ITV’s Poirot ended with its darkest case: Curtain’s bleak twist

ITV’s Agatha Christie’s Poirot ended on 13 November 2013. Its final episode, “Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case,” brought a 24-year run to a close with the bleakest twist the drama ever gave itself, and it drew nearly five million viewers in the UK.

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By then, after 24 years, 13 seasons, and 70 episodes built around the comfort-watch pleasures of elegant country houses, meticulous clues, and David Suchet’s definitive Poirot, you find Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings back at Styles Court, facing Stephen Norton, a man who can push other people into killing while keeping himself legally untouchable, until Poirot reaches the point where he can’t prove the case in court and breaks his own code by murdering Norton.

That leads to the franchise’s most morally unsettling turn: Hercule Poirot passes judgment, kills Stephen Norton, then allows himself to die. The finale was praised for David Suchet’s performance, for staying close to Agatha Christie’s novel, which was written during WWII and published in 1975, and for the extra emotion that came from David Suchet filming Poirot’s death first, at his own request.

If you want to understand why any new Poirot will be measured against this ending, watch this episode.

You can expect the detective’s next screen outings from the BBC and BritBox, where the early-years series Hercule is reportedly slated for 2027.