Bad Sisters

What happens when an irrepressible jerk refuses to die? Bad Sisters, the dark comedy from Catastrophe co-creator Sharon Horgan, asks the question with no shortage of acerbic humor, absurd hijinks, and quiet empathy. On its face, the series is a whodunit about the death of John Paul Williams, a man who torments not only his wife, Grace, but also her four sisters. When the embattled quartet decides the only path to saving Grace from John Paul’s abuse is to kill him, they embark on a perilous, oft-thwarted journey. These failed murder attempts, by turns comical and Faustian, push the Bad Sisters narrative forward. But the heart of the show is its keen, loving attention to relationships among women. The sisters may not always like one another, but they are invariably concerned for each other’s well-being. Again and again, Bad Sisters asks how far we should be willing to go in order to protect the people we love. Even in the moments when the show’s central mystery is still unsolved, the answer to that deeper query feels clear. For its bracingly funny, mercifully nuanced exploration of familial dynamics and the far-reaching effects of abuse, Bad Sisters wins a Peabody Award.