Comedy stars of yesteryear take on new roles in Netflix whodunnit, although there is some dark comedy, No Good Deed.
Lisa Kudrow of Friends fame plays home owner and former piano maestro Lydia now married to a hardly recognisable Ray Romano (Paul) of Everyone Loves Raymond (do they?). They reluctantly put their family home, with a weird little side room accessed via a bookcase, on the market.
Of course, their memories of family life are locked in the house and form a major story arc of the show. After the mysterious death of their son, the couple seem locked in the same argument about moving on, and leaving the home and its memories behind.
Lydia repeatedly calls her son on his mobile and it is not initially clear he is dead. When she starts speaking to a flashing lightbulb it becomes apparent.
As three rival couples plan to buy the house, plot twists build on plot twists.
Is the fading TV star (Luke Wilson) over the street all he seems (that’s an obvious no)? Is his trophy wife? Their plan to down size to the house for sale slowly uncovers a web of secrets as the series progresses, as does the ridiculousness.
They are up against female married couple pregnant, hormonal obstetrician Sarah (Poppy Liu) who fact checks the home’s shady past on an app that shares gossip among local home owners. This encourages her lawyer wife Leslie (Abbi Jacobson) to push legality to the limits and uncover more its secrets.
Some of these Sarah lets slip while delivering the baby of the third interested party, Carla (Teyonah Parris) and her novelist husband Dennis, who not surprisingly have secrets of their own that they encourage each other to reveal.
It does not all end up happily ever after but Netflix does a good job of tying up loose ends and completing each main character’s story arc. Did I mention Paul’s criminal brother Mikey? Or the piano with the gun hidden inside? Or Lydia and Paul’s other child Emily? And her role in how her brother ended up dead on the kitchen floor?
This might be quite a light, I’m tempted to say mindless, show but you do have to concentrate through the eight half-hour episodes.
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