Bartels, Suvari, and especially Silverstone give this thing their all, and outside of some excellent costuming and the aforementioned great hair, they don’t get much in return. Some scenes are better than others, but it’s perhaps not a coincidence that many of the finest passages are either silent or bracingly direct. In the three episodes provided to critics for review, the best moment is totally wordless, as Bonnie stares into a mirror, reflected in another mirror, stripped of her expert coiffure and dramatic mascara. The moment goes on, longer than one expects, longer than another show might let it go on, but for those seconds, the story snaps into focus. Silverstone’s presence demands it, and an emotional life emerges.
There are similar moments—after spilling red wine on a handsome stranger, Bonnie asks a bartender for club soda and a towel, then after the faintest of pauses adds, “and a shot of vodka”; Bartels’ Diana angrily protests that she’s not boring, but with a flinch that betrays her fear over that very thing. But while all three of the actors are themselves engaging, the women they play are often dishearteningly superficial. Regardless as to the makeup of the writers room, it’s a series that feels as though no one on the production team has ever met or spoken to a woman.
They often speak in platitudes, careening toward declarations or punchlines one can see coming from a mile away. An encounter with an ex’s young paramour leads one of them to toss off a barb about bedtime. As Bonnie tells her friends she had to let her maid go, Kathleen (Suvari) asks who’s going to clean; when this is followed by the revelation that the gardener, too, was fired, Kathleen blurts out, “But who’s going to garden?!” Statement after statement sees these women declaring that no man can dictate who they’ll be, that no man can intimidate them, that no man can spoil their fun, but the series seems uninterested in actually showing how these beliefs grow, how they’re challenged, and what they mean. It’s t-shirt slogans as dialogue, and these women deserve better.
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