Imperfect Women

15

This show is an abomination. Honestly, I’m not even sure that’s a strong enough adjective. But there is no way the execs at Apple TV+ watching this thing and were like, “Yes! Print it!” Or whatever you say when you’re psyched about a program you’ve clearly sunk a lot of cash into and want it out to the public as quickly as possible. You wonder why there is a show starring three marketable women that has gotten next to zero promotion? Because, folks, this series is just nonsensical and embarrassingly bad. A mess of a narrative that tries every modern trope in the book, but fails on just about every level. The acting is stepped on by the bad writing and the bad writing is often times stepped on by actors who are clearly as confused by what’s going on as we are. I’m going to chalk it up to Apple needing a big write-off. That’s the only logical explanation for a TV series that seems like it’s purposely tanking.

Sigh. Imperfect Women is yet another murder mystery series based on a “novel.” A novel written by a British lady that was presumably originally set in England. Which, perhaps, is where the trouble starts. But there are three women, who are supposed to be friends from college (or, as the Brits would say, “university.”) There’s Eleanor (Kerry Washington), who is from some rich, bougie family, is single and sexually harasses her young employees at her award-winning non-profit that is propped-up by her rich family and set in a completely unrealistic, insane office in what may be downtown Los Angeles. Then there’s Nancy (Kate Mara), who is from a white-trash background, has sexual trauma, is married to super-rich guy, Robert (Joel Kinnaman), but is also bored with her life and apparently likes to lay around on couches on men’s laps in artist lofts smoking weed and being painted in the buff. Lastly, there’s Mary (Elisabeth Moss), who is a pill-addicted mom who wears terrible clothes, is seemingly paranoid and also is maybe, possibly a writer when she’s not tending to the kids or making home with her asshat former-professor husband, Howard (Corey Stoll), who cheated with her when she was his TA in college? It honestly doesn’t seem that these three women — despite being best of friends — have much in common. Other than they’re all imperfect, of course.

But — as is custom in 2026 — one of them is dead. That’s not a spoiler; it happens right up front. It’s Nancy (Mara), if you care. But, yeah, then we dive into the mystery of who killed her by going back in time, uncovering exactly how imperfect all of these women are. And, man, are they imperfect. Turns out Robert (Kinnaman) and Eleanor (Washington) used to have a thing. Bonding over the fact their rich families put a lot of pressure on them, I guess? But it’s a thing that apparently never died. And now that his wife is dead it seems like a perfect time to heap more suspicion on themselves by rekindling that old fire. And Mary (Moss) — a character who could not be more annoying — is apparently also driving her incredibly narcissistic cardboard husband into the arms of her formerly alive friend, Nancy (Mara). Maybe?

All this is meant to obfuscate who killed Nancy. Giving everyone some sort of motive. But, c’mon people, we’ve all seen those “bad man” Lifetime movies. It’s exactly the dude we thought it was. No twist, no nothing. Just a violent asshole who obsessively kills her in cold blood because he just can’t help himself. Even though, again, they try to mask it for like five seconds. With scintillatingly terrible dialogue like this. Nancy [upset] to Eleanor: “I slept with somebody.” Eleanor to Nancy: “Are you having an affair?” No, Eleanor, she slept with somebody, but it was just like sleeping in a bed fully clothed… What the hell are we doing? But Nancy is having an affair, even though every time she’s about to say with whom she gets like interrupted or whatever. But they find out it’s someone named “David.” Oh! The artist who painted her nude is named David. It must be him! Nope, that’s just a huuuuuge coincidence. I mean, this writing is already dumb, but this head fake is only one of the dumb things we must endure. The dumbest of which is the introduction of the red herring of Nancy’s step dad. Who molested her when she was a teenager. Or sexually exploited her, I guess. Let’s do some math, shall we? Nancy was around 14 when this is happening. She’s now around 43. So, around thirty years have gone by since this situation took place. But the show introduces her step-dad as a possible suspect. A man — when doing math — is conservatively in his late sixties at this point. But, more likely, in his early seventies. Yet… yet, he is super-active on social media portrayed as virile and young and is played by an actor who is 42 (weirdly younger than any of the three lead actresses). Sure, they put some light aging make-up on him, but it’s completely obvious and absurd. This is one of the worst, shoe-horned red herring head fakes I’ve seen in one these. Clumsy, silly and poorly executed to boot.

And this is the issue here. There could have been a version that wasn’t terrible. That leaned a little into the camp of it all, but had clever dialogue and didn’t treat the audience like idiots. Literally every time we see Robert from the middle of the series on, he’s completely soused. Which we know because he spends every scene with a bottle of booze in one hand and a crystal glass in the other. Pouring out gulps in every scene. Forcing Kinnaman to be the staggering goon he truly is, and reminding me of the limited angry range he flashed in For All Mankind. Mary is supposed to be an Adderall addict, but her behavior isn’t consistent and we’re always reminded she’s trying to write a novel while looking at her pained, dumb face. But she also might have been obsessed with Nancy and stalking her? For twenty-five years since college? Plus, her daughters’ names are Juniper and Artemis. Artemis? What the actual hell? I think maybe we’re supposed to sympathize with poor, dowdy Mary, but she is nothing but irritating. I’m a little biased after being tortured by that close-up “horror” face that Moss pulls constantly in The Handmaid’s Tale, but for some reason the show eventually settles on Mary as the POV character. Presumably because she finally got that novel out. Or… and hang with me here: it is Moss’ production company that optioned the novel. So of course she sees this kind of non-entity, third-banana character as the narrator. It made no sense otherwise.

The series also seems completely disinterested in the whole crime-solving process. A person is murdered, but the cops are clowns. They don’t seem to actually do their jobs or be into figuring out who the murderer is. There is a “camera in the park” that captures the aforementioned step dad on it the night of Nancy’s murder. A camera that, confusingly, captures him in like an up-close, hand-held way. Not like a security camera on a pole, but a straight-on shot at chest level that makes no sense. I think we learn later on that it’s maybe, possibly a dahs cam from a car — a car that definitely wouldn’t have a dash cam or be able to create a nighttime image like it did — but the imprecise language from the cops and the screenwriter makes the whole thing feel like a student film version of policing. Which I suppose, in their ineptitude and constantly jumping to unrealistic conclusions, makes the imperfect ladies’ investigations more pertinent. Side note: when this 70-year-old step dad is caught on camera and immediately named the murderer by the cops, I feel like they forgot the aging makeup in the shot, so it looks like this step dad — who moves not at all like an older man — is pretty much the same age as the women, which is thoroughly confusing and dumb. Meanwhile, as I mentioned, we’re pretty much told who murdered Nancy way before the concluding episode, so all we have to look forward to is the inevitable ending where said person tries to physically murder the other ladies. And they overwhelm this person and, despite being bloodied, take this person down themselves. No cleverness. No twist or foresight. Just a dumb physical skirmish that involves your typical manual strangling and most definitely ends with a stabbing. You’ve seen it a thousand times and it’s never satisfying.

I wonder what they thought they had when they decided to make this series? I imagine they built the cast and figured people would watch it just because of the three faces they put on the poster. There’s just so much sag in the script and constant waning energy in the narrative. And god-awful dialogue. They had to know reading it that this thing wasn’t ultimately going to work. Even as they burned piles of cash filming in expensive-looking locations around LA. Which, as a native Angeleno I appreciate, but know they could have filmed in Toronto or something and made this thing at least make sense financially. Whatever the case, I wish someone would have taken a second or third pass on this thing and made it hang together in a logical way that didn’t make me feel just a little embarrassed for all involved.