{"id":2340481,"date":"2026-03-22T01:42:25","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T01:42:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2340481"},"modified":"2026-03-22T01:42:25","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T01:42:25","slug":"imperfect-women-review-apple-tv-thriller-falls-short","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/imperfect-women-review-apple-tv-thriller-falls-short\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Imperfect Women\u2019 Review: Apple TV Thriller Falls Short"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<div class=\"primary-cli cli cli-text \">\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How well do you really know your friends? This question underscores Apple TV+\u2019s newest miniseries, \u201cImperfect Women.\u201d Based on the 2021 book by Araminta Hall, the show is supposed to be a psychological thriller about three best friends \u2014 Nancy (Kate Mara), Eleanor (Kerry Washington) and Mary (Elizabeth Moss) \u2014 but it lacks the urgency to thrill and the emotional interest to psychologically engage the viewer.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"primary-cli cli cli-text \">\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">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, \u201cWhat we had was, it was powerful and essential, and it was supposed to last forever.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"primary-cli cli cli-text \">\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The voiceover ends as the scene shifts back to the interrogation room to show tears falling down Eleanor\u2019s cheeks while she says, \u201cBut that\u2019s not what happened.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"primary-cli cli cli-text \">\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Immediately, the viewer is expected to care about this trio and understand the meaning their friendship brings to the characters\u2019 lives, but the show literally tells viewers this via voiceover rather than showing it. Watching the women dance is trite. The moment is too clich\u00e9d to make the viewer care about their connection. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"primary-cli cli cli-text \">\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">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\u2019s birthday. Then, Nancy was murdered. The central story thread is supposed to be who killed Nancy. The complications are supposed to be about how \u201cimperfect\u201d the women are and how the secrets they kept from each other contributed to Nancy\u2019s 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.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<figure class=\"cli cli-image js-no-inject\">\n<div class=\"img-sized\"><picture><source type=\"image\/webp\" srcset=\"https:\/\/img.huffingtonpost.com\/asset\/69b313e41700008f262b1d6b.jpg?ops=scalefit_720_noupscale&amp;format=webp 1x, https:\/\/img.huffingtonpost.com\/asset\/69b313e41700008f262b1d6b.jpg?ops=scalefit_1440&amp;format=webp 2x\"\/><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"img-sized__img landscape\" loading=\"lazy\" fetchpriority=\"auto\" alt=\"Joel Kinnaman, left, and Kate Mara, right, in \u201cImperfect Women.\u201d\" width=\"720\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/img.huffingtonpost.com\/asset\/69b313e41700008f262b1d6b.jpg?ops=scalefit_720_noupscale\" srcset=\"https:\/\/img.huffingtonpost.com\/asset\/69b313e41700008f262b1d6b.jpg?ops=scalefit_720_noupscale 1x, https:\/\/img.huffingtonpost.com\/asset\/69b313e41700008f262b1d6b.jpg?ops=scalefit_1440 2x\"\/><\/picture><\/div>\n<div class=\"cli-image__source-wrapper\"><figcaption class=\"cli-image__caption caption-cli\">Joel Kinnaman, left, and Kate Mara, right, in \u201cImperfect Women.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<div class=\"primary-cli cli cli-text \">\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"primary-cli cli cli-text \">\n<p>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\u2019s 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\u2019s widowed husband, Robert (Joel Kinnaman), and grieving daughter, Cora (Audrey Zahn). <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"primary-cli cli cli-text \">\n<p>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 \u201ccliffhanger\u201d 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\u2019t enough information to understand why or how this could possibly relate to Nancy\u2019s murder. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"primary-cli cli cli-text \">\n<p>This is the show\u2019s 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\u2019 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. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"primary-cli cli cli-text \">\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"primary-cli cli cli-text \">\n<p>After the third episode, the point of view shifts from Nancy for two episodes, then to Mary for two episodes. It\u2019s unclear why the perspective changes, and this plot device does not work. Instead of revealing information, it drains any momentum. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"primary-cli cli cli-text \">\n<p>Overall, these issues make \u201cImperfect Women\u201d the latest of Apple TV+\u2019s book adaptations to fall short. Like \u201c<a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.huffpost.com\/entry\/lessons-in-chemistry-apple-tv_n_652d992ce4b00565b6211af6\" role=\"link\" class=\" js-entry-link cet-internal-link\" data-vars-item-name=\"Lessons in Chemistry\" data-vars-item-type=\"text\" data-vars-unit-name=\"69b31267e4b05a3e2aa51f45\" data-vars-unit-type=\"buzz_body\" data-vars-target-content-id=\"652d992ce4b00565b6211af6\" data-vars-target-content-type=\"buzz\" data-vars-type=\"web_internal_link\" data-vars-subunit-name=\"article_body\" data-vars-subunit-type=\"component\" data-vars-position-in-subunit=\"0\">Lessons in Chemistry<\/a>\u201d and \u201c<a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.huffpost.com\/entry\/palm-royale-review_n_65faffbce4b03f22de618c0e\" role=\"link\" class=\" js-entry-link cet-internal-link\" data-vars-item-name=\"Palm Royale\" data-vars-item-type=\"text\" data-vars-unit-name=\"69b31267e4b05a3e2aa51f45\" data-vars-unit-type=\"buzz_body\" data-vars-target-content-id=\"65faffbce4b03f22de618c0e\" data-vars-target-content-type=\"buzz\" data-vars-type=\"web_internal_link\" data-vars-subunit-name=\"article_body\" data-vars-subunit-type=\"component\" data-vars-position-in-subunit=\"1\">Palm Royale<\/a>,\u201d the show is proof that a prestige cast cannot save a promising but poorly developed premise.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"primary-cli cli cli-text \">\n<p><em>\u201cImperfect Women\u201d is streaming on Apple TV. The first two episodes are available now; episodes will be released weekly on Wednesdays through April 29.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.celebrity.land \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How well do you really know your friends? This question underscores Apple TV+\u2019s newest miniseries, \u201cImperfect Women.\u201d Based on the 2021 book by Araminta Hall, the show is supposed to be a psychological thriller about three best friends \u2014 Nancy (Kate Mara), Eleanor (Kerry Washington) and Mary (Elizabeth Moss) \u2014 but it lacks the urgency [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2340482,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25174],"tags":[25317,332987,350559,315569],"class_list":["post-2340481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gossip","tag-apple-tv","tag-elisabeth-moss","tag-kate-mara","tag-kerry-washington"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/\u2018Imperfect-Women-Review-Apple-TV-Thriller-Falls-Short.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2340481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2340481"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2340481\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2340483,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2340481\/revisions\/2340483"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2340482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2340481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2340481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2340481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}