When I saw the cast list for Imperfect Women, the new thriller from AppleTV+ based on the novel of the same name, I was excited to see just what it was about. Kerry Washington, Elisabeth Moss, Kate Mara, Corey Stoll, Joel Kinnaman, Leslie Odom, Jr. What a group of excellent actors. And then I watched a couple episodes of the series and oof. It’s rare that a series manages to score this much talent and then utterly waste it on a show that is so incredibly soapy, so incredibly ridiculous, so incredibly focused on being the most without taking any time to carve out nuance or really let us understand these characters beyond the most basic tropes. If you’re in the market for a silly, over-the-top melodrama, Imperfect Women is for you. If you like your shows with some complexity and clearly drawn characters, skip this one.
If you’re still with me, I’ll give you a basic rundown of the plot. Best friends Mary (Moss), Eleanor (Washington), and Nancy (Mara) are seemingly living charmed lives. Both Mary and Nancy are married to apparently great guys (Stoll and Kinnaman, respectively), with kids of their own. They all have work they love, whether it be actual work or of the charity variety. And they have each other, to trust and confide in when things might get a bit rocky. Which makes it all the more shocking when Nancy turns up dead, seemingly murdered. And then the secrets start to come out and the perfect lives begin to unravel.
Our main point of view character is Eleanor, which gives Washington the opportunity to take center stage throughout much of the early going of the series. However, the writing lets her down at almost every junction. Annie Weisman and her writing staff are great adherents to the idea of “tell, don’t show” so we get hit over the head time and time again with expositional dumps, characters outright explaining just what they are feeling and why that are doing something, and full-on information overload. The dialogue is often stilted – Eleanor sounds like she’s in the midst of a melodrama every time she opens her mouth, and Mary is often called upon to ask the key questions the audience is wondering about just to be told the information.
There are ways to create genuine tension with a complex and winding story in a thriller – see Big Little Lies for how to do it right. Here, everything is ham-fisted and unconvincing, from the writing, to the pacing, to the acting. I found myself continually rolling my eyes at the revelations. None of the characters are particularly sympathetic – which is a choice, to be sure, and one than can work if there’s a compelling enough reason to continue watching them. And when you have this level of talent in front of the camera, well, you expect to see something that you will remember. That you’ll be drawn to. Writing that pulls out performances that resonate. Instead, you’re left wondering just what it was that made actors of this caliber sign on for the project (Moss and Washington are also credited as executive producers).
There’s certainly an audience for this type of series – there are a host of others like it currently streaming on the various platforms. I know folks who will jump at a chance to watch a series starring these actors about a murder despite the empty calories contained within. But if you like your television with a little bit more meat on its narrative bones, sit this one out.
Imperfect Women premieres on March 18. All eight episodes were provided for review.
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