The Better Sister: Two sisters, one murder, zero thrills

Photo: Prime Video

Every now and again, a show comes along that feels designed to be as tedious as possible. To be fair, I don’t have any actual proof that this was the goal with Prime’s The Better Sister. It is, however, the only plausible explanation for the flat acting, dull plot, and muted color palette. Surely nobody set out to make something this lifeless, but they succeeded nonetheless.

Yet another mystery series based on a novel The Better Sister feels less like a thrilling page-turner and more like something you put down after reading the blurb. The series follows Chloe Taylor (Jessica Biel), the editor-in-chief of a popular magazine. Her idyllic life changes forever when she discovers her husband’s body covered in blood, the telltale sign of murder. Detective Guidry (Kim Dickens) takes the case and immediately suspects the Taylors’ son. This leads to the arrival of Nicky (Elizabeth Banks), Chloe’s estranged sister, and soon all of their secrets are out in the open.

In this case, “soon” is a relative term. The Better Sister is full of twists, but opts to hold back on doling them out. This is clear from the first episode, which waits until the last minutes to reveal Nicky’s true relationship with Chloe’s husband and son. It isn’t an inherently bad idea, but falls apart because there is zero interest in making the viewer invested in these people. Even as the mystery grows more complex and we reveal the siblings’ troubled past, there’s nothing to latch onto. These characters exist to move the plot from one twist to the next and that’s it.

The lack of investment in the characters leads to dull performances from most of the cast. The awful dialogue forces even terrific actors like Banks and Biel to give poor performances. To Banks’ credit, she at least gets to show some actual emotion as the less couth sister. Biel, on the other hand, clearly struggles to make Chloe stand out. It becomes obvious as the show goes on that there is some deep-rooted trauma she is holding in. That neither Biel nor the writers have any idea how to make that interesting to watch is one of the most damning elements of this show.

Everyone’s role is thankless in this one. From Kim Dickens as a no-nonsense cop to Corey Stoll as the now-deceased husband Adam. Even an appearance by Matthew Modine as Adam’s shady boss falters. He soon becomes just as dull and uninteresting as the rest of the cast.

Perhaps I’m being unfair to The Better Sister. After all, it isn’t as bad as some of the current frontrunners for worst show this year. Those programs have immense problems in both their premises and execution. The gravest sin this show commits is being boring. There’s potential, especially with such a fun cast, but the writing fails them. There’s so many options out there for your entertainment, especially in the mystery/thriller categories. This one is best left unsolved.

The Better Sister is currently streaming on Prime Video.

Final Verdict: Tune Out

Dept. Q: A fascinating detective story with some familiar beats

Photo: Netflix

By now, you’ve likely seen enough detective stories with a broken protagonist who works through their issues by solving cases that the idea of another one fills you with dread. Doubly so, if said detective is snarky and borderline abusive to those around them. Dept. Q waits until the end of its first episode to showcase how it aims to be different, but the wait proves to be worth it. It doesn’t upend the well-worn tropes of this type of story so much as rearrange the parts.

Chandi Lakhani and The Queen’s Gambit creator Scott Frank team up for this adaptation of a Danish book series. Dept. Q follows Carl Morck (Matthew Goode), the aforementioned curmudgeonly detective who returns to work after a shooting incident that killed an officer and paralyzed another. While Morck wants to dive into solving that case, his superiors have other plans. Enter the titular department Q, a division focused on solving cold cases. Relegated to the unused basement, Morck partners with civilian employee Akram Salim (Alexej Manvelov) out of necessity and soon, the duo pick their first case. All the while, ambitious prosecutor Merritt Lingard (Chloe Pirrie) works on an important trial while ignoring cryptic threats.

A discerning viewer will probably put together how these two disparate stories connect before the show reveals it. Still, it’s a thrilling twist that adds to the stakes, something Dept. Q struggles with as it goes on. The series stretches the central mystery over nine episodes, causing a weak middle section. What elevates the material and keeps things moving is the program’s excellent character work. The writing places a lot of emphasis on the interactions between characters and deepens our bond with them.

Matthew Goode has the toughest task as Detective Morck. We’ve seen plenty of asshole protagonists throughout the years, but Goode finds some new avenues. He really shines in scenes with Manvelov’s Akram and with Jamie Sives’ James Hardy, a detective left paralyzed after the shooting. If there is a heart to this show, Manvelov embodies it. A Syrian refugee with previous police experience, Akram is looking for chance and he finds that with Morck. Sives provides an understated performance as a man grappling with his sudden disability. His scenes with Goode bristle with the energy of two people desperately trying to keep each other from falling apart. Add in Leah Byrne’s ever-charming Rose and you have a fantastic central cast to build on.

Unlike Frank’s previous Netflix work, Dept. Q clearly sets itself up for future seasons. This might be why I’m more willing to give it a pass for the slow pace in solving the major mystery. It’s clear this is a show being built to last. Something that feels like a rarity in the current landscape. Most series take things one season at a time, assuming that is all they’ll get. With strong characters and an interesting lead performance, Dept. Q presents a solid case for our continued attention.

Dept. Q is currently streaming on Netflix.

Final Verdict: Tune In

Motorheads: A teen drama that refuses to slow down

Photo: Prime Video

As a rule of thumb, you can tell how desperately a series is appealing to teens by how many Top 40 hits it jams into each episode. Using this, very specific, metric we can determine that Motorheads is the thirstiest show of the year. The creators know the audience they want and appeal to them relentlessly. It’s a program for the youth featuring one of their favorite things: restoring and racing vintage cars (citation needed on this claim).

Motorheads is the brainchild of John A. Norris, a producer on former YA hits like One Tree Hill and All-American. The series follows siblings Zac and Caitlyn (Michael Cimino and Melissa Collazo, respectively) as they move with their mother back to her hometown of Ironwood. There they meet mechanic and wannabe-biker Curtis (Uriah Shelton) and nerdy neighbor Marcel (Nicolas Cantu). With the help of their uncle Logan (Ryan Phillippe), the kids band together to beat the resident bully in a street car race. There’s also plenty of your usual teen drama along the way.

The town of Ironwood is your typical dying Rust Belt community with very little going on. That makes it at least somewhat plausible that there is a thriving racing circuit among the kids that no adult seems to know or cares about. It ends up being the best kept secret in town. Motorheads fills its episodes with every cliche of the genre. Love triangles, drunken parents, and criminal relatives are all present and accounted for. Even the mystery of Zac and Caitlyn’s father, who disappeared 17 years ago, feels reminiscent of other successful series like Outer Banks.

Where the show succeeds is in the chemistry between its young cast. While they’re often saddled with bad dialogue and clunky exposition, the kids are at their best during the quiet moments. When the program is content to just let the characters hang out and be themselves, it really shines. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of story to get through and those down moments are rare.

You’ve probably seen plenty of shows that look and feel like Motorheads. There’s nothing here that is reinventing the wheel. As long as it keeps spinning, series like this are happy to ride it out. 5 years ago, this would have been in a Primetime slot on The CW. Now, it sits on Prime waiting for you to take the plunge. Whether that’s better is up for debate. Either way, I don’t recommend it, even for the teens.

Motorheads is currently streaming on Prime Video.

Final Verdict: Tune Out

Sirens: The Absurd Lives of the Rich and Famous

Photo: Netflix

Television has always been a place for both mocking and celebrating the rich, sometimes in the same show. Recently, the trend has been satires of the ridiculous lives rich people lead. Netflix’s new miniseries Sirens is born from that mold. The program plays like a mix of The White Lotus and Big Little Lies combining dark comedy with soap opera twists. It’s an intriguing premise with a star-studded cast to back it up.

Created by Molly Smith Metzler and based on her play Elemeno Pea, Sirens is the tale of two sisters who reunite over a hectic weekend at the lavish beach estate of a billionaire couple. Younger sister Simone (Milly Alcock) works for philanthropist Michaela (Julianne Moore) as her assistant. Michaela is the wife of the ultra-wealthy Peter Kell (Kevin Bacon) and spends most of her time on the aforementioned estate nestled on an island that they also own. Simone’s life on the estate takes a turn when her sister, Devon (Meghann Fahy) pays an unexpected visit. Will she be able to convince her sister to leave, or will she fall under the strange spell of this world of wealth?

Sirens is held together by the strength of its lead trio. Alcock does great work as the eager to impress Simone. She doesn’t come from money and she tries very hard to keep that a secret. Fahy’s Devon is her opposite to a comic degree. Brash, loud, and uncaring about how these people feel. She knows she doesn’t belong, and she actively flaunts it. Julianne Moore rounds out the group with a role tailor made for her. Both mystical and inscrutable, she plays Michaela as more than your typical rich housewife. It’s easy to see why she’s something of a cult of personality.

This is more than just your surface-level satire. Metzler and her team clearly have a lot of ideas regarding wealth, class, and the power dynamics involved. What ultimately holds the show back is that those ideas never coalesce into a workable whole. The more the plot zigs and zags from your expectations, the more muddied the messaging gets. The twists build on top of each other in interesting but rarely satisfying ways.

There’s enough here to hold your interest through the series’ densely packed 5 episodes. The show definitely doesn’t overstay its welcome. If you’re a huge fan of the lead actors or like your comedies to have a dash of melodrama to them, you’ll likely enjoy Sirens more than me. It’s got a fun cast and an intriguing premise, but it fails at bringing those elements together. In many ways, this is the ideal binge watch. Fun in the moment with nothing that will stick in your mind longer than a week.

Sirens is currently streaming on Netflix.

Final Verdict: Tune Out

Quality Television: In its second season, Andor dives head first into rebellion

Photo: Lucasfilm

Quality Television is a space for me to talk about returning series that are still worth your time. As such, expect some light spoilers for older seasons.

Cassian Andor’s destiny is to die. We’ve known it to be true from the start and it colors much of Andor, the prequel series that follows our hero right up to the events of Rouge One. Like any prequel worth its salt, Andor uses our knowledge of future events to drive home the tragedy. It also, wisely, puts other characters into Cassian’s path whose fates are less certain. This is a show primarily about the sacrifices one makes to achieve a brighter tomorrow, which means you can expect a certain amount of character death. With this second season also being the last, that number increases significantly.

If Andor season one was all about Cassian’s growth from self-serving smuggler to joining the cause of the Rebellion. Then, season two is about setting him on the path to being a full-fledged leader. To accomplish this, the writers make the bold decision to dive through his 4 years in the rebellion with a series of 3 episode arcs, each taking place roughly a year apart. These arcs trace not only Andor’s development, but countless other characters as well. It’s a testament to the show’s strong writing that these all flow together as well as they do.

The sheer number of compelling characters in Andor often leads to Cassian being perceived as a background player, a frequent criticism. This doesn’t change in season two, which features more prominent roles for Rebel informant Lonni Jung (Robert Emms) and Luthen’s assistant, Kleya (Elizabeth Dulau). Not to mention returning characters like Rogue One villain Orson Krennic (A delightfully campy Ben Mendelsohn) and radical Saw Gerrera (Forest Whittaker). Add in the current cast and you have a daunting ensemble for a 12 episode season. No wonder it feels like our titular spy is stuck in the backseat.

Despite the name, Andor is as much a story about the birth of the Rebellion as it is about the man himself. As he’s told late in this season, Cassian is a “messenger” and his message is resistance. Diego Luna continues his magnificently subtle work this season as Cassian struggles between the life he wants and the mission he’s sworn himself to. Andor understands the toll the Rebellion takes on normal people like him. He sees it in his partner Bix and in the people he loses along the way. The moments of doubt are crucial because they make the scenes where Andor is inspiring others hit even harder. There’s a reason our first glimpse of him this season is a pep talk he gives to an Imperial informant. It’s a moment of grace and humanity that Luna sells with sincerity.

Luna is the glue holding together an incredible cast of actors. Dulau’s work as Kleya further elevates her from the background player she was in the first season. Stellan Skarsgard continues to reveal new facets of Luthen, showing just how deep his hatred of the Empire goes. Genevieve O’Reilly gets her best showcase yet as Mon Mothma. Then, there’s the sickly warped Imperial couple Syril Karn (Kyle Soller) and Deidra Meero (Denise Gough). Soller gets to shine early in the season, but it’s Gough’s Deidra who remains the closest thing to a flat-out villain. Her ambition leads directly to the events of the series’ final arc and her eventual fate is one of the most deserved you’ll see on TV this year.

Photo: Lucasfilm

This is a show about sacrifice, but this is also a show about small actions that build to lasting consequences. Every character has a role to play and part of the series’ appeal is seeing how they intersect. As a wise man once said, “tyranny requires constant effort.” This season shows us the effect that has on the Empire and how it leads to their undoing. It’s a slow burn, but one that leads to incredible payoffs.

Andor remains visually stunning too. With a sharp eye toward the composition of a scene, the program is one of the best looking on TV. Whether it’s the terrifying image of a squadron of robots stalking towards protestors or a dark apartment illuminated only by the city lights outside, there is always something interesting on the screen. The action scenes also sizzle with a very real, violent feel to them, including the most intense hand-to-hand fight sequence you’ll likely ever see in a Star Wars property.

Often referred to as the “adult” version of Star Wars, Andor certainly lives up to that moniker this season. Creator Tony Gilroy and his team remain committed to showing the violence and terror that the Empire commits regularly. It feels visceral in a way that few shows manage and all too timely. The writers deliberately crib from human history in their depiction of both the Empire and the growing Rebellion. It deepens the world and adds nuance to what was once a straightforward conflict.

Ultimately, that’s Andor’s lasting legacy. A prequel that takes what we already know and enriches it. It’s the story of the people who don’t get to be the heroes of legend, but who pave the way for them. Not every part of this franchise needs to be gritty and mature, but they should carry this show’s spirit. The great character work and the tight plots that build to high stakes payoffs. It isn’t just a great Star Wars tale, it’s great science fiction television. Like all great sci-fi, Andor shows us the future while calling to the present. How we choose to respond is up to us.

Andor is currently streaming on Disney+.