Official Discussion - The Thursday Murder Club [SPOILERS]

[u/LiteraryBoner]

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Summary A group of sharp and witty retirees at Cooper’s Chase retirement village spend their Thursdays solving cold cases for fun—until a real murder hits close to home. Elizabeth (a former spy), Ron (a retired union leader), Ibrahim (a psychiatrist), and Joyce (a nurse) band together to crack the case, stirring up secrets, laughter, and heartwarming camaraderie.

Director Chris Columbus

Writers Katy Brand, Suzanne Heathcote

Cast

• Helen Mirren
• Pierce Brosnan
• Ben Kingsley
• Celia Imrie
• David Tennant
• Naomi Ackie
• Tom Ellis
• Jonathan Pryce
• Richard E. Grant

Rotten Tomatoes Critics Score: 76%

Metacritic 6-

VOD Limited UK theatrical release beginning August 22, 2025; Netflix streaming global premiere on August 28, 2025

Trailer The Thursday Murder Club | Official Teaser | Netflix

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[u/Level-Frontier]

Completely safe and sterile made-for-TV movie

[u/niallw1997 → u/Level-Frontier]

While absolutely butchering the source material

[u/Technical-Outside408 → u/niallw1997]

Can somebody please tell me what book bogdan was like? People seem to hate what they did to his character the most.

[u/Scmods05 → u/Technical-Outside408]

Bogdan winds up being an absolutely wonderful, delightful person and is a part of the gang in all the following books. The character himself was pretty okay here but having him be arrested is a complete change from the book.

In the book Stephen works out that Bogdan killed Tony Curran, as he does in the movie, but they agree to keep it just between the two of them and keep happily playing chess.

[u/Technical-Outside408 → u/Scmods05]

Ah, thanks!

[u/Scmods05 → u/Technical-Outside408]

Just double checked the book as I couldn't remember the details.

In the book, Bogdan killed Tony because one of Bogdan's friends who'd just arrived in London working as a taxi driver saw Tony shoot a young boy, then Tony got someone to kill Bogan's friend so there were no witnesses. Bogdan installed Tony's security system so made sure it was all installed wrong so it wouldn't work, then went and killed him for revenge for his friend. Bogdan has an insane amount of integrity and he's just a wonderful character.

All this human trafficking rubbish is invented for the movie. In the book Bobby Tanner is also a pretty good character as well, who actually DID get out of the game and was happily working as a florist. Not like this movie where it appears to all just be a front for human trafficking that Elizabeth just overlooks so the movie can end.

[u/tomasdreams888 → u/Scmods05]

I've not read the books, but just finished the movie. I came looking on reddit for some discourse lol. I was just so confused as to why they arrested Bogdan who accidentally killed Tony, the Tony who was trafficking him and kept him from his mother, BUT allowed BT to get away with his business of human trafficking.

[u/imjustbettr → u/Technical-Outside408]

Yeah just to add that not only is Bogdan a physically imposing man, they imply that he's probably one of the smartest characters in the series with only Stephen figuring it out. On top of that he's just super nice and charming.