The Thursday Murder Club is not just all about fun and games at the Coopers Chase retirement home. For one thing, their investigations into the killings happening close to home ended up digging up gold in the end. That said, who killed Tony Curran, and how different is the movie from the novel? Read on to find out.
WARNING: This article contains MAJOR SPOILERS for Netflix's Thursday Murder Club, so read at your own risk!
Who Killed Tony Curran in Netflix's Thursday Murder Club?
Jason Ritchie (played by Tom Ellis) and Ian Ventham (David Tennant) were the initial suspects behind the death of Tony Curran (Geoff Ball), the co-owner of the Coopers Chase retirement home. However, the culprit behind Curran's death was only discovered through a simple game of chess.
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Elizabeth's husband, Stephen (Jonathan Pryce), whose memories were slowly disintegrating due to dementia, was playing his regular chess game with Coopers Chase's groundskeeper, Bogdan (Henry Lloyd Hughes).
As Stephen grew more curious about Curran's death, Bogdan admits to "accidentally" killing him, fully convinced that dementia would make Stephen forget the detail anyway.
As it turned out, Bogdan was demanding that he get his passport to visit his ailing mother in Poland. However, when Curran refused him, Bogdan ended up killing him in self-defense. A bad move for Bogdan, though, as Elizabeth revealed that Stephen actually records all their chess matches to improve his game.
Bogdan is then taken into police custody thanks to the murder confession on tape. But there's a glaring difference between the Chris Columbus-helmed film and the book.
How Different is the Thursday Murder Club Movie vs. the Book?
Firstly, Richard Osman wrote the chess sequence as it happened in the movie, but the intention was not the same. The film may have portrayed Bogdan's murder as an accident, but the book clearly portrayed it as a strategy.
In the book, Bogdan had his revenge on Gianni and Tony after they murdered his best friend, Kazimir, the taxi driver who witnessed a drug operation shooting that the two culprits ran. Bogdan killed Gianni in the book, then intentionally installed a faulty security system for Curran's home as part of his plan to take him out.
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While these would have had different endings, it doesn't change that Tony Curran remained the culprit throughout the story. He may not have killed Bogdan's best friend, but he stole his freedom. Thus, the Thursday Murder Club movie became his grave.
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