I totally agree, this show was so vapid. It had a great premise but didn’t do anything with it.. it also had a lot of strange dialogue with Merritt. They also made it so obvious it was Abby from the beginning… it was just a hot mess
I see your point, though, in the tonal dissonance. I guess I loved it because it was so campy and jarring. I also didn't read it as something that actually "happened", if that makes sense. Idk..... always gave me a chuckle 😂
@@catd9988It would have worked much better, if the show itself was much darker, dealt with real moral decay and the falsity of the perfect image of the family in a deeper way. Then the intro would have been a good, jarring contrast underlying how much of a mask all the characters put on to be viewed as a wholesome, normal, loving family.
I'm so glad you're talking about this show lol, I just binged it. I loved it, but also I'm with you on rush of the ending, it feels like this show would've benifited from like 8 or 10 episodes to help flesh a few more of the plotlines out. I wish we saw more of Amelia/Shooter, Amelia/Merritt, and more of the Amelia/Benji relationship dynamic. I loved the drama, the camp and acting though.
It's too undecided! It seems they didn't know if they wanted to go satire/black comedy or serious drama or crime thriller. If you throw everything atbthe wall you get soap. I think the people arguing in the comments that you dissected this too much and took it too seriously think that it's supposed to be soapy shlosh. It wasn't supposed to be from the marketing! So everything you're saying is very valid criticism. BTW I also realized too late how spoilery this ix, stopped the video, watched the series and came back to comment 😅
This has to be the worst show I've recently watched. Pathetic writing and the actors couldn't do justice to their part, no real chemistry, needless extras only to play blame game until they find the murderer. The exclusive detective and the police work barely did their job. All of the family members have affairs just to keep up with the plot. Had high hopes with Nicole Kidman in it and I loved Eve in Behind her Eyes but the show disappointed me a lot ☹️☹️
I was told to watch by a friend. Right off the cuff, I felt it was cringe but didn't want to dimiss it. I had no idea it was a book but everything is nowadays. I really thought the bride was gonna be much more...productive. She tries to help solve the case for maybe an episode and a half, but then it comes to a screeching halt because of her crush on another guy. Maybe the book explains it, but I was utterly confused. She becomes completely sidetracked by a boy that remembered seeing her once instead of focusing on...I don't know...who murdered her best friend?!
I started this show while smashed. I thought while watching, "I'm drunk, but I'm not laughing at these jokes, I'm not vibin' with this mystery, and I dislike pretty much all of these characters. Something is seriously wrong." This review hits the nail on the head as far as I'm concerned!
I did not get the connection with how Shooter knew Nicole, yet he met Amelia on a train and then he’s the best man for Benji🤔🤔🤔🤔 How did Tag meet Merrit? How did Thomas know the French lady, what exactly did he owe her money for What was the story between will and the black girl…. The maids crush on tag was so odd
I’m confused if the youngest son was turning 18 in August which was very soon because it was July why did Abby have to kill Merrit? Merrit wasn’t even showing there’s no way Merritt would’ve had the baby in a month
I liked the show but I wasnt expecting anything good, only something fun. It should have been condensed in 4 episodes imo bec. the middle episodes lagged.
DUDE!! You're so right about the openinf scene! I'm nodding and saying "You're right!" like you're in the room with me. I felt something was missing, and every idea you listed was 100% better.
I watched up to 4 and haven’t bothered to finish it which usually after investing hours of my life into something, I do. This was actually irritatingly bad, maybe bc it had Nicole Kidman acting like a C lister? It’s supposedly meant to be a ‘romp’ and laughing at itself with the dancing opener, but it was so utterly pointless that there’s nothing even to be self aware of, gawd.
I watched it because of the location and it was a mystery. I've never been a fan of Nicole frozen nor of Liev's rubber faces. I loved the house - that's the best thing about the show. There were a lot of irritating people in the cast. There were twists, not all of which were good especially Kidman's ridiculous one at the end. Showed rich people are slimy. Isabelle was a curious pick. All in all, it was a summer flick, but my husband fell asleep every night.
Yes you’re right concerning Rosalind Pike she would’ve been great or Robin Wright. Love Nicole but she needs to take a break, only a few weeks back you were analyzing the movie with Zack Efron (A family affair) and you’re right again from the start we could see that the family, all of it members were fucked up. Can you analyze behind her eyes. Thank you and keep up the good work 🎉 😂😊
@@marshallstannus I think you would enjoy it. Cuz it seems to have multiple levels. But it's very subtle much like Japanese culture. There's a yin-yang / good v. evil angle to it. And we get to explore how they see it thru the eyes of a Westerner lead and Sunny, of course.
I watched a video comparing the book and the show adaptation and it's wild what was changed. Apparently, the real perfect couple in the book was Amelia's parents? There was no inheritance issue. NK's character was not a prostitute. MM wasn't deliberately murdered but more accidentally. The death pills are never used for anything except the mom deciding to keep living. Amelia stops situationship before actual cheating occurs. Etc. I find it so fascinating how much and what was changed honestly.
I watched this over the weekend. I dunno it was very meh. I was mostly on Reddit during it because I just couldn’t get fully committed. It was a nice purely as a background watch because pretty nice colours. Dance sequence was weird. It wouldn’t watch it again like I would White Lotus or Big Little Lies
Nicole is awesome, but she was miscast. Rosmond Pike suits it like you said,but is too young. No way she's old enough to be the mum of Jack's character, they're like 10 years apart. I think Naomi Watts would have been a better casting choice.
The show failed on multiple levels. It didn’t work as an intriguing whodunnit, it didn’t work as a gripping family drama, it didn’t work as an exploration of the mask people wear to appear perfect. The ending was incredibly rushed, the subplot of the romance between Emily and Shooter was dropped, the mystery of the tutor, who disappeared fizzled out in awkward, boring way, none of the characters ended up being fully fleshed out, even though most of them had a great potential. A disappointment all around. I don’t think the scriptwriters knew what tone they wanted to go for, so the show felt confused throughout. Not quite a satire, not quite a drama, not a black comedy, just a mess of clashing tones. However the actor, who played the eldest, douchebag son (Will?) was fantastic and held my attention throughout. Somehow he felt like the only real person in the entire show.
The show was nothing like the book; the book was complicated and the ending unsatisfying. They wrote this series with the mindset that they needed to make it more generic, which was totally wrong.
Nicole Kidman is NOT a good actress. I really tried to watch this in spite of finding her presence in movies and shows incredibly distracting due to her wooden performances. Actresses should be banned from having filler and tweakments due some of the immobilising effects they can have on faces. I know that’s their purpose, however, an actors purpose is to emote. The two don’t go together.
Oh for heaven's sake. Do we have to analyse everything down to the last fart. Just enjoy the show for what it is. It's fiction. Not to be taken seriously. Just sit back, relax and enjoy. If you don't like it, change channels.
I really enjoy your video analyses but you should throw a spoiler warning in your title. I was considering watching it but you told me who committed the murder so now I don't even care to watch for myself
I feel exactly the same way you do. I’ve never seen the white lotus but it’s hard for me to get a few hours to sit there and watch a show and I chose this one and it was OK just OK.
I enjoyed it but the ending scene felt super unearned indeed!
I liked the opening dance sequence 🙈
I totally agree, this show was so vapid. It had a great premise but didn’t do anything with it.. it also had a lot of strange dialogue with Merritt. They also made it so obvious it was Abby from the beginning… it was just a hot mess
The Perfect Couple = White Lotus Wannabe
They even cast a white lotus actress as the victim
The reveal of the killer was weak
NOOOOO I thought the intro was so fucking funny.......
I see your point, though, in the tonal dissonance. I guess I loved it because it was so campy and jarring. I also didn't read it as something that actually "happened", if that makes sense. Idk..... always gave me a chuckle 😂
The intro song dance was so goofy I crackled how lame certain elements were green lite😂
@@catd9988It would have worked much better, if the show itself was much darker, dealt with real moral decay and the falsity of the perfect image of the family in a deeper way. Then the intro would have been a good, jarring contrast underlying how much of a mask all the characters put on to be viewed as a wholesome, normal, loving family.
The opening credits felt so awkward, cringe and just out of place it didn’t fit with the story 💀
I'm so glad you're talking about this show lol, I just binged it. I loved it, but also I'm with you on rush of the ending, it feels like this show would've benifited from like 8 or 10 episodes to help flesh a few more of the plotlines out. I wish we saw more of Amelia/Shooter, Amelia/Merritt, and more of the Amelia/Benji relationship dynamic. I loved the drama, the camp and acting though.
OR like you mentioned I wonder how this could work as a movie
It's too undecided! It seems they didn't know if they wanted to go satire/black comedy or serious drama or crime thriller. If you throw everything atbthe wall you get soap. I think the people arguing in the comments that you dissected this too much and took it too seriously think that it's supposed to be soapy shlosh. It wasn't supposed to be from the marketing! So everything you're saying is very valid criticism. BTW I also realized too late how spoilery this ix, stopped the video, watched the series and came back to comment 😅
This has to be the worst show I've recently watched.
Pathetic writing and the actors couldn't do justice to their part, no real chemistry, needless extras only to play blame game until they find the murderer.
The exclusive detective and the police work barely did their job. All of the family members have affairs just to keep up with the plot.
Had high hopes with Nicole Kidman in it and I loved Eve in Behind her Eyes but the show disappointed me a lot ☹️☹️
I was told to watch by a friend. Right off the cuff, I felt it was cringe but didn't want to dimiss it. I had no idea it was a book but everything is nowadays. I really thought the bride was gonna be much more...productive. She tries to help solve the case for maybe an episode and a half, but then it comes to a screeching halt because of her crush on another guy. Maybe the book explains it, but I was utterly confused. She becomes completely sidetracked by a boy that remembered seeing her once instead of focusing on...I don't know...who murdered her best friend?!
I started this show while smashed. I thought while watching, "I'm drunk, but I'm not laughing at these jokes, I'm not vibin' with this mystery, and I dislike pretty much all of these characters. Something is seriously wrong."
This review hits the nail on the head as far as I'm concerned!
Anyone found the pacing slow?
Probably cause the book investigation happened in a day & they had to flesh it out.
Yeah, it would have worked much better as a movie.
I have watched slow crime dramas that still gripped me. This I watched at 1.5x and I still had to fast forward. Nobody needed so many sexy scenes too
@@flipina Thank God netflix has the option of increasing the speed.
I did not get the connection with how Shooter knew Nicole, yet he met Amelia on a train and then he’s the best man for Benji🤔🤔🤔🤔
How did Tag meet Merrit?
How did Thomas know the French lady, what exactly did he owe her money for
What was the story between will and the black girl….
The maids crush on tag was so odd
All of these questions are answered in episodes 2-6
Don't over think it, Great mini series,
It’s ok. Not everything needs to be Citizen Cain
Fell flat on his A-list face real quick.
I’m confused if the youngest son was turning 18 in August which was very soon because it was July why did Abby have to kill Merrit? Merrit wasn’t even showing there’s no way Merritt would’ve had the baby in a month
This show felt like that other Nicole Kidman show 9 perfect strangers but sm worse. Great cast but def an excruciating watch.
I liked the show but I wasnt expecting anything good, only something fun. It should have been condensed in 4 episodes imo bec. the middle episodes lagged.
DUDE!! You're so right about the openinf scene! I'm nodding and saying "You're right!" like you're in the room with me. I felt something was missing, and every idea you listed was 100% better.
I watched up to 4 and haven’t bothered to finish it which usually after investing hours of my life into something, I do. This was actually irritatingly bad, maybe bc it had Nicole Kidman acting like a C lister?
It’s supposedly meant to be a ‘romp’ and laughing at itself with the dancing opener, but it was so utterly pointless that there’s nothing even to be self aware of, gawd.
That opening song was so dumb 😂
But what about Nicole's hair? Did it really need to be so blown out with heavy curls and uninteresting?
I watched it because of the location and it was a mystery. I've never been a fan of Nicole frozen nor of Liev's rubber faces. I loved the house - that's the best thing about the show. There were a lot of irritating people in the cast. There were twists, not all of which were good especially Kidman's ridiculous one at the end. Showed rich people are slimy. Isabelle was a curious pick. All in all, it was a summer flick, but my husband fell asleep every night.
Yes you’re right concerning Rosalind Pike she would’ve been great or Robin Wright. Love Nicole but she needs to take a break, only a few weeks back you were analyzing the movie with Zack Efron (A family affair) and you’re right again from the start we could see that the family, all of it members were fucked up. Can you analyze behind her eyes. Thank you and keep up the good work 🎉 😂😊
What do you think of Nicole's hair? Does it work?
I’d love to cover sunny just have so much on my list, is it worth a watch?
@@marshallstannus I think you would enjoy it. Cuz it seems to have multiple levels. But it's very subtle much like Japanese culture. There's a yin-yang / good v. evil angle to it. And we get to explore how they see it thru the eyes of a Westerner lead and Sunny, of course.
This was great! What's your take on Sunny?
I watched a video comparing the book and the show adaptation and it's wild what was changed. Apparently, the real perfect couple in the book was Amelia's parents? There was no inheritance issue. NK's character was not a prostitute. MM wasn't deliberately murdered but more accidentally. The death pills are never used for anything except the mom deciding to keep living. Amelia stops situationship before actual cheating occurs. Etc. I find it so fascinating how much and what was changed honestly.
Wow these are major plot points that they changed too now im wodering why not just create a new series instead of riding the coat tail of the book?
In the book Amelia was on her way to run away with Shooter when she saw Merritts body in the water.
@beewest5704 that’s so much more interesting
@@beewest5704 whoops I got a bit mixed up lol. 😝
In german the title of the series made the whole thing even more… strange. It‘s called „a new summer“. Like, whyyy?!🤦♀️
I watched this over the weekend. I dunno it was very meh. I was mostly on Reddit during it because I just couldn’t get fully committed. It was a nice purely as a background watch because pretty nice colours. Dance sequence was weird. It wouldn’t watch it again like I would White Lotus or Big Little Lies
Nicole is awesome, but she was miscast. Rosmond Pike suits it like you said,but is too young. No way she's old enough to be the mum of Jack's character, they're like 10 years apart. I think Naomi Watts would have been a better casting choice.
Nicole is 57. Jack is 32. She is old enough to be his mother
I loved this show so much that I watched the entire show twice, and I loved the dance sequence!!! Don't agree with you at all!!
You nailed it!
The book was sm better!!!
The show failed on multiple levels. It didn’t work as an intriguing whodunnit, it didn’t work as a gripping family drama, it didn’t work as an exploration of the mask people wear to appear perfect. The ending was incredibly rushed, the subplot of the romance between Emily and Shooter was dropped, the mystery of the tutor, who disappeared fizzled out in awkward, boring way, none of the characters ended up being fully fleshed out, even though most of them had a great potential. A disappointment all around. I don’t think the scriptwriters knew what tone they wanted to go for, so the show felt confused throughout. Not quite a satire, not quite a drama, not a black comedy, just a mess of clashing tones.
However the actor, who played the eldest, douchebag son (Will?) was fantastic and held my attention throughout. Somehow he felt like the only real person in the entire show.
The show was nothing like the book; the book was complicated and the ending unsatisfying. They wrote this series with the mindset that they needed to make it more generic, which was totally wrong.
i agree with ecerything you say here i thought inwas be i being too critical because seems t i love the shiw but i didnt find it great.
Anyone else feeling triggered that people can read a whole book in 3 hours? 😂 Am i just the slowest reader alive?
The book was much better. I thought the series was bland, slow, and unpleasant.
I totally agree with your assessment. I do have a beef with “rich WHITE people” reference. It could be any ethnicity so why pick on them.
🤭🤭
Crabs in the barrel wanna pull whitey down to their level then cheer
It's bec. we live under w. supremacy love, that rich w. people are particularly annoying/worse.
Nicole Kidman is NOT a good actress. I really tried to watch this in spite of finding her presence in movies and shows incredibly distracting due to her wooden performances.
Actresses should be banned from having filler and tweakments due some of the immobilising effects they can have on faces. I know that’s their purpose, however, an actors purpose is to emote. The two don’t go together.
I’m sure creepy narcissist Kidman didn’t help
I felt so vindicated when you mentioned the intro, god it was awful :(
Oh for heaven's sake. Do we have to analyse everything down to the last fart. Just enjoy the show for what it is. It's fiction. Not to be taken seriously. Just sit back, relax and enjoy. If you don't like it, change channels.
They said in a UA-cam comment section about TV show reviews
Girl? This is a channel that reviews shows lol
you complain too much. I thoroughly enjoyed the show, go practice with something else, leave this one alone
I really enjoy your video analyses but you should throw a spoiler warning in your title. I was considering watching it but you told me who committed the murder so now I don't even care to watch for myself
Sorry!
@@marshallstannus it's OK still love ya. Sounds like I saved myself several hours of my life between what you and many others said
He did - it's in the title of this video.
I feel exactly the same way you do. I’ve never seen the white lotus but it’s hard for me to get a few hours to sit there and watch a show and I chose this one and it was OK just OK.
I knew who did it from the beginning. 🫠