Today Hulu has released all four episodes of the new British psychological thriller The Sister. The limited series comes from writer Neil Cross (Luther), and is an adaptation of his own novel “Burial”. The series centers around the mysterious and unsolved disappearance of a young woman named Elise after she attended a New Year’s Eve party in 2009. The only two people who really know what happened that night are Nathan Redman (Russell Tovey, Years and Years, Looking), a mild-mannered greeting card salesman, and his eccentric acquaintance Bob Morrow (Bertie Carvel, Baghdad Central, Doctor Foster: A Woman Scorned), who has an interest in the paranormal.
During the initial investigation, both men were questioned by the inspector in charge of the case, DCI Jacki Hadley (Nina Toussaint-White, Bodyguard), as they were at the same party that Elise attended before she disappeared. However, there was never any evidence or reason to believe they were involved in the disappearance. Nathan has tried to forget that night, and has since gotten married and is trying to start a family with wife Holly (Amrita Acharia, Game of Thrones, The Good Karma Hospital). However, one rainy night Bob shows up unexpectedly at Nathan’s door, informing him that an incident from their past is about to come back to haunt them (maybe literally) if they don’t do something about it. Now Nathan is desperate to keep his past hidden—he has been keeping a dark secret from his wife that could tear their lives apart—but new developments unfold that cause DCI Hadley to revisit the old unsolved case.
The Sister is very measured and methodically laid out, with each of the four episodes slowly revealing more details about the connections between the various characters and what actually happened on that fateful New Year’s Eve. Nathan grows increasingly desperate to hide the past, but Bob’s unwelcome return into his life threatens all of that. The series constantly flips between the present, 2013 (the third anniversary of Elise’s disappearance), and New Year’s Eve 2009 (when Elise first went missing). While things start off as more of a standard murder-mystery, the series takes an unexpected and bizarre supernatural turn (which is probably why it first aired last October on ITV in the UK, timed for Halloween). The four episodes binge like a single 3-hour film, with an ending that is sure to raise some questions and cause a discussion.
Tonight, I’ll also be watching/recording WandaVision, Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous, The Blacklist, The Graham Norton Show Losing Alice, and Pixar Popcorn,.
