1 month ago
20
With all their promos for a free trial, I finally gave AppleTV+ a try. It's got lots of interesting titles across different genres — "Slow Horses," "Silo," "Severance," "Shrinking," "Ted Lasso," and "Monarch: Legacy of Monsters" to name a few.
‘Bad Sisters’ is a dark comedy and a whodunit with a bit of a drama. INSTAGRAM PHOTO/APPLETV
I decided on "Bad Sisters," referring to the Garvey women — Eva, Grace, Ursula, Bibi and Becka.
Grace happens to be married to John Paul aka JP. On the surface, he looks like a hardworking, caring husband and father, he goes to work in suit and tie, comes home for dinner and provides for his family. But underneath that exterior is someone just waiting to secretly pounce on opportunities to throw people under the bus, to lie, scheme, prank, sabotage. No second thought is given about the possibility of ruining the lives of people in his circle.
The pilot starts with JP dead, and from there the series traipses between two timelines: one of flashbacks where we see just why each of the Garvey sisters (save for Grace) calls him "The Prick" and the other being the present where two insurance agents are trying to prove foul play in his death and keep Grace from collecting her payout.
Each time we see Grace interact with JP, we see her "shrink" and feel a little defeated each time. She diminishes in front of her sisters' eyes. JP looms over her like Dracula, speaking of which, the character is played to villainous perfection by Claes Bang (who did play Dracula in the 2020 Netflix series).
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"Bad Sisters" is a dark comedy capable of tackling some really serious themes. It is also a bit of mystery, a whodunit with a bit of a drama about intersecting lives. The ensemble works great and while it might be confusing at the start to know who's who among the sisters, you get to know each sister really well as you go along.
The show is set in Dublin so you also catch wonderful drone shots of houses by the coast, with green hills everywhere.
"Bad Sisters" is actually based on a Belgian series called "Clan." And I was thinking about how easily it can translate to the Philippine setting. I keep thinking of maybe a younger version of Dolly de Leon as Grace, Agot Isidro as Eva (she's played here by Sharon Horgan who also happens to be producer and co-creator). I'd totally watch it.
Season 1 became such a hit that they came up with a season 2. However, the first season wraps up quite nicely (no cliffhangers) and you could actually just leave it like that.
