Friends! I know it’s only January, but look out for this excellent black comedy drama series, Bad Sisters, on my “best of” list at the end of 2023. That’s how awesome this show was.
The show is about a group of sisters, where one of those sisters is being diminished by her awful, awful husband John Paul. In the first minutes of the first episode, we learn John Paul is dead. And shortly after that, we learn one of the Garvey sisters, or all of them, sans Grace, likely killed him. The questions that surround the rest of the season are who, but then how. The why is not that hard to figure out. John Paul is truly the most repulsive character I’ve ever come across in television. That’s both high praise for series creator, and actor of eldest sister Eva, Sharon Horgan, and the man himself bringing John Paul to life, Claes Bang. Aside from trying to murder John Paul and not get caught in the flashbacks to the past, in the present, they all have to deal with two insurance agents, brothers Tom and Matt, who don’t want to pay out on John Paul’s claim. Tom’s holding a lot close to the chest, but the payout will ruin the business he inherited from his dad, among other things.
Let’s take a look at the main players though and why they’d want John Paul dead, not just for Grace’s sake, but for their own reasons. First, there’s the eldest sister Eva, who has raised her sisters from a very young age when their parents both died in a car accident. She unfortunately works with John Paul, who tries to sabotage her chances at a promotion she greatly deserves. There are many more layers to this relationship, but I don’t want to ruin it. Then there is Ursula, a nurse and a mom who is secretly having an affair with her photography teacher. John Paul catches wind and gets his hands on some very threatening blackmail. Next is Bibi, who lost one of her eyes in a car accident caused by John Paul trying to scare her. Finally there is Becka, the youngest Garvey and the most wild, who had to default on a loan for a studio because John Paul reneged his offer of helping her out.
It’s great fun seeing how the sisters’ plan to kill John Paul came to be, but not all of them were involved at the start. It’s interesting to see what finally breaks them into helping out, and then it’s downright hilarious (sometimes) to see how they attempt to take him down for good. All of their reasons would be good enough, but John Paul’s treatment of Grace is despicable, and she’s just reached a point of denial so she just takes it at her own expense. Even people outside of the Garvey sisters are at risk of John Paul’s malice, but what’s even more sick is that you come to realize a lot of the destruction he causes is just for his own amusement. That makes him a sociopath, right?
I’m kind of glad I waited until all of the episodes of this series were available, because I couldn’t wait to watch the next episode! There were excellent cliffhangers at the end of each episode that had me clicking over to the next one immediately. This show was equal parts drama, thriller, and comedy. All the pieces and parts just work so well together, and everyone in this show does an incredible job with their parts. I’ve learned there’s going to be a second season to this show, which I assumed was a miniseries, so I’m interested to see what the future holds. In Sharon Horgan’s hands though, I expect greatness.