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Bad Sisters, Apple TV+ review: great villain but gone is the Sharon Horgan we know and love

Anne-Marie Duff, Saise Quinn, Sharon Horgan, Eva Birthistle, Sarah Greene and Eve Hewson in Bad Sisters - Apple TV+
Anne-Marie Duff, Saise Quinn, Sharon Horgan, Eva Birthistle, Sarah Greene and Eve Hewson in Bad Sisters - Apple TV+

Murder, flashbacks, big secrets and even bigger kitchen islands: the latest prestige TV crime series has landed. Bad Sisters (Apple TV+), a Dublin-set version of Flemish comedy-thriller Clan, has been created by Sharon Horgan, who also stars as one of a bevy of sisters in the frame for offing their reviled brother-in-law, aka “The Prick”. It’s essentially an Irish Big Little Lies.

Horgan plays Eva Garvey, who raised her younger siblings after their parents’ death. That tragedy bonded them, but Grace’s marriage to the loathsome John Paul has decimated their harmony. The 10-episode series opens with JP’s funeral – but was he killed, and if so who did it?

The procedural element is actually the most tedious, with half-brothers Thomas and Matthew trying to dodge an insurance payout since their late father’s firm is in debt. Brian Gleeson (son of Brendan) is grating as the unhinged Thomas, who goes wildly beyond his investigative remit – rifling through bins and medicine cabinets.

It’s a waste of Horgan’s gift for elevating the minutiae of everyday life. Instead, Bad Sisters has stakes (Fraud! Explosions! Animal deaths!) while retaining a jaunty tone. It shoots for Coen Brothers absurdity, but the best scenes are the grounded ones with the Garvey sisters. They bicker, tease and fall into childhood roles – like the baby who longs to be included. Horgan’s triumph is supplying a monster for the ages. I can’t remember the last time I so desperately rooted for the grisly death of a fictional character. Claes Bang practically smears the screen, so oily is his arch-villain. JP oozes his way through all of the tricks in the misogynist playbook: coercive control and gaslighting, slut-shaming his daughter and demanding his wife (a wrenching Anne-Marie Duff) always put him first.

Directors Dearbhla Walsh and Rebecca Gatward make nice use of Dublin locations such as swimming spot the Forty Foot, and there’s the odd stylistic flourish such as whizzing along a film strip for the flashbacks. Plus, the opening titles are fabulously macabre: a domino rally of murder weapons, accompanied by a haunting cover of Leonard Cohen’s Who by Fire. But the show loses Horgan’s voice when it ventures into generic crime drama territory. It’s with kin, not killing, where she really slays.