They call him the Prick, and that’s putting it nicely. John Paul “JP” Williams (Claes Bang, fresh off The Northman() is an objectively awful person. He throws elbows at work, pokes at family members’ psychic wounds, spies on people for blackmail purposes. He’s racist, homophobic, virulently misogynistic—you name it, he hates it. “I think they dipped him in vinegar before they handed him over” at birth, his elderly mother muses. Grace, Grace’s spouse is the one most affected by his acidic temper.Sexual Education’s Anne-Marie Duff), a meek woman who absorbs constant physical and emotional abuse in the name of love. Mammy was his disgusting pet name.
Lucky for Grace, she has four fiercely devoted—and seriously charming—Irish sisters who’d go to great lengths to liberate her. Even fantasize about him being killed. So, when JP perishes under bizarre circumstances and his death is nonetheless ruled an accident, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to wonder if they might secretly be responsible. Bad SistersA new Apple TV+ dramaty, “The Wickedly Funny and the Most Heartbreaking”, has been created by Catastrophe Sharon Horgan (alum), takes time to tell the truth.
Claes Bang, Anne-Marie Duff and ‘Bad Sisters’
Apple TV+
Premiering with a two-episode drop on Aug. 19, the show opens on the day of JP’s funeral. As Grace and the couple’s tween daughter Blánaid (Saise Ní Chuinn) mourn, the other Garvey sisters, who range in age from 30ish to 40-something, slink around the wake drinking, speaking ill of the dead, and looking over their shoulders. This awkward situation becomes worse when Tom Claffin (Brian Gleeson) arrives. Peaky Blinders), whose mom-and-pop insurance agency Claffin & Sons is due to pay out JP’s $875,000 life insurance policy. Claffin’s collapse has left JP in financial distress. père’s death, the company simply doesn’t have the funds. For Tom (and his half-brother Matt), the only way out is to get through this mess. Leo Grande: Good luck(), to declare the policy null by showing that JP was killed.
The plot is split up by their amateur investigation. As the Garvey girls endure Tom and Matt’s questioning in the present, flashbacks trace the lead-up to JP’s death. Each woman is brought to the forefront. Eva (Horgan), the eldest, gave up her youth to care for her sisters after their parents’ death; now she’s a single career woman haunted by her inability to conceive children of her own. Becka (Eve Hewson) is still her baby. The Luminaries(), the youngest Garvey of free spirit, is a massage therapist and has dated many disappointed men. Grace and Ursula, Eva Birthistle of, sit in the middle. The Last Kingdom), a nurse and mother who’s cheating on her husband, and Bibi (Normal People’s Sarah Greene), the most mysterious of the bunch, a brash curmudgeon who’s partnered with a woman and rocks an eye patch.
What we don’t find out, as we’re getting to know the Garveys, are the details of JP’s demise. They are kept secret. Bad SistersAn adaptation of the Belgian series. ClanMultiple sources of suspense are created by this. We don’t know if the sisters will successfully get the Claffins off their backs, but we also don’t know whether one or more of them is actually the killer, or if the whole thing really was an accident. We also don’t know, at first, what each woman isn’t telling the others. The revelations of all the evil things JP has done his sisters-in law escalate. Twists that keep various mysteries alive throughout a 10-episode series (one that probably should’ve run just six or eight) can vary in believability. One point in the series turns from darkly comical to almost macabre, and the entire show nearly crashes. When we get to the finale, it doesn’t come as much of a surprise.
Daryl McCormack (left) and Brian Gleeson (“Bad Sisters”)
Apple TV+
Yet, I have never lost my sense of fun. You might also like Big Little Lies, this is a show that’s less about whodunit (if anyone) than it is about a community of women supporting each other through complex, sometimes outright tragic experiences. Although they interact as siblings they can bicker, fight and say some awful things. However they support each other and take care when it is most important. Tom and Matt have their own long-simmering fraternal conflicts, heightened by Matt’s budding romance with Becka and the delicate health of Tom’s wife, who’s on bed rest awaiting the birth of their first child. Horgan populates the supporting cast with equally vivid characters, from Grace’s thoughtful, smitten neighbor Roger (Michael Smiley) to Gabriel (Assaad Bouab), Eva’s dashing French co-worker and love interest.
Every performance is strong, but it’s the love and grit that Horgan, Hewson, and Duff radiate that bring warmth to what might otherwise have been a bloodless thriller. His role is a mirror of his fellow Scandinavians. Northman co-star Alexander Skarsgård’s loathsome Truce Bang is a villain who comes across as completely hateful. This will be no surprise. Catastrophe fans; Horgan’s writing can be devilishly funny (an anti-choice pin depicting a fetus’ upturned palms is described as “abortion jazz hands”) but also devastating. “Do you know when you look most beautiful?” JP asks Grace. “When I can’t see any of them”—her sisters—”in you.”
The show’s ideas about men, women, and sisterhood aren’t exactly groundbreaking, post-#MeToo and post-Truce. However, the joy of Bad Sisters The execution is the key (no pun intended). The writing and performances make the Garvey girls feel so real, you miss them when it’s over. Indeed, there’s enough material in their histories, personalities, and relationships to fuel several engrossing seasons of television. It’s possible that the JP story will be resolved and that this show might even become a sitcom.
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