Secrets, Blood, and Sisterhood: The Better Sister Episode 1 Review:

The Better Sister, starring Jessica Biel as Chloe Taylor, is one of Prime Video’s new thriller series based on the best-selling novel by Alafair Burke. The title informs that the show will be centered on the lives of two sisters, with Chloe as the female protagonist who tries to help her struggling alcoholic older sister Nicky Macintosh (Elizabeth Banks). Sisterhood is already complex—but with Chloe and Nicky, blood ties come with betrayal, secrets, and shared guilt.

  Chloe, is an author and editor-in-chief at a popular magazine while her husband Adam (Corey Stoll) is a high-powered attorney. Ethan (Maxwell Acee Donovan) is their teenage son; however, the twist in the show is that Nicky is the biological mother of Ethan. This further prompts the viewer to continue to want to watch the show because the picture-perfect marriage of nearly ten years that Chloe and Adam portray is not so perfect after all.

  In the first episode, the show definitely grabs your attention within the first two minutes of starting because it is set during the evening as Chloe returns home from a party, the Summer Soiree, at her mentor’s estate. The eerie and mysterious background music that is utilized during this time definitely keeps the viewer engaged. As Chloe walks around in her home barefoot, she feels something wet underneath her feet only to uncover that it is blood. At this point, she finds her husband lying on the floor in a pool of blood and quickly checks for any signs of life by placing her head on his chest. I found this to be an interesting choice on her part because typically in other shows you can see people checking for a pulse on the neck or wrist. By placing her head on his chest, she winds up being completely covered in blood thus staining her white dress and her skin. This makes you wonder if her actions were intentional.

  Ultimately, the viewer learns through a flashback that Chloe is involved in the #Womenareessential movement. As Chloe scrolls through social media earlier that day, she discovers that her home address in the city has been leaked online by protesters of this movement. Now the viewer is forced to wonder whether a protester is responsible for the murder of her husband or if there is more at play here. The question is, “Did they also discover the address to their second home in the suburbs where the murder took place?” On top of that, it doesn’t help Chloe’s case when we learn during another time jump that she has a second cell phone and pulls over while driving to send a suspicious text message to an unlisted number asking, “Are you there?” Keep in mind, this happens shortly before she arrives at her home in the suburbs that evening.

  During the investigation, Detective Guidry notices that Ethan has a fresh cut on his right forearm which leads her to investigate his whereabouts on the night of the murder. Eventually it is discovered that Ethan’s DNA is found under Adam’s fingernails. Does this mean that Ethan killed his own dad and politics did not play a role here?

  All things considered, Adam’s murder causes Chloe to unwillingly reconnect with her estranged sister Nicky since she is Ethan’s legal guardian. All of these twists take the viewer on a roller coaster ride and into the lives of these sisters who we learn have both married Adam. It is important to note, that the overall lack of emotions from Adam’s family upon learning of his death are deemed highly suspicious. Will we learn who the real killer is in the second episode or will this be revealed in the final episode of the series? Did Nicky finally get revenge on her ex-husband for marrying her sister? Did she brainwash Ethan into murdering him? Or did Chloe murder her own husband because of some other family secret? Until next week, stay with me.

Written by:

Liliana Navarro (The Wife of TV Dad)

(aka the one who actually pays attention to the details)