In praise of sorority, the series by Irish actress Sharon Horgan flirts with thriller in a very dark second season.
Five sisters talk to each other, yell at each other, support each other, laugh, cry together and even much more… If we had to summarize Bad Sistersthe second season of which is arriving on Apple TV+, in a striking image, it would firstly be through a group visual effect, these few women from their thirties to their fifties, filmed in wide shots all together, sharing jokes and confessions, pains and little glories. This happens several times per episode. A way of putting the question of the gaze at the center of the game, even though this almost 100% Irish black comedy is not a chic series that seeks cinema effects. But when women’s fiction goes beyond the classic framework, the camera adapts. You have to capture Eva, Grace, Ursula, Bibi and Becka in all their messy splendor, their way of spreading themselves out a little too much. They are the subject here, never the object.
Of course, Bad Sisters tells a concrete story, of which sorority is the background and violence circulating from men to women – and sometimes in return – the central node. In the first season, built in flashbacks, it was about Grace’s abusive husband, a bad guy who no one was happy to get rid of. Everything was structured around the mystery of his death and a possible insurance scam. In the new episodes (spoiler alert), what happened has profound consequences, especially for Grace, still lost, tense and panicked. An ideal culprit.
A darker second season
Darker than the first, even if it remains very funny – no more repartee, you die -, this second season of Bad Sisters shows the trap into which sisters tend to fall, that of violence as the unformulated law of a patriarchal society, which floods almost every corner of our realities. The arrival of a rather troubled handsome boy throws a wrench into the mix and it seems that the prospect of happiness is forbidden, in this Ireland that is both bucolic and cold.
The disappointments and problems follow one another, sometimes with this tendency of the series to stretch its plot in a useless way, by multiplying the somewhat predictable, even contrived, twists and turns, which we understand do not necessarily interest the creator. -actress Sharon Horgan (already at the helm of the excellent Catastrophe), who on the other hand excels in developing another rhythm in parallel, specific to her heroines.
A moving sorority
This gives, for example, the fifth episode, where melancholy and mourning dominate, in a very profound moment of self-observation, a reflection on the diffuse wounds suffered by everyone. This is a very beautiful story of women who are looking for their found time. This allows us to show diverse but united characters, truly unique in their kind, seeking to understand through them the cycles of life – birth, death, menopause. There is a charm to Bad Sistersa form of moral elegance – including in excess – which makes it overwhelming at times. Imperfect, it certainly is, but without ever limping. Because she always remains standing.
Bad Sistersseason 2, with Sharon Horgan and Sarah Greene, on Apple TV+ (available).
