When Anna Wintour-style magazine editor Chloe (Jessica Biel) breezes home from a swanky Hamptons party, she immediately slips on a blood puddle. Not only does it ruin her white gown, it happens to be flowing from her prone husband, Adam (Corey Stoll). In “The Better Sister,” premiering Thursday on Prime Video, the incident is just the tip of the bloodbath in another bad girls have more fun, “Big Little Lies”-era psychological suspenser.
Did Chloe actually off Adam? Or was it her pothead teen Ethan (Maxwell Acee Donovan)? Or maybe Adam’s ex? Nobody’s perfect, but what makes this such a twisted sister mess is that Adam’s ex is also Chloe’s older sibling, Nicky (Pittsfield native Ellizabeth Banks).
What else clicks this week?
1. “Kevin Costner’s “The West” Monday at 9 p.m. on History: Costner’s obsession with the West, from “Dances with Wolves” to “Yellowstone” to his bumpy fictional trilogy “Horizon: An America Saga,” appears as relentless as Clint Eastwood’s character in “Pale Rider.” Now, the Oscar-winner hosts and, in tandem with historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, executive produces an epic docuseries that frames the West as the ultimate American dream, and promises a fresh take on the fight for the vast territory ultimately absorbed into the USA.
2. “Mike Birbiglia: The Good Life” Wednesday on Netflix: The Shrewsbury native presents a new stand-up comedy special. In this outing, following the Emmy-nominated “The Old Man and the Pool” in 2023, the multi-hyphenate muses on the joys and jeopardies of middle-aged family life. In the special, developed in the wake of Birbiglia’s father’s stroke, the comic jokes about growing up in the big man’s shadow (“He was a doctor, and in his free time, he got his law degree. That’s how much he didn’t want to be a dad.”). And, also, how that experience shaped his own uniquely messed-up fatherhood.
3. “Adults” Thursday at 9 p.m. on FX, then streaming on Hulu: Expect the unexpected when executive producer Nick Kroll assembles an ensemble cast in an updated take on the concept of “Friends”: A group of twentysomethings live together, and comedy ensues. This is a show for those who always wondered how the various “Friends,” those stalwarts of syndication, could afford those fabulous Manhattan apartments — or the dental work behind their bright, white smiles. This new cadre of twentysomething roommates in Bayside, Queens, make a pretense at adulting in a comedy of codependence and shared utilities from “Tonight Show” writers Rebecca Shaw and Ben Kronengold.
4. “Department Q” Thursday on Netflix: Lovers of Scandi-noir will know the best-selling Department Q novels penned by Denmark’s Jussi Adler-Olsen. For the English-language crowd, the many mysteries about a band of misfit cold case investigators working out of the police department basement has been transplanted from Copenhagen to Edinburgh, Scotland. Writer-director Scott Frank (“The Queen’s Gambit”) cast Matthew Goode (“The Crown”) as Detective Carl Morck, the unit’s brilliant but antisocial leader. The show’s a must for “Slow Horses” fans who prefer their heroes irascible, their bureaucracies impenetrable, and their murder investigations unconventional, twisted, and thorny.
5. “Mountainhead” Saturday at 8 p.m. on HBO, then streaming on Max: “Succession” wunderkind Jesse Armstrong makes his feature directorial debut in a satirical dramedy he scripted, shot in Park City, Utah, and set in the Musk era. Mass. native Steve Carell stars as one of four tech billionaires converging for an elite mountaintop retreat alongside Jason Schwartzman, Ramy Youssef, and Cory Michael Smith. Then a global AI-induced crisis intrudes, disrupting their elitist gloating and sending the bros spinning.
Thelma Adams is a cultural critic and the author of the best-selling historical novel “The Last Woman Standing,” about Josephine Marcus, the Jewish wife of Wyatt Earp.
In the era of reboots, what does a great series finale mean?Elizabeth Banks drew on her Pittsfield roots for ‘The Better Sister’
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