’s bank account to see why. Alex, who’s just downed an untold number of pills, is too intoxicated to talk to her about it, but she sets a tracking app on his phone.

At the parade, Randolph insists that all of his kids and grandkids join him on the float, but Alex is too busy trying to schmooze the judge in his upcoming hearing, Paul flees after a carnival worker tells him he should’ve drowned instead of Mallory Beach, and even Buster takes off after someone in the crowd accuses him again of killing Stephen Smith, much to his grandfather’s chagrin.

Mark Tinsley (Tommy Dewey) is approached by the Satterfield boys about representing him, too, and Mandy speaks to the wife of a man who was romantically connected with Stephen in the past and later died by suicide.

The tensions continue to mount for Alex when he learns from his father that, despite his natural charm and gift for gab, he will not become the managing partner of PMPED — instead, that’ll go to his brother Randy (Noah Emmerich) — until he gets his house in order. “The only cards that you’re playing with now is the hand you dealt yourself,” he says, knowingly.

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Of the scene, Gerald McRaney said Randolph speaks with “disappointment” in his son’s predicament. “He’s falling apart. He looks slovenly. He acts slovenly. He’s he is just not the son that Randolph wanted, really, at that point. And I think Randolph is just sincerely disappointed and saddened, but also angry,” he explained.

Alex also learns that Maggie turned to Randy over his financial concerns, and they engage in their most fiery confrontation to date. Although Alex insists his family’s troubles are his to deal with, she points out that he hasn’t been able to make things go away for Paul or Buster, adding “I can’t even go to the Dollar Store.”

The intensity of the fight is intentionally climactic compared to the ones before it on the show. Jason Clarke explained that the crescendo of their arguments to this point helps to establish a motive that wasn’t necessarily obvious in the real-life case. “[Prosecutor Creighton] Waters made a great thing about why he killed Paul. You never really get an understanding, at the trial, why he killed Maggie. And we’re working in that whole section… demonstrating some understanding of why he killed Maggie.”

After she follows Alex to a motel where he’s seen with what appears to be a sex worker and her pimp, she tosses the pills to Alex and takes off with her beloved dog Bubba for the beach.

Meanwhile, Buster finally opens up to commiserate with Paul after he says he feels “dead” and has no future after everything that’s happened, with Buster admitting that he was kicked out of law school for cheating on a paper. They talk and tussle, and for just a moment, they seem like normal brothers again.

The creation of that brotherly connection was natural for the actors, as Johnny Berchtold remembered, “Working with Will, we did a chemistry read together, and I just felt so much connection with him. And then when we went to Atlanta to go shoot, we got so close so fast, we actually lived next to each other, and sort of built this genuine brotherly bond. And he said something so incredible, that that tension there between Buster and Paul always comes out of this true closeness with one another. And so I think it was crucial for us to really, actually have, and then working through those themes with him was just incredible.”

Disney / Wilford Harewood

A “like father, like son” moment then follows when Buster is summoned to his grandfather’s table to answer for his decision to “tuck tail” at the parade, indicating that he doesn’t actually care whether Buster was responsible for Smith’s death or not. For him, it’s all about appearances — it’s a unique family tradition for the Murdaughs to be accused of things, true or not, it turns out. “Folks can yell all they like. They can cuss you, and they can damn you, and the only thing that matters is we never walk away. The truth is irrelevant. You’re a Murdaugh.” He also promises to get his law school “situation” dealt with so that, “When you’re the solicitor and you get called out for something, you’ll keep your godd**n head up.”

Of the scene, McRaney said, “You have to understand that the lawyer in him kicks in in that scene as well, that whether the boy is guilty or not is irrelevant in terms of being able to prove that he’s guilty. But the thing is, in that scene, he just wants his grandson to show some backbone. Again, this ties right back into his own son and his disappointment in him: ‘Can I please get a grandson with a little backbone?'”

The conclusion of the Stephen Smith element of the story comes when Mandy talks to Sandy about the case, and the latter speculates that the suggestions that Buster was involved were based purely on rumors, and they agree that they still can’t let up on pushing for the truth to come out.

Murdaugh: Death in the Family, Wednesdays, Hulu