Bad Sisters
The setup of Bad Sisters is deliberately absurd, a throwback to sillier shows such as Desperate Housewives and Why Women Kill. The ease with which the Garvey sisters decide to kill John Paul, and their resoluteness when their attempts repeatedly and catastrophically fail, are pure fantasy.[16]
SHARON HORGAN: What I wanted to do was to just really ground it, because to me, the interesting thing at the heart of it was this relationship, this awful, abusive, coercive relationship that the sisters decide to rescue their other sister from. And so in order to really feel that and believe that and ground that, I had to sort of take the whole thing down a notch, and for the collateral damage to really be, you know, what happens to the sisters themselves when they decide to do this, you know, pretty terrible and careless dangerous thing, which is to take their brother-in-law out. And I felt like it really had to sort of almost destroy them.
HORGAN: He's abusive emotionally and, you know, verbally and financially. He's taken away all her sort of autonomy. And she's basically about to disappear. And on top of that, they have a child together. And you can see that he's beginning to minimize his daughter as well. And so the four sisters are sort of watching this happening before their eyes. And they're worried that there's going to be nothing left if they don't step in there.
HORGAN: It's not. And for a main character like him, it was really important to us that we see him have tender moments with his daughter, to have vulnerable moments with his own relationship with his mother and, you know, a past that's really difficult. There's a couple of moments within the season where you do feel for him. You know, I mean, I knew an audience had to completely be on board for what the sisters are doing. And for that reason, the audience had to be prepared to, you know, make a child fatherless. That was kind of my biggest worry, I think. You know, it was so clear that he was - he had to go. But at the same time, you're robbing a child of her father. So there had to be a sort of good enough reason for the sisters to do that.
KELLY: So no spoiler alert required. He dies. The first episode has him laid out in the Cascades. He's - you know this from the get go. And the 10 episodes are kind of taking you through how that came to be. And I want to take people a little bit through that. The sisters start off trying to blow him up, if I'm not mistaken. And then there's poison.
Bad Sisters is an Irish black comedy about five Dublin sisters who are devoted to one another after the death of their parents. Operating on a dual timeline, it flips back and forth between two times:
The other possibility is that the sisters, have an entirely new situation to deal with, possibly a new threat to a different sister or one of their kids. We already know they're tight, and they won't tolerate threats to their family.
It wouldn't be Bad Sisters without the sisters, so we would expect to see the return of Sharon Horgan (Catastrophe) as Eva Garvey, Anne-Marie Duff (The Virgin Queen) as Grace (Garvey) Williams, Eva Birthistle (Ae Fond Kiss) as Ursula (Garvey) Flynn, Sarah Greene (Penny Dreadful) as Bibi Garvey, and Eve Hewson (The Luminaries) as Becka Garvey.
Bad Sisters is an Irish adaptation of a Flemish TV series called Clan. The series aired back in 2012, and the basic plot is quite similar in that it follows five sisters, an abusive husband, and an insurance investigation after his death.
Co-written and produced by written by Catastrophe's Sharon Horgan, BAD SISTERS is a dark comedy about an Irish clan of sisters who may or may not have killed one of their brothers-in-law. After the premature death of their parents, the Garvey sisters, including Eva (played by Horgan), Grace (Anne-Marie Duff), Becka (Eve Hewson), Nora (Yasmine Gravey), Ursula (Eva Birthistle), and Bibi (Sarah Greene), made a commitment to remain close and protect each other. When Grace's contemptible husband John Paul (Claes Bang) becomes more abusive, her sisters begin to fantasize about killing him. So when he dies in what authorities deem an accident, it's unclear if her siblings had anything to do with it. But insurance agent Thomas Claffin (Brian Gleeson) and his brother Matthew Claffin (Daryl McCormack) are doing everything they can to get to the bottom of the matter in hopes of both avoiding a huge payout to the widow and salvaging the family business.
The Irish-centered dark comedy, which is based on the Belgian series Clan, offers a well-written story that's smart, witty, and dramatic. Bad Sisters effectively uses detailed flashbacks to raise suspicions about John Paul's death while highlighting the disasters created by people's efforts to cause it. Woven throughout are the sisters' efforts to cope with the aftermath of his passing, and Thomas Claffin's unscrupulous tactics to avoid financial ruin. Bad Sisters does have its share of disturbing moments, especially when showing the impact domestic abuse has on Grace and her daughter. Yet it strikes a balance between comedy and drama, making it possible to find humor in what is happening while appreciating the tragedies that are being revealed. Overall, it's a well-timed, well-performed series that will quickly draw you in, and keep you entertained until the end.
Thankfully, the show begins with his funeral, and the central mystery isn't whether or not the sisters trying to kill him were successful but how they pulled it off. Watching the pain he inflicts on the Garveys otherwise would be too much to bear. He's that bad.
\"So the collateral damage is not about a body count, it's about the damage it does to the sisters and their relationship and how they move through the world. And so I feel like it's a lot of the big moments we kept and did our versions of, but of everything else sort of changed.\"
Rather than sitting back and watching her sisters get caught for a botched murder attempt, Ursula decides to get involved. She's not only thinking of her sisters. John Paul has done something that threatens her family, and she's scared of losing them.
How, then, could such strong sisters with their own life issues have missed what was happening with Grace? After years of watching John Paul dominate her, it's hard to understand why they didn't act sooner. Greene says that's simple -- Grace has never asked for help.
\"It's very important for you to have sympathy with the sisters in their attempts to kill him all the time and that you want to do the same. That was what was needed from me, I suppose, that I was able to deliver in that department.
Duff thinks Grace's sisters don't step in sooner because \"there is a certain feeling of denial around unhealthy, abusive relationships.\" But then the show takes viewers into the past so that they realize what they're seeing is just the tipping point to what he's done being unforgivable.
Created and developed by Emmy nominee Sharon Horgan (Catastrophe), the series is technically a remake of Malin-Sarah Gozin's Belgian series Clan. The ten-episode first season follows the sisters of the Garvey family, who come together to decide what to do about their eldest sibling's cruel husband, whom they all refer to in private as \"The Prick.\" But when he turns up dead, the women find themselves under investigation by a pair of desperate life insurance agents determined to prove malicious intent so that they can avoid a large payout.
What really happened to The Prick and which, if any, sisters were involved in his death are spoilers worth avoiding until you can watch the show yourselves, but the series' first outing ends in such a way that might leave you wondering what, precisely, is left for a second season to accomplish. (Other than simply allowing us to watch a group of fabulous actresses keep working together.)
Alongside Horgan, the series' ensemble cast includes Anne-Marie Duff (The Salisbury Poisonings), Eva Birthistle (The Last Kingdom), Sarah Greene (Dublin Murders), and Eve Hewson (The Luminaries) as the Garvey sisters. Claes Bang (Dracula), Brian Gleeson (The Lazarus Project), Daryl McCormack (Peaky Blinders), Assaad Bouab (The Pursuit of Love), and newcomer Saise Quinn also star, though one has to wonder if Bang will be asked to reprise his (honestly, remarkable) performance as the reprehensible John Paul.
As far as potential storylines go, it's not a spoiler to say that almost everything is wrapped up fairly neatly in Season 1, although there's certainly some room to explore various forms of emotional catharsis for the Garvey sisters in the wake of its aftermath. Maybe can see some more of Becka's new relationship with insurance adjuster Matt?
Bad Sisters is a worthy remake of Belgian black comedy-drama Clan. It's an intriguing whodunnit that plays out with some brilliant twists along the way. The show's cast, superbly led by Sharon Horgan (who also adapted the series for Apple TV Plus), are on top form, with the actors portraying the five Garvey sisters particularly sublime as the tortured souls to horrific brother-in-law JP Williams. It struggles with plot pacing issues at times and, at 10 episodes, it's a series that feels overly long. Still, those who stick it out will be rewarded with a compelling story that'll leave you guessing until the last moment.
Bad Sisters was co-devoloped by Sharon Horgan and stars Horgan, Anne-Marie Duff, Eva Birthistle, Sarah Greene, and Eve Hewson. It follows a group of sisters as they grieve a family members death while hoping to dodge investigators from a life insurance company.
There is a particular Irish focus in the show, with Horgan writing and starring as Eva Garvey. Beyond that, the remaining Garvey sisters are made up of Anne-Marie Duff (London), Sarah Greene (Cork), Eva Birthistle (Wicklow) and Eve Hewson (Dublin).