Complicités

Jessica Biel and Elizabeth Banks as sisters - it just works. The casting clicks immediately: familiar faces, magnetic in different ways, grounded enough to feel real but polished enough to keep your eyes glued. From the start, there's tension, that quiet kind that hums under every line. The show doesn't rush. It unspools slowly, feeding you just enough to stay hooked, each clue another tug on the line. And Biel? She's a force. Strong, lean, commanding in every frame. The camera knows it, too - it lingers, those sleeveless shirts doing half the storytelling.

But then comes the final episode. The rhythm stutters. That careful pacing, the mystery, the restraint - it all gives way to a clumsy data dump. Answers come too fast, too neat, and you're left wondering how something so taut unraveled so suddenly.

Not feeling the suspense, no plot twists, nothing exciting. Not sure if the segments with the dead husband/father are a dream or a hallucination or if they're doing a flashback moment. They seemed to be using them only to fill-in because they couldn't figure out what else to write. This literally puts me to sleep. I keep replaying what I missed after I fell asleep, hoping that there was something worth watching, but to no avail. Still confused only five episodes in and considering just giving up but want to see it all the way through to see if it has any redeeming value. Maybe I'll have a better rating at the end or maybe not.

It starts with a murder, and catches you even though it is... calmly paced. The acting is really what hooked me. You never really like any particular character, but they are all unique, intriguing, and layered. The story line is a bit ridiculous at its most basic, but the character growth and slowly revealed history has a little something anyone can relate to. The build in revelations is done well and really catches your interest. Worth noting; some of the writing is a little too on the nose, but I viewed it as a comedic lightening of the general serious weight of the show, and kind of enjoyed it. I didn't binge, but one episode a night kept me ready for the next.

My wife and I finished all 8 episodes of this 8-episode miniseries streaming on Prime, also produced by the two main actors who play the sisters. When we watch a fictional series like this our best measure is whether we are anxious to see the next episode. With this series we always were and the last episode, which ties everything up, is entertaining and satisfying.

Jessica Beihl and Elizabeth Banks are in fine form and those characters, and their interactions, are the main thrust of the series. As episodes move along the stories continue to introduce new twists. For strict entertainment, it fills the bill. However it seems that every character uses the worst profane language that you can imagine, quite a bit too much in my opinion, so that was often a big distraction. It seems that all shows like this use that approach, sadly.

In many ways it is hard to find anyone to root for. No angels in this set of characters. But if everyone is bad (except the teenage son) then you find the entertainment in their misdeeds and seeing how they will survive the quagmires they find themselves in.

In the first episode we are presented with two big issues. First, a murder, and with clues we are presented it isn't clear who might have done it. Then we are presented with the tension between the estranged sisters. The victim has been husband to both of them.

Jessica Biel is the younger sister, Chloe, a prominent executive with a Manhattan firm, her husband is an attorney. They have a son, about 17. But they have only been married for almost ten years.

The other sister lives in Cleveland, OH, and has been sober for five years, clearly not yet living the good life. She is played by Elizabeth Banks as Nickey. The son is actually hers. The sisters get along like fire and ice.

We were entertained, the ending set itself up for a second season if they choose to go that way.

6.9 stars.

In spite of the stellar cast, not just a few major Hollywood personalities, but five or six big-time actors, this series does not serve up a very entertaining experience. I've seen a hundred shows better than this in the same genre.

I made it through about half of episode four, and realized that I had wasted hours of precious life. Just because Banks and Biel are sisters in the story with interesting contrasts of character, doesn't mean they can force more stimulation out of the anemic narrative. Sure enough, the story is slow and somewhat mundane for a murder mystery.

Why is this show even on television? We are so accustomed to more intrigue and suspense without all the fluff and filler. This should be four episodes at most. I'm done with it.

After watching Lincoln Lawyer and True Detective and Fargo and The Sinner (season one with Biel-fantastic) and even Girl on a Train (not great), The Better Sister is not what I would prescribe for your mystery thriller cravings.