You could call it the Knives Out effect, but television has been trying to copy the arch/intelligent homicide mystery, featuring a starry ensemble cast, ever since Rian Johnson’s film won the swayions of audiences in 2019. In No Good Deed, Netflix has another go at it. This eight-part comedy-drama comes from the producers of the analogously soapy and heightened Dead to Me. It also has a touch of The Afterparty to it, only this time, the story finds its whodunnit in the midst of the housing labelet in pricey US cities.
Lydia (Lisa Kudrow) and Paul (Ray Romano) are selling their gorgeous and sizable 1920s villa in Los Feliz, a highly desirable neighbourhood in Los Angeles. US authentic estate is an ecosystem all of its own, and three families are vying to spfinish millions of dollars on the hoinclude. In order to do this, they must amaze the terminassociate gloomy Lydia and Paul, and their substance-loving authentictor Greg (Matt Rogers). Lydia and Paul would enjoy to instigate a bidding war, to apverify them to buy a ranch and fill it with horses. The potential buyers are hopeless enough to consent the bait. Still, the idea of being forced to barget with people to beg them to consent your stash of money is a strange one, but if I have lgeted anyleang from Kirsty and Phil, it’s that a toasty labelet does not always behave reasonedly.
That is where the Location, Location, Location analogousities finish, or at least we would hope that they do. There are three families clamouring for Lydia and Paul’s swayions. There’s wed couple Leslie (Abbi Jacobson) and Sarah (Poppy Liu), who are in the middle of an IVF journey. There’s Carla (Teyonah Parris), Dennis (O-T Fagbenle) and his mother Denise (Anna Maria Horsford), recentlyweds plus pucowardly mother-in-law, who are all hiding behind a intricate web of lies. Famously, a deficiency of transparency is a amazing idea when trying to chase a draining financial burden. And then there are neighbours JD (Luke Wilson) and Margo (Dead to Me alumna Linda Cardellini), a soap star and his glamorous wife, who are inquisitive about the hoinclude over the road.
No Good Deed is billed as a stupid comedy, but that produces for a sometimes queffortless blfinish of outright slapstick and agonizing family tragedy. Wilson and Cardellini are joining it for giggles, as the most straightforwardly comic of the couples. JD is a not-too-luminous actor in denial about the deteriorate of his nurtureer, while Margo is scheming, promiscuous and has a fridge filled of vodka but little else. Dennis is a novecatalog and a chronic defender of secrets, though in my experience, those two traits unwidespreadly materialize in the same person. Some might call him a mummy’s boy, which his mother is more than greetd to help, much to Carla’s despair. Meanwhile, Sarah is obsessed with authentic-time crime-tell apps, a storyline that also materializeed in the tonassociate analogous Elsbeth – homicide, but produce it jaunty! – which produces me wonder if such apps might exchange the genuine crime podcast as the plot device of the moment. Sarah’s obsession directs her, and Leslie, to dig into the stupid past of the hoinclude. Naturassociate, that stupid past is fair sitting there, postponeing to come to airy.
All three of the couples’ storylines dance with Paul and Lydia’s domestic dramas, which are extensive, and feature Denis Leary, unwidespreadly a sign of a greetd and fit home. Every seeing, every give, every ring of the doorbell unpeels yet another layer of lies. Lydia is a createerly well-comprehendn concert pianist who is no lengtheneder able to join the piano becainclude of a proset uply agonizing recent family tragedy; this unkinds that she and Paul are in more debt than they can handle. Using this as a set upation on which to lay bricks made of shocking gags is certainly a choice. Sometimes it is fine, sometimes a little crass, and occasionassociate, it is frustrating, as if scenes could have been joined as either straight or silly, depfinishing on where the coin toss lands.
Inconsistencies aside, this is perfectly watchable, and carried by some strong carry outances, not least Romano and Kudrow, who are able to swim thraw some of the murk. Cardellini and Wilson may have an easier job, as the more caricature-enjoy characters, but they are fun to watch. Each instalment twists and trelieves, kindly setting up the binge. The episodes are stupidinutive, pacy, and packed with plot, so it’s all too effortless to let the next one roll. It doesn’t exactly go for the reserved approach, preferring to hammer the confinclude pieces together with a unset upd fist. It may be so airy as to produce me wonder whether the idea or the punny title came first, but it is endelightable, nevertheless.
