Okay, maybe a six-episode season of television does have the ability to be good. This has not been the case as of late, with short seasons of TV regularly irritating audiences from all walks of life, but the BBC and Netflix have finally given us a show that has absolutely nailed the microseries format.
A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder is based on the young adult mystery novel of the same name—specifically, the UK edition of the book—and follows Pip Fitz-Amobi (Emma Myer) as she looks into the disappearance of Andie Bell (India Lillie Davies) and the subsequent suicide of her boyfriend, Sal Singh (Rahul Pattni) that occured 5 years before. Pip begins her investigation as a school project and things quickly spiral out from there as she starts digging into the past, attempting to disprove the assumption that Andie’s disappearance was a case of murder-suicide at the hands of Sal.
It is rare that a series is so casually well-rounded. Myers’ performance gives Pip a multitude of layers, from happy-go-lucky to afraid and massively out of her depth. Pip’s ensemble of friends are a believably active part of the story without overwhelming the center thread of Pip trying to find the truth. They, along with Pip’s parents, make it easy to gage how the each development in the case impacts our lead across each episode, especially when it comes to Cara (Asha Banks), whose sister, Naomi (Yasmin Al-Khudhairi), was best friends with Sal and was with him before Andie disappeared.
Despite there being so many people at play, Pip never feels like she is being sidelined in her own show. Her motivations are not out of simple curiosity—Pip saw Andie and Sal the day before Andie’s disappearance and has struggled with thinking that Sal was too kind of a person to ever kill someone, and feeling like her (very minimal) interaction with the pair that day could have lead to Andie’s presumed death. As good natured as she is, Pip approaches her investigation with gumption and almost no tact, tracking people down to find out what they knew about Andie and Sal without much hesitation. Until heavier factors come into play, Pip does not seem to feel any sort of remorse for dragging old feelings about the case up, something that is immediately apparent when she tries to speak to Ravi (Zain Iqbal), Sal’s younger brother. Even so, Myers’ portrayal is so convincingly endearing that this sleuth’s invasiveness does not register as such. The deeper the investigation goes, the more anxious she gets about everything in her life, from angering any of the criminals she aims to expose to realizing that the people she loves might not be as good as she thinks they are.
The series excels where other short seasons astronomically fail, and locks you in with solid narrative pacing. In recent years, screenwriters have struggled to get the flow of these compact shows right. Marvel can’t manage it, Star Wars has a 50/50 chance of swinging and not missing, but A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder moves at a breakneck pace that ultimately holds the show together. All six episodes take place over the span of about six months, and each of Pip’s relationships (both new and existing) have depth that is not negated by the show constantly moving forward at 100 miles per hour. The speed at which things take place forces the audience to stay locked in, making sure that no detail is left unseen. If you blink, you will absolutely miss something, and that’s advantageous when there are only six, 45-minute-long episodes to take in. This is a show that is built to be binged, which is somehow becoming more and more rare in the streaming era of TV. Could we have done with more episodes? Sure, but that would require dragging out a lot of the mystery in the back half of the season, and that would only be to the show’s detriment. If there is any part that feels a little rushed and thrown together, it is the climax of the action in Episodes 5 and 6, but that flaw slides by when looking at the overarching story as a whole.
And on top of the excellent writing and performances, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder is given a backdrop with a well-rounded, potentially timeless aesthetic that relies on being soft instead of flashy. Sure, the teenage characters dress like 2020s teens and current-day technology has its place in the story, but outfits are regularly repeated, wardrobe pieces are rescued in different ways that make each character feel real, and the production team took full advantage of the summer months when shooting. In contrast to the deaths at the center of the show, there is a warmth and vibrancy that is never dropped, even in the darkest moments.
A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder will certainly be a success. It is a perfectly-packaged, breezy adventure with a Wednesday alum as the lead, and even though there are two more books worth of material that the series can build off of, the ending of its inaugural season ties things off in a satisfying way. Two more seasons of Pip, Ravi, and the rest of these characters would be delightful to watch, but if that is not in the cards, that’s honestly fine. Fans of the books would be upset, as would any future diehard fan of this adaptation, but the show that we get easily works as a one-off miniseries. Closing the door on this type of mystery is difficult, but the strength of the writing leaves no stone unturned and no question unanswered—a testament to the rock-solid execution of this series, which undeniably stands as a summer mystery worth binging.
A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder premieres August 1st on Netflix.
Kathryn Porter is a freelance writer who will talk endlessly about anything entertainment given the chance. You can find her @kaechops on Twitter.
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