Spoilers ahead, including the finale. If you have not binged it yet, bookmark this and come back.
Here is my full disclosure as a critic. I sat down at 8 p.m. on a Saturday, and except for two trips to the bathroom, I did not get off the couch until the credits rolled at 3 a.m. Eight episodes. One sitting. The kind of night I used to lose to a bottle of something, now lost to Apple TV and three women lying to each other with excellent lighting. Progress.
Three women. Twenty years of friendship. One of them dead, and the other two with very good reasons to have done it. Eleanor (Kerry Washington), Mary (Elisabeth Moss), and Nancy (Kate Mara) have been lying to each other for decades. Imperfect Women, eight episodes on Apple TV adapted from Araminta Hall’s 2020 novel, is the slow, gorgeous process of watching those lies come apart. Annie Weisman runs the show. Lesli Linka Glatter directs. Moss and Washington also produce, which tells you exactly how much these two wanted to spend a season doing terrible things in good coats.
I will not insult you. The critics are not wrong that the plot ties itself in knots. But here is why that does not matter: I am not here to hand out a Tomatometer score. I am here to tell you why a show about addiction, secrets, and people who are addicted to their own egos is worth a sober night on the couch.
Because everybody here is using something. Robert (Joel Kinnaman) has the bottle, and you watch his marriage come apart around it, the way drinking quietly dismantles everything you thought was stable. Howard (Corey Stoll) has a quieter, uglier addiction: validation. He is the underemployed academic who needs to be the only person who truly sees you, and when you stop letting him, he turns. Weisman built him on purpose as a guy hiding in plain sight as a performatively good guy who was in fact very broken and weak and violent when pushed. If you have ever sat across from someone whose niceness was a withdrawal symptom, you have met Howard.
And here is the line that made this whole thing click for me as a recovery-literate viewer. Weisman says the real thing that destroys these women is not the affair or even the murder. It is shame. “Once shame entered the chat, it got toxic and they broke,” she says, and: the downfall of the friendship, and really any relationship, is hiding what you are ashamed of. Anyone who has spent a few years in this life knows that sentence in their bones. Shame is the thing that kept a lot of us drinking. Shame is the thing that isolates. Watching a glossy Apple thriller accidentally make the exact argument you heard in a church basement is its own kind of entertainment.
Does it earn its ending? Sort of. Weisman changed the book’s whodunit, partly because other shows had used a similar culprit and she wanted more up her sleeve, and the finale trades the novel’s quiet for action and “release.” You can feel the swing. It is messier and louder than the book. It is also more fun on a Saturday at midnight, which is the only court that was in session at my house.
The verdict: this is prestige trash, and prestige trash is a completely respectable way to spend a night you will actually remember the next morning, because you were awake for all of it. You still have problems at year 20. They just get classier, like staying up until 3 a.m. for Elisabeth Moss instead of for a hangover. Watch it for the cast. Stay for the accidental sermon on shame.
The Mindful Binge Sobees Score: 4 out of 5
Imperfect Women — Official Trailer | Apple TV
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What is Imperfect Women about? Three best friends of more than twenty years, Eleanor, Mary, and Nancy. After a murder shatters their lives, their decades-long bond is tested when the investigation reveals shocking truths. It is an Apple TV limited series, eight episodes, built around the secret that got one of them killed. rottentomatoes
Is Imperfect Women based on a book? Yes. It is adapted from Araminta Hall’s 2020 novel of the same name, told from three alternating perspectives. The series changes both the killer and the ending from the book. Variety
Who killed Nancy in Imperfect Women? (spoiler) Howard (Corey Stoll), Mary’s husband, who had been having an affair with Nancy. In the novel the killer was different, Mary’s son Marcus, who kills her accidentally; the show deliberately changed the culprit. Variety
How does Imperfect Women end? (spoiler) Howard kidnaps Mary and forces her to the bridge where he killed Nancy. Eleanor figures out where they are and runs Howard over with her car, and when he attacks again, Mary stabs him to save them both. Variety
Who is in the Imperfect Women cast? Elisabeth Moss as Mary, Kerry Washington as Eleanor, Kate Mara as Nancy, Joel Kinnaman as Robert, and Corey Stoll as Howard. Annie Weisman created the series and Lesli Linka Glatter directs. rottentomatoes
Where can I watch Imperfect Women? Apple TV. All eight episodes of the limited series are streaming.
Is Imperfect Women worth watching? Critics were cool on it, landing it at 41% on the Tomatometer. As a binge, it earns its couch time, especially for the cast and its accidental thesis on shame. The Sober Curator verdict: prestige trash, and perfectly respectable company for a sober Saturday night.
