Having basically no options in 1930s England, said maid hurled herself under a train. When we got her backstory, my husband said “I have never felt such sympathy for Justice Wargrave’s mission of vengeance before.” The adaptation has saddled her with Secret Gay Lusts that were not really present in the book (or WERE THEY?), but basically she is a super-religious lady with very snotty ideas about Virtue who violently boots her knocked-up maid/protegee out of her house when she discovers her pregnancy. I still place him after Tony, because carelessly driving too fast is not as bad as deliberately PERFORMING SURGERY while drunk, but he was clearly broken by the experience and should have died sooner.
He didn’t mean to do it, he had a lot more residual shame than Tony Marston, and he quit drinking after it happened. He was a surgeon who got drunk and killed someone. Armstrong (not very bad, but a little bad), because he wound up living for way too long in order to help Justice Wargrave fake his own death, and he’s just not a terrible enough murderer to deserve that. Justice Wargrave seems to think that because Tony doesn’t care, he’s less guilty, but I profoundly disagree. I have always been perturbed by the decision to take him out immediately following that first dinner, because I think he is a terrible person! He ran down two kids while speeding and literally does not care. Tony is almost always cast as (probably) gay, young, gorgeous, careless, and sulky. Tony Marston (seen here carelessly chewing)
SHE didn’t smother the old woman, her husband did, and she was consumed with guilt and went literally blind from it, and also he knocks her around, so I really don’t think she deserves to be ON Murder Island, frankly.
Here’s the order in which I would have murdered them (we’ll assume the judge still dies last, obvi, and I understand that the surgeon had to remain alive in order to help him fake his death earlier on, but I will place the surgeon into the guilt ranking just the same):
Our ten anti-heroes have been summoned to a Murder Island by a Dexter-esque vigilante (the truly fabulous Charles “Tywin Lannister” Dance, playing Justice Wargrave), confronted with their past crimes (they have each gotten away with a murder or MURDERS), and then killed in reverse order of their guilt (such that the least heinous people get to die first without spending too much time freaking their shit out on Murder Island while contemplating their imminent deaths.) NOW, let us establish the central conceit and begin ranking murderers! You will still enjoy this piece if you HAVEN’T seen the adaptation, as very little about the plot sequence has changed (some motivations have been given more backstory, Secret Gayness added, etc.), but I do recommend it wholeheartedly. This piece is an absolute labor of love for me, as Christie’s And There Were None (which went originally by Different and Very Racist Titles, which I did not learn until I was an adult!) is a book I read a thousand times as a kid (which is why I am so weird now, no doubt.) I also watched the new BBC adaptation that aired over Christmas as soon as my UK TunnelBear VPN fired up and gave me access to the Beeb’s iPlayer, and I encourage you to do the same (if you need more guidance, I am sure people in the comments can help.)
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