‘Bad Sisters’ Apple TV Plus Series Review
A murder mystery and a revenge plot are at the center of Apple TV Plus’ latest dark comedy, Bad Sisters, from Sharon Horgan.
Horgan, creator and executive producer, stars as Eva Garvey, one of the five Garvey sisters. They have a very close relationship and are very protective of one another, especially when they start to band against John-Paul, Grace’s husband and brother-in-law to the other four sisters. JP appears dead in the first moments of the series, and two life insurance agents quickly start digging to get to the bottom of what happened.
The series takes place in two different timelines, before and after JP’s death. In the current-time storyline (after his death), Thomas and Matthew Claffin (played by Brian Gleeson and Daryl McCormack) are trying to salvage their father’s insurance company, which could go bankrupt unless they find a legitimate reason not to pay the widow. Matthew also gets involved with the youngest sister, which naturally thickens the plot and provides a source of endless tension. Why? Because, as we find out in the flashback scenes, all of them had a good reason to kill JP and, in fact, tried multiple times.
The endlessly entertaining series works on multiple levels, but the basis of it all is great writing. Its 10-episode run would have felt way too long if it weren’t for its clever scripts that kept me on the edge of my seat multiple times. While I can still see an argument for an even better eight-episode series, I deeply enjoyed all ten of them and I am personally happy they didn’t decide to trim them down. While it may generally fall into the category of dark comedy, the series is filled with tension when necessary, huge dramatic moments that are purely driven by character, and an overall narrative that just sweeps the viewer and it’s hard not to engage with. Bad Sisters will lead to a lot of speculation and theories as the viewer tries to put together what happened exactly. And while some parts of the plot are quite predictable, others aren’t in the least, making it a very fun experience.
In the series, JP is portrayed as the absolute incarnation of the devil. While he doesn’t belong in Black Bird as a serial killer, he checks pretty much every other box. He manipulates everyone around him for his own benefit, or for sport, messes with the life of those who he thinks are below him, isolates his wife from the world to the point that she looks 15 years older than she actually is, and torments his sisters-in-law just for his own enjoyment. The writers used this to ask the central question of the show: what would you do to strip your life and your family’s from the devil himself? And what is the price you would be willing to pay to go to that length?
The performances are quite something else all across the board, with special mention to Anne-Marie Duff, who plays Grace, JP’s wife, and JP himself, Claes Bang. The rest of the sisters are played by Eva Birthistle, Eve Hewson, Sarah Greene, and Sharon Horgan, and they are all excellent. Greene, in particular, sells her character’s really dramatic moments very well, but also managed to make me laugh while keeping a straight face and taking her scenes very seriously. Two also very well-portrayed characters outside of the family are the Claffins, played by Gleeson and McCormack. The family dynamics are very different here, with the bond almost feeling forced between them at times. A very smart thing the writers did was to give the audience a reason to cheer for them — Gleeson’s character, Thomas, is about to have a baby and could go bankrupt if he doesn’t prove that JP was murdered and thus be absolved from paying off the wife. His half-brother Matthew is trying to help his brother survive this difficult time, but after he starts seeing Becka (Hewson), the case gets more and more complicated for him.
All in all, Bad Sisters is another win for Apple TV Plus, a very underrated streaming service that is rapidly catching up to some of the giants in terms of the quality/quantity rate. It is very different from everything else that is streaming these days, so if you are looking for an escape from fantasy worlds as you wait for the next episode of House of the Dragon or She-Hulk, I highly recommend checking it out.
The first two episodes of Bad Sisters are currently available to stream on Apple TV Plus, with new ones hitting the platform each Friday.
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as authors like Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
