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Show is great, and it really pulls you into the investigation. The cases are compelling, the detectives are top-notch, and the city itself is a character. But there's a huge piece missing that shows like the UK's 24 Hours in Custody get right: we never learn what sentence the perpetrator got. It feels like the story ends before it's over. Getting that final piece of information would make the show so much more satisfying and complete.

Saltburn marks writer-director Emerald Fennell's follow-up to her bold debut, Promising Young Woman. At first glance, it offers a tantalizing mash-up of Parasite's class tension and Fennell's penchant for biting dark comedy, spotlighting a young scholarship student who becomes enchanted by his posh classmate's life of opulence. Yet while this "poor person's Parasite" often dazzles in style and tension, its greatest shortcoming lies in a perspective that inadvertently assumes everyone aspires to climb the social hierarchy-hinting at its origin in the hands of a storyteller who, for all her evident talent, remains rooted in a privileged worldview.

From the opening scene, Fennell paints a sumptuous portrait of aristocratic excess: a sprawling estate in the English countryside, lavish parties where the champagne never stops flowing, and languid weekend getaways peppered with insider jokes only the upper class seem to understand. At its best, Saltburn immerses us in the discomforting chasm between wealth and want. The protagonist is drawn in like a moth to a flame, gazing longingly at the manicured lawns and echoing halls that house elusive promises of belonging.

In these moments, the film resonates: the allure of "making it" inside this closed-off world feels both seductive and futile. The viewer gets glimpses of Parasite-like desperation as our main character maneuvers around the estate's social landmines, quietly learning how to talk, move, and style himself to fit an environment that was never intended for him. It's a testament to Saltburn's dark comedic power that we feel complicit in his fascination, even as we cringe at the moral compromises he's willing to make.

Still, the movie's key flaw is as glaring as the estate's gilded drawing room. While Parasite tapped into universal anxieties about class struggle-unveiling both the everyday cunning of the underprivileged and the oblivious entitlement of the wealthy-Saltburn feels more narrowly filtered through a decidedly upper-crust lens. The film's approach assumes its protagonist's (and, by extension, the audience's) ultimate goal is to ascend into the same elite ranks. There's little space for the notion that not everyone shares that dream, nor does the film significantly critique the structures that keep class barriers in place. As a result, Saltburn's vision of social mobility is simplified to a one-directional climb, leaving the script's most biting ideas about exploitation and privilege somewhat undercooked.

That said, Saltburn delivers enough sharp performances-especially from Barry Keoghan and Jacob Elordi-and a richly rendered aesthetic to remain compelling throughout. If you loved Promising Young Woman, you'll recognize Fennell's flair for twisted humor, pointed dialogue, and the collision between moral decay and glossy surfaces. But the same skill that cranks up the tension and makes the estate's corridors so deliciously claustrophobic also underscores the film's limited viewpoint. By the end, Saltburn entertains with its wicked undertones and sumptuous visuals, yet it never quite breaks free from the notion that wealth, in and of itself, is the golden prize worth sacrificing everything for.