HIS & HERS Season 1 Review: A Thriller Miniseries with All the Clues in the Right Place
HIS & HERS Season 1 Review: HIS & HERS part with a strong premise: a murder, two ex-spouses, and a web of secrets that makes them both potentially guilty. The series seems to want to play on multiple registers at once – psychological thriller, grief drama, tale of media power and intimate lies – but struggles to make these elements coexist coherently. The result is a story that often changes tone without preparing the viewer, moving from deliberately over-the-top moments to dark and painful turns that would require a different kind of attention. It is not so much ambition that is lacking, but a clear emotional direction. The January television landscape is often populated by products designed to be consumed quickly, stories that promise to fill post-holiday evenings with a controlled dose of adrenaline. However, “HIS & HERS”, the new six-part Netflix miniseries based on the 2020 bestseller by Alice Feeney, goes beyond simple seasonal entertainment. Produced by Jessica Chastain and directed by William Oldroyd, the series is a narrative device built on a single assumption: “There are two sides to every story. Which means someone is always lying.”
Netflix is literally invading the catalogue with thriller miniseries. Following the success of series such as All Her Fault and The Beast in Me, all streaming platforms are desperately seeking the next story to become the phenomenon of the moment. HIS & HERS, based on Alice Feeney’s 2020 novel, had the right ingredients: two excellent actors, a mystery to solve, and secrets buried in the past. Too bad about the bad choice. And I say sin in earnest, because here we are talking about Tessa Thompson and Jon Bernthal. Two actors I adore (even though Jon has yet to realize that the bidet is not optional but a necessity… Jon, the bidet is sacred, you have to change your mind!). They really try, they work hard to bring their characters to life, but when you find yourself making crazy jokes and doing things that make no logical sense, even talent has limits. Anna works as a journalist in Atlanta and decides to return to the small Georgia village where she grew up after an old schoolmate of hers is killed. Here he meets Jack Harper, a detective who leads the investigation. And here comes the beauty: Jack had a relationship with the victim, and it is also the husband with whom Anna separated. In short, the situation is already quite intricate.
HIS & HERS Season 1 Review: The Story Plot
The story unfolds between Atlanta and the town of Dahlonega, following Anna Andrews, a television journalist seeking professional redemption, and Jack Harper, a detective assigned to investigate a murder that ends up touching both of them very closely. The series accumulates revelations, past connections, and twists, but he often does so by relying on narrative coincidences that are all too functional. The characters always seem to be in the right place at the right time, and some choices appear more helpful in pushing the plot than consistent with the protagonists’ psychology. The tension thus proceeds more by inertia than by real construction of the mystery. The narrative opens with a brutal visual contrast. In a Georgia forest, young Rachel Hopkins lies on the hood of a sports car, her white dress soaked in blood in the pouring rain. At the same time, in Atlanta, we meet Anna Andrews (Tessa Thompson). Anna is not your typical thriller heroine: we find her in her apartment, reduced to a pile of emotional rubble, busy draining wine and frantically clearing traces of blood from her hands.
A successful former anchorwoman, Anna was sidelined in favor of a younger and “blonder” rival, Lexy Jones. News of the murder in Dahlonega, his hometown, becomes the pretext for a predatory return to the field. Determined to snatch the scoop from the competition, Anna drags cameraman Richard (Pablo Schreiber), husband of his rival, starting a game of seduction and power that serves to fill the void left by a personal tragedy: the loss of a child. On the other side of the barricade, we find the detective Jack Harper (Jon Bernthal). Bernthal brings his trademark crumpled intensity to the screen, playing a man who always seems on the verge of exploding or collapsing. Jack is investigating Rachel’s murder, but his professional ethics are compromised from the first minute. Not only do we discover that Jack and Anna are ex-spouses still deeply connected by unprocessed grief, but it turns out that Jack knew the victim much better than he wants to admit.
HIS & HERS Season 1 Review and Analysis
Anna is undoubtedly the most interesting figure in the series. It is ambitious, contradictory, and often unpleasant, but precisely for this reason, credible. When the script allows her to truly take center stage, Her Truth gains energy. The problem is that the story doesn’t follow it all the way through: its most extreme actions are often treated as simple narrative tools, without exploring their emotional consequences. Anna remains magnetic, but not always understandable, because the series prefers to use it as a turning point engine rather than a lens through which to observe trauma and ambition. Jack should represent Anna’s emotional counterweight: a marked man, full of repressed anger and shadowy areas. In practice, the character often gets stuck in a constant pose of tension. The series insists that he is hiding something important, but rarely allows him moments of true introspection. His reactions are repetitive, his choices lack impact, and his role in the story ends up being more functional than emotionally engaging. It’s not so much a question of interpretation, but of writing: Jack is never really tested.
Anna and Jack’s shared past should be the beating heart of the series. We speak of a bond broken by enormous pain, of a sudden separation, of wounds that have never healed. Yet, when the two characters are together, the promised tension often remains on paper. The dialogue hints at a devastating past, but the staging fails to make it tangible. Even moments of intimacy or confrontation seem more like obligatory stops than inevitable emotional outbursts. The series tells the story of a great trauma, but struggles to make it really feel. When HIS & HERS chooses a more unscrupulous tone, made up of professional rivalries, power games, and provocations, it manages to be flowing and even entertaining. Some TV newsroom dynamics and certain socially vicious interactions work because they don’t demand depth. The problem arises when this register coexists with much heavier themes: the transition is never gradual, and the viewer is pushed to change their emotional attitude without being accompanied. The series seems to want to flirt with excess, but always stops one step before making it a conscious stylistic choice.
In its development, the series introduces extremely delicate elements related to trauma, loss, and violence. These are choices that would require attention, time, and consistency. Here, however, they often arrive as plot accelerators, used to make a twist more dramatic or justify a decision. The problem is not the presence of these themes, but the way they are integrated: without real work on the internal consequences, they end up appearing cold and instrumental, creating a strong imbalance between what the series shows and what it asks the viewer to experience. The series uses catchphrases and general reflections on truth and lies to give a more “deep” aura to the story. But these statements, instead of adding to the mystery, often flatten it. They say a lot, explain too much, and leave little room for ambiguity. In a thriller based on perceptions and points of view, this approach reduces engagement because it anticipates sensations that should emerge naturally from the characters’ actions.
HIS & HERS is easily watched: the episodes are short, the turns frequent, and curiosity is constantly stimulated. But once we get to the end, there remains a sense of an experience built more to be consumed than to be remembered. The ending aims to surprise, but fails to make sense of the characters’ emotional journey. The truth promised by the title comes as a narrative mechanism, not as human revelation. The series thrives on a constant tension between its desire to be a deep psychological investigation and its nature as a shameless thriller. While the series is capable of gluing the viewer to the screen thanks to a very fast pace and masterful cliffhangers, on the other hand, a sort of “tonal instability” is evident.
At times, HIS & HERS moves with “bad wit”, especially in the power dynamics within the television newsroom. In others, it sinks into a dark post-MeToo realism, using themes such as sexual assault and child grief as narrative engines. This choice is an honest exploration of female anger but also a cynical use of trauma to raise the stakes. What is certain is that Tessa Thompson’s performance —capable of moving from heartbreaking vulnerability to icy determination — serves as a glue for these different souls. The real strength of the series, however, lies in its final act. While most thrillers are content with a logical resolution, HIS & HERS chooses the path of “delicious madness”. The ending isn’t just a twist; it’s a complete reversal that forces the viewer to reexamine every clue scattered throughout the six episodes. The epilogue draws directly on society’s prejudices: we tend to overlook those we consider weak, broken, or “worthless”. The series punishes this shortsightedness of ours with a breathtaking conclusion, transforming a small-town murder into a manifesto about the persistence of resentment and the devastating force of a fury patiently cultivated for years.
A traumatic event had removed Anna from everything and everyone for a year, starting with her policeman husband Jack (Bernthal), who, after the tragedy, had chosen instead to return home to his sister Zoe (an always extraordinary Marin Ireland). Now the two are forced to reconnect with their past and their marriage, along with a case that seems to involve them firsthand. As the mystery deepens, the investigation seems to close on the two protagonists themselves, as they are the prime suspects, even if they do everything they can not to show it and to hide the evidence. Anna would even like to use it to return to the spotlight after her “sabbatical” year, now that her place as presenter of the evening news has moved to the beautiful and blonde on duty, Lexi Jones (Rebecca Rittenhouse), married to Richard (Pablo Schreiber). After all, Anna has reached the top, starting as the daughter of Alice, a former cleaning lady who is beginning to show the first signs of dementia. Anna and Jack are determined to uncover the truth about the terrible murder to exonerate themselves… or perhaps hide it forever. But that’s the point, as the title suggests: what is the truth?
Between past and present, on multiple time planes set like a perfect yellow puzzle, HIS & HERS shows the point of view of the various characters, starting from that of husband and wife and unfolding on various paths to follow the audience. As well as the police chief, the broadcaster’s director is determined to find the next scoop, and Jack’s partner, who is starting to have some suspicions. Also, because all the time – thanks to the compelling writing and dry direction – as viewers, we wonder whether the couple is telling the truth or covering it up, how involved they really are, and what happened in the past between the two of them and the victim. Everything is constructed to perfection, embracing several themes: from that of the social privilege to the mourning process, of the couple’s crisis with senile dementia. The small number of episodes (six), their development without division into two as in The Affair, their maintenance of a good narrative pace, and the epilogue are artfully constructed.
HIS & HERS reminds us how much each memory is actually the fruit of our version of that memory, and how much trauma is processed and metabolized in very different ways by each of us. Tessa Thompson and Jon Bernthal work great both in their respective roles and as a couple, and manage to keep all six episodes going, supported by a good supporting cast. The only times when HIS & HERS really hits you are the ones where Anna and Jack talk about the loss of the child. There, Bernthal and Thompson bring out all their prowess, and you understand that HIS & HERS could have been a series much more intense and deep. But these moments are being pushed aside to make room for increasingly incredible twists and turns. And that’s exactly the problem with all these thrillers that come out in continuous streams on platforms: they only think about amaze the viewer, to place the shocking revelation, to keep the tension high. But they forget to build characters that seem real, situations that make sense, and a plot that holds up. Series as Big Little Lies, Sharp Objects, or Mare of Easttown. They work because first they tell people, and only then do they think about the mystery.
When you get to the last episodes, HIS & HERS becomes a mad race of twists and turns, one after the other, so exaggerated that it makes you laugh. If you try to think back to everything you saw, you realize that there is no logic. Things happen because they have to happen, not because they make sense. And then there’s another quite disturbing aspect: the series uses themes very serious, like sexual violence, bullying, and dementia, just to create drama, without treating them with the respect they deserve. This really leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. Anna keeps repeating through a voiceover: “Every story has at least two versions. Yours and mine. Ours and theirs. His and mine. Which means someone is always lying”. Nice sentence, too bad the series can’t build anything sensible on it. HIS & HERS. It’s one of those series that you let yourself watch, especially at the beginning. The ending, unfortunately, is illogical. Tessa Thompson and Jon Bernthal deserved so much more. If you like thrillers even when they’re a little over the top and don’t care that everything makes perfect sense, maybe this series can be good for a light evening. But if you’re looking for a well-crafted story, let it be.
HIS & HERS Season 1 Review: The Last Words
HIS & HERS is a thriller that is easy to watch but struggles to find a true identity. It entertains, but does not deepen; it surprises, but does not leave its mark. Despite some naivety in the dialogues — which sometimes give in to genre clichés — HIS & HERS is a successful experiment. It’s a series that isn’t afraid to be unpleasant or absurd to keep the tension high. It’s the kind of television that pushes you to finish watching at dawn. 2026 begins with a thriller on Netflix, and after Run Away, HIS & HERS also turns out to be an excellent miniseries with two excellent leads and a good supporting cast, a gripping plot, an interesting, unbroken double point of view, and a satisfying, centered ending that will have you jumping out of your seat.
Cast: Tessa Thompson, Jon Bernthal, Pablo Schreiber, Crystal Fox, Rebecca Rittenhouse, Marin Ireland, Sunita Mani
Direction: William Oldroyd, Anja Marquist
Streaming Platform: Netflix
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 3.5/5 (three and a half stars)
