There’s an old Southern saying: If you want to go turning over rocks, expect to find some snakes.
Turns out the snakes are aplenty in the fictional small town of Pikeville, Georgia, where sisters Charlotte and Samantha Quinn have spent nearly half their lives trying to escape the tragedy and violence of a single night. A night that fractured relationships and refocused the future, sending each sister on a markedly different path.
“The Good Daughter” explores what it means to exist in the wake of a deeply traumatizing event and its long-unwinding aftermath, asking uncomfortable questions along the way: How do we find forgiveness? Can there ever be peace? What makes a monster a monster, exactly? For Charlotte (Meghann Fahy) and Samantha (Rose Byrne) the answers don’t come easy.
Based on the 2017 novel by Karin Slaughter, the six-episode Peacock series is a tense thriller that mostly succeeds despite some uneasy wobbling into tired tropes and lofty, unearned platitudes.
Twenty years ago, when the sisters were teens — Sam a promising track star, Charlie a bright daydreamer — their lives were upended by a brutal attack when two masked men broke into the home of their father, defense attorney Rusty Quinn (Brendan Gleeson), seeking to exact revenge for a past offense. When the intruders learn that Rusty isn’t home, they turn their anger on the rest of the family.
Two decades later, Charlotte is still in Pikesville, following Rusty’s path as a public defender and Samantha is in New York, working as a patent lawyer. The two haven’t spoken in years, divided by lingering resentments.
Then, tragedy strikes at a school where a student, Kelly (Shayna Benardo in a heartbreaking performance) is caught up in yet another quest for revenge. Charlotte, who witnesses part of the event, becomes embroiled in a battle to understand what happened — and who is actually guilty.
When Rusty decides to defend Kelly, an impoverished and bullied teen who is also intellectually disabled, it further threatens to uproot the past. Soon, Samantha is called home from New York at Rusty’s behest and reluctantly taking over Kelly’s case.
As Charlotte and Samantha reunite, it’s clear old stubborn streaks run deep. Charlotte has grown up to be a foul-mouthed loose cannon with an affinity for wild animals, while Samantha remains the all-knowing older sister torn between a sense of duty and the desire to stay far away.
With their mother, the brilliant Harriet (Olivia Williams), no longer a guiding force in their lives, they’re emotionally adrift. At this point the only force that can bring them together is Rusty, whose refusal to stop drinking or joking his way out of most situations brings the sisters no shortage of headaches and heartaches.
Nearly all the performances in “The Good Daughter” are stellar. Fahy, who was riveting as a betrayed wife in “The White Lotus,” exudes grit and charm. Byrne enthralls with a physical performance that is devastatingly brittle.
Audrey Grace Marshall and Drew Cheek as the younger Charlie and Sam, respectively, add layers of warmth to the Quinn sisters’ story. Michael Dorman as Charlotte’s soon-to-be ex-husband, Ben, demonstrates why his starring role in “Patriot” remains criminally overlooked, while Harper Steele as Rusty’s long-time assistant Lenore is at once resolute and charismatic.
It’s the Scottish actor Gleeson, however, who anchors the series with his command of a rough-hewn lawyer with a tarnished heart of brass. Even as some of his darkest secrets surface, Gleeson embodies the soul of a flawed but generous man who fiercely loves his daughters.
However, though the show seems to exist in the same moral universe as “Mare of Easttown” and “Task,” for all its strong acting, “The Good Daughter” falls just short of reaching the heights of those shows.
The storyline sinks on occasion thanks to gaping plot holes — viewers are left with a few too many unanswered. head-scratching questions. And while the show makes strong statements on accountability, money and class in America, it’s also hobbled by the occasional clichéd depiction of its backwoods town as well as a tendency to make its characters deliver weighty and philosophical musings that sometimes come off as overworked and out of place.
Still, “The Good Daughter” is worth the time thanks to its compelling cast and a handful of twists and turns, each one more satisfying and snake-worthy than the last.
“The Good Daughter” premieres Thursday on Peacock.
The post ‘The Good Daughter’ Review: Meghann Fahy and Rose Byrne Are Feuding Sisters With Endless Baggage in Gripping Peacock Mystery appeared first on TheWrap.
