TV Pick of the Week: His & Hers - review by Yvette Huddleston
His & Hers Netflix, review by Yvette Huddleston
The plot twists come along thick and fast in this smart crime thriller that keeps you guessing right up to the last minute. Based on Alice Feeney’s 2020 bestselling novel, it opens with a shocking establishing shot – a woman lies dead on the bonnet of a car that is parked in woodland on a dark rainy night – and then cuts to another woman coming in from the rain, washing her hands and hurriedly packing her belongings.
We soon discover that the murder victim, who was killed in a vicious knife attack, stabbed multiple times, is local woman Rachel Hopkins (Jamie Tisdale) who is married to a wealthy businessman; both are well known in the area. It is a huge news story for the small town of Dahlonega in Georgia and broadcast news journalist Anna Andrews (Tessa Thompson), who grew up there but is now based in Atlanta, is keen to cover it. She has been away from work for a while – for reasons which are not revealed until later – but she is determined to get back on screen. In her absence, Anna’s place as news anchor has been taken by steely, ambitious Lexy (Rebecca Rittenhouse) who is not best pleased to see Anna return and will not be giving up the gig without a fight.
Anna makes a deal with her boss that she will work as a reporter in the field, specifically on the murder of Rachel Hopkins. He agrees and she heads over there, quickly getting into a spat with local police working on the case – detective Jack Harper (John Bernthal) and his partner Priya ‘Boston’ Patel (Sunita Mani) who has recently arrived from the big city to join the county sheriff’s office. It then transpires that Jack and Anna are in fact estranged husband and wife whose marriage appears to have broken down after the tragic death of their baby daughter.
Since their separation, Jack has been living with his alcoholic single mother sister Zoe (Marin Ireland) and taking care of Anna’s mother Alice (Crystal Fox) who is in the early stages of dementia. The revelations – such as the fact that Jack may have been having an affair with the murder victim – are carefully placed through the narrative as are the flashbacks to the teenage years of Anna, Zoe, Rachel (a mean girl of the worst kind) and others which provide clues as to the motives of a potential killer out for revenge.