From TIME · Judy Berman · · 1m 10s
The Good Daughter dumps trauma without mystery
Peacock's new thriller opens with violence and never stops, sacrificing plot for catalogue of horrors.
In brief
Peacock's new thriller opens with violence and never stops, sacrificing plot for catalogue of horrors. The Good Daughter, premiering November twelfth on Peacock, frontloads a home invasion and builds six episodes around accumulated trauma rather than compelling mystery. Originally reported by TIME.
Home invasion opens the series
The Good Daughter begins with masked gunmen invading a Georgia defense lawyer's home to find his wife and two daughters. This formative violence reverberates through the girls' adult lives.
Charlie and Rusty work a murder case
Decades later, younger sister Charlie Quinn, a lawyer, works with her father Rusty. When a fatal shooting occurs at a high school, they take on Kelly, a poor girl with learning difficulties, as a client.
Estranged sister Sam returns home
Charlie's estranged sister Sam, a patent lawyer living as a rich urbanite, is summoned home and drawn into Kelly's case. She has managed her trauma by becoming the opposite of her surviving family.
Script built on coincidence fails mystery
Despite strong performances from Meghann Fahy, Brendan Gleeson and Rose Byrne, the series collects horrors as though cataloging everything awful that could happen to a woman, abandoning real mysteries for trauma dumps.
“it collects horrors, as though cataloging everything awful that could happen to a woman”
The bottom line
The Good Daughter, premiering November twelfth on Peacock, frontloads a home invasion and builds six episodes around accumulated trauma rather than compelling mystery.
