The ending of Bad Sisters’ first season was about as perfect as it gets. Equal parts brutal, revealing, and cathartic, the finale was so satisfying that when the news came that Apple ordered a second season, my first reaction was, “oh … oh no.” I’d been burned before by “limited” series that were great until they kept going (here’s looking at you, Big Little Lies) and couldn’t help but be afraid that Bad Sisters pushing past its gorgeous ending would prove a step too far. Plus, the first season hewed almost completely faithfully to the original Belgian series (Clan), meaning that any continuation would have to be something new. On the other hand, I’d probably trust Sharon Horgan with my life and/or a dead body, so what was I going to do? Not watch? Not bloody likely.
And so here we are at season two, which picks up two years after the Garvey sisters got away with murder. Eva’s sober and going for jogs with her “menopause coach” (chic); Ursula’s divorced (overdue); Bibi and her wife are trying for another kid (exciting?); Becka’s throwing up in the bushes at Grace’s wedding (bleak). That’s right, Grace is getting married! To a seemingly lovely bearded man (Owen McDonnell) who gives an entirely lovely toast about how unexpected their love story was, how much he credits Grace for it, and how he intends to care for her teen daughter like she’s his own. It’s a pleasure to see Grace get to be happy (not to mention Anne-Marie Duff get to smile onscreen), but as we know from the episode’s opening minutes, Eva was right to feel uneasy about how great things seem to be going.
So, okay, let’s rewind again to the beginning of “Good Sisters,” in which the Garveys (minus Grace) appear to be up to some of their old murder-adjacent tricks. Unlike last season, this one doesn’t kick off by weaving between two different timelines, but it does give us this dark glimpse into a future in which Eva drives them all out to the cliffs to dispose of … well, something. Or someone? Whatever it is, it shows more signs of life than any of them are clearly expecting when they open the car trunk; the last we see of this flash-forward is them all running away screaming. Bless our Garvey girls; they’ve never been the slickest of criminals.
All right, now let’s go back to the present. As Grace prepares to marry Seemingly Lovely Ian, some of her old ghosts come back to haunt her. First, there’s Roger, the introverted neighbor JP falsely labeled a pedophile when he dared offer Grace some companionship. After helping her stage JP’s body to throw off the cops (the one part of that night she didn’t share with her sisters, so far as we know), Roger’s spent the last couple years wallowing in guilt and one-sided yearning for Grace. Unfortunately for him, her preferred coping mechanism of denial has left him out in the cold ever since. Seeing her ostensibly move on at both her bachelorette and wedding is far too painful for Roger to take — a fact his odd, flinty sister Angelica picks up on immediately. Is she going to be a Bad Sister worth keeping an eye on? Since she’s played by none other than Dame Fiona Shaw, it’s safe to say she’s got some tricks up her sleeve yet.
The other Ghost of Pricks Past comes courtesy of JP’s father, whom we last saw when JP (also not the smoothest of criminals) shoved his frozen corpse into a suitcase and tossed it in his pond. As was inevitable, the suitcase gets dredged up and raises a million questions. Not even the detective who so quickly closed JP’s case can ignore the weird coincidence, nor the fact that this murder house definitely has more secrets to share. The discovery of this horrible, bloated corpse means that Detective Loftus has no choice but to re-engage when all he actually wants to do is play golf and down pints at the pub (called Gravedigger’s, in a perfectly morbid/Irish touch). He even sucks it up and answers his many, many unanswered texts from Thomas, the desperate insurance agent whose bumbling investigation drove so much of last season. But if anyone’s going to crack this case for real, the safe money’s on Houlihan, the eagle-eyed 25-year-old detective who seems to be the only one with a gut instinct worth following.
At first, I deflated at the thought that this season looks to be re-re-litigating the death of JP, one of the most purely disgusting characters to ever grace TV. Who CARES how he died?! Ding-dong, the prick is dead, etc., and so on! But taking a step back from that first reaction, I had to concede: This is probably how it would go. As aforementioned, neither the Garvey sisters nor the brothers Clafin were particularly savvy — as becomes clear in this premiere, the fact that any of them got away with it is thanks not just to the blood pacts amongst themselves, but other people’s incompetence and lack of follow-through.
Most of all, though, “getting away” with something as viscerally horrific as murder — and escaping the cruel clutches of abuse — leaves its marks, no matter how much they might pretend otherwise. The sisters are thrilled the JP era is over, but still flinch anytime the doorbell rings. Grace wants to be happy and whole again, but she still wakes up in a cold sweat, her hands around her new husband’s neck. The idea that she could lose the little peace she’s found is so awful that when Roger tells her he wants to go to the police, she immediately cracks wide open. Watching her plead with him is almost as wrenching as watching her try to keep Seemingly Lovely Ian calm once she finally tells him what happened to her last husband. SIL expresses sympathy when she shares the depths of JP’s abuse, but still can’t believe the sunny woman he met is the same one who would kill a man. When he tries to get some air and Grace panics, going so far as to beat his back with her tiny fists, which makes him look at her like she’s an absolute stranger. Though Blanaid tries not to hear their fight from upstairs, she knows something’s wrong. The next morning, she sprints to Eva’s house to tell them that “Ian’s gone and Mum can’t stop crying.”
