From “13 Reasons Why” to “Cruel Summer” to the various incarnations of “Pretty Little Liars,” mysteries centering on teen girls have carved out a distinct lane in the television landscape. “A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder,” based on the first book in the bestselling novel series by Holly Jackson, is the latest mystery thriller to examine rage, obsession and sexual assault from a young person’s perspective.
The series, which was adapted by Poppy Cogan and directed by Dolly Wells, opens in 2019 on a dark road in the tiny English town of Little Kilton. Andie Bell (India Lillie Davies), 17, stumbles down the street. In close-up, a gushing wound on the back of her head is visible, and this will be the last time she’s seen alive. Five years later, the audience meets Pippa “Pip” Fitz-Amobi (a delightful Emma Myers). As her final year of high school approaches, Pip decides to focus her senior project on solving Andie’s disappearance and presumed murder. Though Andie’s then-boyfriend, Sal Singh (Rahul Pattni), confessed to the crime before dying by suicide, Andie’s body was never found. Little Kilton’s residents are determined to move past the horrific crime (while slinging racist insults at the Singh family), but the case has always nagged at Pip, who doggedly digs up the past. Across six episodes, she discovers secrets and revelations that she — and the town — won’t be able to bury again.
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Pip begins her investigation by interviewing the dead teens’ respective friend groups, including her best friend’s troubled older sister Naomi (Yasmin Al-Khudhairi), to uncover where it all went so wrong. Befriending Sal’s reluctant younger brother Ravi (Zain Iqbal), who becomes the Watson to her Sherlock, Pip creates a thorough timeline that leads them down a shocking path.
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Much of “A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder” works well as a mystery thriller. However, with only six episodes, Cogen and her writing team rely on more than a few coincidences. Clues to the crime fall into Pip’s lap. Moreover, though on some levels realistic, Pip’s sleuthing skills leave much to be desired. She puts herself in harm’s way and makes bizarre decisions, including confronting dangerous characters and parking her family’s bright red station wagon in plain view during stakeouts. Pip’s questionable actions could be chalked up to not having a fully formed frontal lobe. But that doesn’t make them any less frustrating.
Still, for the first five episodes, particularly the penultimate one, which reveals a stunning twist, “A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder” engagingly unpacks the anguish of being a teenage girl, the complexities of friendship and the deceptiveness of appearances. But as Pip ties up loose ends in the finale, plotlines become jumbled and farfetched, as if the writers were racing to put a neat bow around the story. Yet, for all of Pip’s poor decisions, her tenacity and willingness to follow her gut make her a compelling character.
The circumstances surrounding Andie’s disappearance are one thing, but “A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder” is mainly focused on the truths Pip learns about herself. In the course of her sleuthing, she uncovers the strengths and fractures in her own relationships and the real reason she was compelled to dive headfirst into the case.
“A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder” premieres Aug. 1 on Netflix.
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