Watching: A Good Girl's Guide to Murder

2024, Netflix

Generic British investigatorial shows are sort of our bag, albeit with a desire for something different, something more creative. Subbing the whole sub-genre into a highschool environment was supposed to do that. Not sure it succeeded but we persevered with middling satisfaction.

What 100.  Based on YA mystery novels, Pip Fitz-Amobi (quite the name) focuses her EPQ (some project thingy UK high-schoolers do) on the unsatisfactorily solved murder of a classmate five years prior. Unsatisfactory because Pip liked the guy accused of the murder, who then confessed and committed suicide. Nobody wants her dredging up the painful past, as in her small village almost everyone had personal ties to the murder. But against common sense, considering she is receiving threats almost immediately, she runs down every rabbit hole investigating the crime, and eventually uncovers some rather unsavoury aspects to her pastoral village life.

1 Great. Pip Fitz-Amobi (Emma Myers, Wednesday) herself. As a high-school kid, Pip floats somewhere on the spectrum of known, popular kid to quirky introvert, but is definitely seen as the titular "good girl". She's likeable, smart, but not Sherlockian, as she gets lots wrong, and more so solves the crime through tenacity even when dealing with heartbreak and tragedy. Myers does an impressive job as a young Brit despite being from Florida.

1 Good. Its a serviceable example of the genre, one I more enjoyed in retrospect than in actual viewing. We in fact, almost gave up on it, as we were a bit bored. While being British, I think they structured it more for the Netflix generation, as the usual 3 or 4 long episodes were formatted to six "one hour" episodes. I think it could have been tightened up.

1 Bad. The dark turn the series takes in the last few episodes turns out to have less of an impact than it should have. Maybe I am more used to these series have dark sides, but one dark thing leads to another and its just not as shocking as I felt it should be? The show, probably from its YA source, was walking a fine line between light high-school drama to the Evils That Men Do, and I am not sure if it balanced it well.

Man, this format really lends itself to "meh, it was alright."