Bad Sisters: The Prick

September 3, 2022 10:23 PM - Season 1, Episode 1

In the first episode of the Dublin-set mordant comedy Bad Sisters [trailer], the close-knit Garvey sisters attend the funeral of John Paul, a candidate for Worst Brother-In-Law of the Century. Meanwhile, a small-time insurance agent decides John Paul’s death is too suspicious to warrant an automatic payout to widow Grace, so he and his reluctant business partner/brother start an investigation. Starring Sharon Horgan, Eva Birthistle, Sarah Greene, Eve Hewson, Claes Bang, Brian Gleeson, and Daryl McCormack.

Bad Sisters was created by Irish actor/writer/director/producer Sharon Horgan, based on the Flemish series Clan.

Chicago Sun-Times: Brilliantly acted, written, ‘Bad Sisters’ is wildly appealing series

Variety: With ‘Bad Sisters,’ Sharon Horgan Smartly Combines ‘Big Little Lies’ With Irish Wit

Vanity Fair: Sharon Horgan’s Bad Sisters Kicks Against the Prick

The heart of Bad Sisters is the sisterhood, the way the Garvey women bicker and giggle and struggle together. They are juggling careers and parenting, grappling with disappointments and midlife crises. Each of the actresses are superb and nuanced, though Hewson (also known as Bono‘s daughter) deserves a special shout for the messy bitch radiance she brings to Becka. And then of course there’s Horgan, who exudes warmth and prickly complexity every moment she’s onscreen. You can see her thinking and sense her feeling, which grounds the show in reality even when it threatens to become a preposterous puzzle.

Bad Sisters’ sinister Rube Goldberg-esque opening credit sequence features PJ Harvey’s cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Who By Fire.”

posted by hurdy gurdy girl (11 comments total)

Great show and even though the best part of it is the sisterhood, the writers still find time to develop the Insurance Bros (Vulture's coinage, AFAIK) along with everything else going on.
posted by kingless at 3:22 AM on September 4, 2022

I love this show, even though it gives me a whopping case of real estate envy (Sharon Horgan's house on the show is just . . . well, it's kind of the most thing I've ever wanted) .
posted by thivaia at 7:50 AM on September 4, 2022 [4 favorites]

Really great. I want to check out Clan but I also don’t want to spoil anything in this series for myself. If I had known it hadn’t completed the season yet I wouldn’t have started 😅

My only minor gripe is how one-dimensionally evil JP is. Every single time he has a choice in front of him, or an opportunity to say something, he opts for the more loathsome. Leave some shades of gray in there; I’m ok with the sisters wanting him dead even if he’s not 100% irredeemable.

Eve Hewson is also great in The Knick, which is the only other thing I think I’ve seen her in.
posted by supercres at 3:26 PM on September 4, 2022 [1 favorite]

JP is so one-dimensionally evil I started wondering if we’re supposed to think he is a psychopath. In episode 4,

spoiler

his mother reveals that he used to drown frogs as a child, and it’s implied he murdered his sister,

which certainly supports this reading of his character. Honestly he is so terrible I told my partner if we hadn’t seen a dead JP right at the beginning of the first episode, I’d spend the rest of the series being driven slowly bananas, itching for someone to finish him off. Of course we don’t know WHO did it…though I do have a few theories.

I do love Eva’s house and suffer similar real estate envy every time I see it.

Second only to JP’s character in annoying me is Insurance Bro Thomas. His brother Matthew is lovely, but every time Thomas is on screen I want to scream.

The sisters are fantastic—their relationship with each other is totally believable to me, and their pain at seeing Grace being slowly consumed in her abusive relationship with JP seems very real.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 7:41 PM on September 4, 2022 [2 favorites]

(Is this a full season thread or are we doing episode-by-episode?)
posted by thecaddy at 7:03 PM on September 5, 2022

I initially wanted to do a full-season thread because it’s being released weekly, and I don’t know if there’s enough interest to do an episode by episode. However, I didn’t see an option for that. Does anyone know how to do that? I guess I ought to ask the mods.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 8:32 PM on September 5, 2022

Every time the evil JP character appears on screen, I want to stop watching and do something else. Watching this series, for me, is going to take a while.

(Either that, or should I just fast forward through all scenes with JP?)
posted by applesurf at 10:30 PM on September 5, 2022 [1 favorite]

JP is like Poochy, in that when he is on-screen, I want to kill JP, and when he is not on screen all the other characters are talking about how they want to kill JP.
posted by thecaddy at 8:40 PM on September 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

I’ve posted each of the episodes now, so there’s a separate post for the most recent episode, “Eye for an Eye.” Just finished watching that tonight, and OH BOY what a wild ride. Like I said in my comment on that post, this episode almost pushed me to the limits of how much JP time I can tolerate.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 1:44 AM on September 9, 2022

We are so enjoying this. Watch Sharon Horgan with Rob Delaney in Catastrophe on Amazon Prime if you haven’t.

Eve Hewson was terrific in Behind Her Eyes on Netflix. We watched the whole series, impressed as hell by her and the whole production. Looked her up after and discovered the Bono connection. She’s really good. Avoid spoilers!!!

Neither show has an entry on Fanfare. Yet.
posted by conscious matter at 8:24 PM on September 9, 2022 [2 favorites]

Coming to this really late, but we've enjoyed the first three episodes.

I noticed the Spanish title of the show is Hermanas Hasta la Muerte (Sisters to the Death) which is a far, FAR better title. I was avoiding this show because I thought it was yet another piece of dreck along the lines of Bad Santa, Bad Grampa, Horrible Bosses, etc etc with that "OMG so outrageous I can't even!1!!" vibe.

It's not like that at all. Glad I found it.
posted by SoberHighland at 7:56 AM on February 10, 2023 [1 favorite]