How well do you really know your friends? This question underscores Apple TV+’s newest miniseries, “Imperfect Women.” Based on the 2021 book by Araminta Hall, the show is supposed to be a psychological thriller about three best friends — Nancy (Kate Mara), Eleanor (Kerry Washington) and Mary (Elizabeth Moss) — but it lacks the urgency to thrill and the emotional interest to psychologically engage the viewer.
These issues are clear from the first two episodes, which premiered on Wednesday. The show opens with a voiceover that plays over two juxtaposed scenes. In the first, Eleanor walks down the darkened hallway of a police station. In the second, she is dancing with Nancy and Mary. The scene flashes between the two as Eleanor says, “What we had was, it was powerful and essential, and it was supposed to last forever.”
The voiceover ends as the scene shifts back to the interrogation room to show tears falling down Eleanor’s cheeks while she says, “But that’s not what happened.”
Immediately, the viewer is expected to care about this trio and understand the meaning their friendship brings to the characters’ lives, but the show literally tells viewers this via voiceover rather than showing it. Watching the women dance is trite. The moment is too clichéd to make the viewer care about their connection.
They did not become friends who grow old together because Nancy is dead. The night before, the three friends met for dinner to celebrate Mary’s birthday. Then, Nancy was murdered. The central story thread is supposed to be who killed Nancy. The complications are supposed to be about how “imperfect” the women are and how the secrets they kept from each other contributed to Nancy’s death. Essentially, bringing the killer to light will expose their true selves they hid from each other, which will, in turn, reveal some larger truth about friendship.
However, while this premise sounds worth watching, the execution is not. The excellent cast combination of Washington and Moss is not even enough to save the show, as the writing does not give them enough to work with, which is a waste of their acting abilities.
The plot structure is also odd because it does not vacillate between the stories of the three friends. Instead, the first and second episodes are focused on Eleanor’s perspective. The result is a lack of urgency as the viewer follows Eleanor throughout her daily life, wondering why they should care about her work, her run, her affair with a coworker or her dramatic family dynamics. In addition to her daily tasks, Eleanor also goes out of her way to support Nancy’s widowed husband, Robert (Joel Kinnaman), and grieving daughter, Cora (Audrey Zahn).
However, even these more relevant storylines feel disjointed because they are constantly interrupted by uninteresting subplots that never really go anywhere. This is exemplified in the “cliffhanger” at the end of the first episode. A private investigator is taking pictures of Eleanor and Robert as they walk into the ballet together, but there isn’t enough information to understand why or how this could possibly relate to Nancy’s murder.
This is the show’s biggest problem. It is not suspenseful. As the story progresses, it becomes even murkier how the pieces of the plot relate, and the episodes do not pose enough questions about the crime or the friends’ secrets to make someone want to watch the next episode. This lack of foreshadowing makes it impossible for viewers to feel psychologically invested in figuring out who killed Nancy or with whom she was having an affair.
This lack of suspense is especially problematic given that the show is being released weekly and, after the first two episodes, is unlikely to motivate viewers to tune in. On the off-chance that they do, they will probably struggle with the focalization shifts that happen in subsequent episodes.
After the third episode, the point of view shifts from Nancy for two episodes, then to Mary for two episodes. It’s unclear why the perspective changes, and this plot device does not work. Instead of revealing information, it drains any momentum.
Overall, these issues make “Imperfect Women” the latest of Apple TV+’s book adaptations to fall short. Like “Lessons in Chemistry” and “Palm Royale,” the show is proof that a prestige cast cannot save a promising but poorly developed premise.
“Imperfect Women” is streaming on Apple TV. The first two episodes are available now; episodes will be released weekly on Wednesdays through April 29.
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