Is ‘All Her Fault’ based on a true story?

In the Peacock mystery thriller series “All Her Fault,” Marissa Irvine (Sarah Snook) lives every mom’s nightmare.

Marissa goes to pick up her 5-year-old son, Milo (Duke McCloud), from a playdate only to find that he’s not thee. Things get stranger as Marissa learns that the text she received from another mom, Jenny Kaminski (Dakota Fanning), setting up the playdate was a fake. Jenny’s nanny, Carrie Finch (Sophia Lillis), grew close to Milo’s nanny, Ana (Kartiah Vergara), and developed a plan to kidnap him.

“All Her Fault,” which premiered on Nov. 6, is based on Andrea Mara’s 2021 novel of the same name. While it’s not a true story, Mara did get the idea for the book from a real experience she had.

“The book was based on a real-life event whereby I went to collect my daughter from a playdate and found myself standing outside an unoccupied house,” Mara said in a 2021 YouTube video. “The panic only lasted for a few seconds until a neighbor told me that the family had moved house a few weeks earlier, and I was just working off an old address list. It all ended very, very quickly, much more quickly than it does for Marissa in the book.”

That same year, Mara penned an essay for the Irish Independent, recalling how the heart-stopping moment with her daughter made her reflect on “how much trust we place in other people when it comes to our kids.”

“How do we decide what’s safe and not safe, when it comes to our kids? And why do parents today seem to worry more than ever?” Mara wrote. “We use logic (most people are not kidnappers) and standard practice (everyone else in the class does playdates) and gut instinct (I liked the mother at the coffee morning) to decide what’s safe or not.”

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“All Her Fault” explores what happens when logic and gut instincts fail. After Milo goes missing, Marissa blames herself for not comparing the number that texted her posing as Jenny to the list of parents’ contact information provided by Milo’s school.

In one tense scene, Marissa’s husband, Peter (Jake Lacy), asks why she couldn’t have just taken the time to double check the phone numbers. The unspoken injustice is that Peter rarely takes responsibility for scheduling Milo’s playdates and appointments. It’s all Marissa’s job, and therefore “all her fault.”

The show’s director, Minkie Spiro, told NBC Insider that “All Her Fault” is “more that just entertainment,” as it shines a light on the unfair burden placed on mothers.

“Here were these big takeaways, and that maybe, hopefully, people will start talking about the disparity and the social commentary that is the undercurrent,” Spiro said.

All eight episodes of “All Her Fault” are available to stream on Peacock.