Prestige television seemingly doesn’t get any better than pairing an acclaimed filmmaker like William Oldroyd—2016’s “Lady Macbeth,” the film that launched Florence Pugh’s career—with heavyweight actors like Tessa Thompson (“Hedda”) and Jon Bernthal (“The Punisher”). Yet, the mystery thriller limited series “His & Hers”—developed by Oldroyd himself, who directs three of the six episodes and writes three—an adaptation of the 2020 novel by Alice Feeney —is a severe misfire, and arguably a very misguided one.
Attempting to say something about the “Rashomon”-esque perspective—two sides to every story—in a complicated world where divided people see things radically differently, this trope is becoming tired when creatives fail to bring complexity to the schism, and here, they mostly don’t. The show is slightly more successful in its exploration of the lengths parents will go to protect the ones they love—and the deep grudges they’ll hold over who they have lost. It starts out promising, but as the narrative unfolds, the melodrama takes hold like a grip on a strangled victim’s neck, giving way to contrived twists and an ending so awful and risible it challenges the Colin Farrell-starring series “Sugar” for one of the worst wtf TV endings in recent memory.
READ MORE: The 75 Most Anticipated TV Shows & Mini-Series Of 2026
It doesn’t help that the very premise feels a little unbelievable and strained. Set in a small town outside Atlanta, Georgia, a shocking murder kicks off the narrative, and there’s an intriguing, if far-fetched, connection that draws in the two estranged spouses at its center. One is a local sheriff’s office detective, Jack (Jon Bernthal), who lives with his sharp-tongued, yet loyal sister, Zoe (Marin Ireland), and niece, and is still licking some old professional wounds from expulsion. The other is his estranged wife, a fallen-from-grace former Atlanta newscaster Anna (Tessa Thompson). We soon learn that, due to an immense personal tragedy, Anna essentially vanished, going off the grid and abandoning her husband and prestigious job as a TV news anchor for Atlanta’s WSK TV.
However ambitious and crafty, she sees the local murder as a chance to claw her way back into the business by covering the story as a field reporter, hoping to oust her news anchor replacement, the beautiful, blonde Lexy (Rebecca Rittenhouse). There’s one problem, obviously: it’s all too personal and close for comfort, which Anna wants to exploit. Jack is her husband, the lead detective on the case, and the victim, Rachel Hopkins (Jamie Tisdale), was having an affair with the cop leading the investigation. Oh, did we mention Rachel is one of Anna’s best friends from high school?
Conveniently, both are vying to solve the murder, each believing the other is a prime suspect. They’re a married couple, rivals, resent one another, blame one another, still share some connective embers of faded love, and are one-upping each other at the same time—especially Anna, who’s manipulative and duplicitous.
And if it sounds a little hokey, phony and even tawdry, that’s because, while compelling in spots, it never quite convinces beyond episode one or two. Pablo Schreiber co-stars as Anna’s cameraperson and Lexy’s husband, but the one true standout is Sunita Mani as Priya, the new detective and Jack’s new partner at the Sheriff’s Office. In the dark, she starts to discover how Jack’s trying to cover his own tracks to the victim—and how he messes that up in his panic.
It’s arguably lightly entertaining in the first half, but as the narrative unfolds and the thorny elements of the plot converge and merge with the past—Anna and her whole teen-girlfriend clique tied to the mystery of it all—the show becomes more dubious, improbable, and silly.
Oldroyd’s strengths often lie in enigmatic, simmering character pieces, but he started to lose the plot halfway through his last feature, “Eileen,” which was intriguing and well-acted, but didn’t stick the landing. Here, he veers further off his promising course. There are cinematic elements that, at the very least, make it attractive: the show looks seductive, with rain-soaked nights, bisexual themes, and moody thriller lighting. It’s captivating in a surface-level way, but given there’s no real substance underneath, it all starts to feel like a very shallow grave after a while.
By the time it reaches its preposterous conclusion, it veers toward the silly, more akin to disposable Netflix content than prestige TV. But that disappointment is nothing compared to the ending itself, which plays out in a long-winded denouement capped by an insanely ridiculous twist that will leave you incredulous and laughing—and not in a good way.
The show’s tagline, told in spoon-fed narration, is “There are two sides to every story: his and hers. Which means someone is always lying,” and honestly, the problem is the series never earns that idea beyond its utility as a plotting engine. It doesn’t so much interrogate perspective as weaponize it, treating subjectivity like a get-out-of-logic-free card—an excuse to withhold information, bend character motivation, and then spring “shocking” reveals that feel less like hard truths and more like writers’ room contortions. What starts as a moody, watchable mystery curdles into contrivance, with perspective turned into an excuse for logic gaps instead of insight.
By the end, what’s left isn’t tragedy or catharsis, but a hollow punchline—one last swerve so ridiculous it plays like a dare, asking you to swallow nonsense because the show says it’s “twisty.” It’s a shame, because the ingredients—Oldroyd’s craft, Thompson’s wounded steel, Bernthal’s bruised volatility—should have made this sing. Instead, it wastes them on a prestige-looking soap that mistakes escalation for depth and leaves you with the lingering sense you didn’t watch a mystery unravel so much as a premise collapse. [C, but with the ending, it flirts with a D-]
