Today's Episode
We watched it. Every episode covers the latest installment(s) of a different TV show.
Today's Episode
His & Hers (PILOT)
His & Hers is Netflix’s thriller based on Alice Feeney’s novel, relocating the story from a British village to Atlanta and Dahlonega, Georgia. News anchor and writer Anna (Tessa Thompson) races back into the case, while her estranged husband, detective Jack Harper (Jon Bernthal), runs the investigation with his partner Priya (Sunita Mani). On the pod, we compare the pilot to the book, walk through the episode’s plot and ending twist, and get into the casting choices, comparisons, and production trivia. Tune in to hear our rating. Welcome to Today’s Episode!
Welcome to today's episode, the podcast, where we discuss the most recent installment of a different series every show. It is Friday, January 9th. This is our third review of 2026. And what I've noticed is that so far we've had a lot of US-UK mix and match runaway, the Harlan Coben book that he based in New York and Chicago. They adapted it by Netflix and moved it to the UK. Best Medicine was based on the UK hit Doc Martin, but now we're in the US with it on Fox. And his and hers was a UK bestseller, I believe, in like 2020. And now it's been adapted by Netflix and moved from the UK to the US.
SPEAKER_01:It was Georgia. Blackdown London, and then now it's Atlanta, Georgia, and Delonega, Georgia.
SPEAKER_00:And it doesn't stop there because next show that we do, The Night Manager, also a UK show, also happens to be the same production company as doing this show, fifth season. So fifth season has done a lot of shows like Severance, and usually for TV, they focus on heavy dramas. This is about two estranged spouses, right? You read the book for it. One is a detective, the other is a news reporter, and they're both surrounding this new murder investigation where each of them suspects the other in one form or another of being more complicit in whatever happened. Right. It's a murder mystery.
SPEAKER_01:But the strange thing about the book was that it was almost an amalgamation of all the books that I've read for the podcast. Because if you remember Lady in the Lake, I talked about how same production company. Really? Okay. Well, for the book, I talked about how many uh characters in that book write from first person. And here it's the same exact thing. It's Jack Harper, Anna Andrews, and then there's excerpts throughout the book that are written by the killer, also in first person. But the book changes perspective on who the killer could be so many times that it feels like so many people are writing in first person, even though it's really three.
SPEAKER_00:Having just watched the show, The Pilot, because I just watched the pilot, you also watched the pilot, but like just having seen the pilot, all I could see was that John Barenthal's character, Jack, right? That he's the bad guy. That's that's all the show was showing me because it did it so hard at the first few scenes with having Anna come across like she was beaten up, like she has a story that she's she's hiding something, that it immediately made me more suspicious of how Jack was carrying the investigation. Was it because Jack was more innocent to you when you were watching it? No, Jack did all these really remember smoke? Yes. Remember that TV show with Taryn Egerton? Right. And I'd read the book about that, and it was about this guy who was starting fires and it based off a real story, and and he was just doing his own, like he would show up at his own fires and then pretend to conduct the like the whole investigation, right? That's exactly what this guy does. He shows up at the scene of the crime and he immediately disperses all the other officers. He's like, get out of here. If you find a phone, don't touch it or don't look at it, bring it to me only. Then later on, the coroner's like, I've got the body here. Can I take your DNA so I can take it off of the possibility? Because you guys were around the crime scene. So I want, and and and he immediately says, No, I'm not going to do that. And then he leaves. Like, and then the way he treats his partner, there are just so many kind of cocky, flippant things that you're supposed to just let go where it comes across. So I did this.
SPEAKER_01:Well, the thing is, is that cocky? I want you to kind of focus on that because that's not how Jack Harper is in the book. He reminded me a lot of Carl Mork from Department Q when I was reading it, because he is emotionally damaged in the book. He's driven, he's guilt uh Ren, basically. He lost his young daughter.
SPEAKER_00:And he's kind of weird because you have Anna, who's actually the one who seems to be facing that guilt more. Because she's she's the one who also lost the kid.
SPEAKER_01:But I'm saying, like in the book, it was Jack Harper. He's kind of atoning constantly through work. However, his trauma is more deeply interpersonal. He could have felt like he was a better husband and kind of feels uh bad for Anna. And then Anna, her story reminded me a lot of because they did backflashes, which I'm glad this episode did not incorporate.
SPEAKER_00:They they did to a certain extent.
SPEAKER_01:Right, right, right. But they did it a lot less than the book does because the book does it throughout.
SPEAKER_00:It could have been confusing.
SPEAKER_01:Right. But it takes place when she's in high school, and that reminded me so much of Under the Bridge because Rachel, the body that they end up finding, and we even see her in that recording that she's looking at, was a lot like Nicole Cook in Under the Bridge, where she was one of the popular, probably the most popular person in school, but very manipulative and often a bully to even her friends.
SPEAKER_00:In the one flashback that we got, where she finds the recording of the high school version of them having that 16th birthday party or whatever, is Rachel the one who was painting the other girl's nails? Yes, she's not. She's the one who smiles at the camera, and she's later on the victim who has painted nails that I think say face it or something on them. Yes. Yes, exactly. So, so like we're led to believe that they had a rivalry, Anna and her, with like frenemies, sort of.
SPEAKER_01:It was uh Anna was the new person in school, and then Rachel kind of took her under her wing, but then the the group, the popular group, was just they did a lot of bad things.
SPEAKER_00:This uh book was probably the pretty low liars situation, or even an it when there was that one group, the It Welcome to Dairy. Yeah, um, what's her name? Maggie was hanging out with.
SPEAKER_01:I would say it's even darker than that because this book is probably the darkest book I have read in a while. It has brutal killings, detailed and disturbing depictions of murder, underage teens partaking in drugs, sextortion, blackmail, sex, even rape, plus mutilation of animals. So there's parts of this book that I'm sure when Netflix gets to it, because we haven't gone to those parts yet, there it's not going to be adaptable. They're probably gonna be Tony.
SPEAKER_00:This reminds me of a Harlan Coben book that was turned into a series before I even started reading the books. It's the one with uh Dexter uh safe Michael Seahall's safe, yes, because that second half of that series, from what I remember, shows that everything, all the fires and deaths that are occurring in the future have to do with stuff that they did as a kid. Um also, we were liars. They would, it's always the teenage years. Something crazy goes down, and then the repercussions of it happen like 20 years later. Anyways, you've got Anna here, you've got Jack here, and you're saying Jack in the book is a lot more toned down. He seems a lot, is he nicer? I would say he's a little bit nicer.
SPEAKER_01:He's definitely nicer to his nice, yes. I was gonna say he's nicer to Priya, and I also realized that everyone was playing younger than they actually are because I think Jack in the book, it's never stated uh specifically, but I think he's supposed to be in his late 30s, maybe early 40s, John Bernathal is 49. Tessa Thompson, Anna Andrews in the book is 36, she's 42, and then Priya uh played by Sunita Mar Manny, I think her name is. She's 39. Tessa Thompson playing a 36-year-old.
SPEAKER_00:That passes, but I think she knows.
SPEAKER_01:And I was gonna say Sunita Many, she's 39, and she's supposed to be playing 31, but it actually didn't take me out of it. I think that everyone passed for the age that they were supposed to play.
SPEAKER_00:Was at the end, after they found the body, and it seems like we haven't even touched upon Anna's storyline, but she's trying to get her job back as a main news reporter, kind of similar to servant, I think that other Apple TV series. But at the very end, when we're given the twist that both of them, Jack and Anna, were were there the night before, I'd assume before the murder, they didn't just stumble upon the body and decide to have sex, but they were fucking right outside of the car with the dead lady in it that that's found the next day. Well, that's insane, right? Did I read that wrong?
SPEAKER_01:No, I think I think you were wrong because yes, they were both there, but uh what they're having sex. What Jack was doing was he was having sex with the woman that died.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, I thought that was Tessa. I thought that was.
SPEAKER_01:No, Tessa Thompson was looking, Tessa Thompson was looking in. She was there, she was there at the scene, like she saw her husband cheating on her, but it was with the woman.
SPEAKER_00:Maybe it was because the camera was so dark. I thought that the woman who died was in the car in front of them, probably still alive, and that she was having sex with her husband.
SPEAKER_01:I think what it was was that was Rachel's car in the front, and then she went to Jack's car, which was in the back, and then Tessa Thompson stumbled upon them in the woods and watched that.
SPEAKER_00:So we don't know why Tessa Thompson was in the woods, why Anna was in the woods.
SPEAKER_01:And that was not from the book. That was just like uh Jack and uh Rachel was, but not Anna Thompson.
SPEAKER_00:The craziest part to me was that she would have sex with her husband the next day, act like she hasn't spoken to him in years, and then have sex with the camera guy. Like, yeah. I would have it's just she's like, that's that's getting around.
SPEAKER_01:There was there was a there was a lot of things that like uh kind of already happened prior to the book that I feel like the TV show felt like they needed to show. Because it is true that Anna Andrews and Richard, who you're talking about, they did have kind of an affair when she was married, but in the TV series, it's a lot more because Anna wants to have revenge against uh the person that's replacing her, Lexi Jones.
SPEAKER_00:Uh well did you recognize the limited amount that we saw Lexi Jones? No, she was only a couple of she's from uh the Hulu series Into the Dark. She was in the body episode. That was probably my favorite from that series. She played the heroine in that. And uh yeah, no, it was it's cool that she's in it. It's also cool that the cameraman who plays her husband, the one that Anna was sleeping with. Yes, Richard, did you recognize him? No, he's from American Gods, he was the leprechaun. He was also oranges of the new black. This guy feels like an action star. He was in Halo, that series a long time ago, that just never like made the A-tier list. But it's I I really like the collection of cast, and that's not even including um Priya, who of course from No Activity and all that other stuff, and also has her own dancing crew. I I just thought that as a casting-wise, this this alone makes me want to see all six episodes.
SPEAKER_01:Well, yeah, and really you can just put John Berenthal in anything, and I'm always going to be interested in what's the one.
SPEAKER_00:What is at this point the first thing you think of when you think of John Barenthal?
SPEAKER_01:Uh, usually Walking Dead still. Is that Walking Dead? Because that's what I first saw him in. But like, and everything, even in things that I feel like have gone downhill, like the Bear, even though he's only in one scene per season, I still think he's the best part of that. Even in shows like The Premise, which wasn't reviewed greatly, his episode, the second episode, I thought he was the best part of that as well. Ford v. Ferrari. Ford v. Ferrari. There's there's a lot of things that you can point to. Fury Fury, I think.
SPEAKER_00:I always say Tessa Thompson, I still think of Westworld.
SPEAKER_01:Westworld and also Thor. You know, that that's what I go to.
SPEAKER_00:Or Men in Black, too. No, but it's always Westworld is the first one I think about. Um, one of the things that Tessa Thompson said, she was recruited by the person who ended up uh making this episode, who ended up making the show, William Oldroyd. He's the one who pitched it to her. Then she came on board. You know who else came on board? Jessica Chastain. So is she an executive producer? Not just that. She seems like her company owns it. I think she's like Freckle Productions, and she's part of it. And the weird thing about it is that like her show was supposed to come out last week or last, sorry, last month or something.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, the savant?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Was it last month or like a couple months ago? A couple months ago. And she's been very advocative about that. Like she's come out and said, I this should have, I really wish Apple would drop this thing already.
SPEAKER_01:She didn't want the delay. I know she was against it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And so it's at least one of her shows is coming out. And then this show also reminded me of the beast in me, because you have a writer, right? Anna's been trying to write, but she also has a dead child. I assume the book goes into more of how or why the kid died.
SPEAKER_01:Right. And also Anna's reason for demotion as well. Like she wasn't absent. Actually, it's funny because what she wanted in the book, because she was taking over for an anchor at BBC while she was on maternal leave, is what this anchor got in the show, where Anna was gone, and then it was a substitute, and then she was uh promoted to So she lost a baby.
SPEAKER_00:It wasn't that she lost a kid after like a five or six-year-old. It was like someone okay. So that that makes a little bit more sense because she we see her walking into her job in the first few scenes here. She's covering up like a tooth abscess, and uh she's because and she also got in late that night, but she seems to want to immediately get her job back as anchor, and that seemed a little weird because like who does that? You don't you can't just walk into your old job no matter what it is, but especially a TV news anchor and not expect them to have replaced you.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_00:And again, it they kind of switched it because it's it's Anna that's that's why she ends up she takes the Bruce Almighty road and she says, stick me in field reporting and I'll do those lowest level jobs, but then she tells him where she wants to go. And uh, do you know what that town community is known for? Like who's who's from there? No. Okay. Uh, does six dogs the rapper mean anything to you? I don't know. Six dogs. Neither do I. But he's like 21 years old and he's one of the most famous people from that town. So uh anyway, so dead body there. They have a little bit of like a lead, but uh the lead investigator or he's a sheriff what deputy or he's a I have he's a detective in the book, and I feel like he's a detective in the he has the name on the back and it says sheriff something, but like he's in charge and he spends most of this episode just stalking his his wife, not even his ex-wife. And does he do that in the book?
SPEAKER_01:Well, they are ex-uh wife and husband in the book. They're a strange. Yes, he does stalk her throughout the beginning of it.
SPEAKER_00:But like rather than trying to chase down a lead, that also just goes to show that he's probably guilty if he is using those precious hours after a body has been found, not to like he either is guilty or he knows 100% who did it.
SPEAKER_01:Well, yeah, because I mean, did you catch the part where uh where like she says when she's at the murder investigation, is it clear that you knew who it was? Like when she asked that question.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that made me believe that she also is aware of uh of who it is already and probably what happened. That's why at the end when they were both shown having sex, I was like, I really hope this doesn't go the root of like in the end, they're both trying to cover their own asses, but they both killed her together.
SPEAKER_01:I I won't say what happens, but but I will say that like uh as stated, the book goes through so many people. Like it's not just the first person or a couple suspects, it's like at least I'd say 15 to 20 people that the book makes you think the killer is throughout the course of it.
SPEAKER_00:Walk me through it. Walk me through what you can with the pilot that we just watched. Like who could the mom, the dementia-ridden mom, her mom Hannah's mom, uh, be the killer? I don't think so. No. No. Um, how about the person in charge of the hotel that uh he walks into and he like demands to know where his wife is staying? This is when she's having sex with Richard. Did that come across at all weird that like she asks to because it's not Lexi's fault that she lost her job, right? That Anna lost her job. Lexi just became the new news reporter, and then Anna is the one who targeted that girl's husband to then go and try to sleep with. And then he, Hook Lion and Singer, Sinker, just like went and did it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no, that's why I'm saying like Anna was doing it because she was. I mean, that's pretty dastard as revenge. Yeah, she's way more morally ambiguous in this TV series than she was, I felt like in the book. And that was part of the things I actually didn't like about the series because I less less likable. Yeah, because I mean in the book, I was really going for Jack and Anna. I understood that they were both emotionally damaged characters, but they were like they were actually good characters. Here it seems like they're really trying to make Anna kind of just like almost a villain. I wouldn't even say anti-hero. I think she's supposed to be like the antagonist. Were there 40 uh knife wounds on the body? Yeah, 40 stab wounds.
SPEAKER_00:And someone left semen.
SPEAKER_01:Someone left semen and also the bracelet on the tongue being tied.
SPEAKER_00:If that was in fact her that uh he he was having sex with, then that is 100% confirmed that that's his semen.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. Gross. No, that's that's the main reason why in the TV series he didn't want to have the DNA test. Like that's the reason why he was pushing it to the next day.
SPEAKER_00:That's part of why I was uh suspicious of him. But because they give that away in the pilot, it feels like they can't just that that can't be the final twist.
SPEAKER_01:Was it it wasn't just that that they gave away in the pilot? Richard himself, like him being married to Lexi Jones, that is that is revealed way later. I'm talking like probably the last eighth of the book, and they decided to bring that like to the forefront of the TV series within like the first 10 minutes.
SPEAKER_00:You know what his name is, like in real life, is Pablo Schreiber. You want to take a guess as to who his half brother is? I would guess it's Leev Schreiber. Leev Schreiber is his half-brother. They kind of see it. Yeah. Um, what did you think of the very, very start where we see the car accident and anyone comes in there? I felt like I was watching a Black Mirror episode.
SPEAKER_01:I it was so strange that Netflix decided for a song that is so ingrained in Black Mirror.
SPEAKER_00:It was Matt Quayle, the guy who did the sounds, who who also did the the stuff for Mr. Robot.
SPEAKER_01:But I'm just saying that the song itself is so ingrained in Black Mirror that way, it seems like if any other TV series is trying to use it, they're almost copying it.
SPEAKER_00:But like Streamberry. Streamberry. I mean, it's funny, it's almost like if you can make fun of us, Black Mirror, we can make fun of you too. Well, Tessa Thompson, because isn't she in Black Mirror? Maybe I'm remembering that wrong. Uh she wasn't sorry to bother you, and it feels like she would have at some point done in the world. Yeah, she doesn't look like the girl from Hang the DJ. Is that crazy?
SPEAKER_01:I think that I think that might be it. But the weird thing that I got from the first scene, I didn't know what the show was trying to be because I I think it's fair, especially by the end, to call the book a horror book. Like it's it's actually horror. And it seemed like that's where the show was maybe going at first, but then we're following John Burenthal's character. Well, yeah, but I'm saying that's what the first scene was like. No, but Nashville. I no, I mean it's funny. And then John Burenthal were trying to follow him for the first 15 minutes, and it seemed like it was trying to be kind of like a grim mystery. But then whenever we're following when yeah, Mary V sound I had as one of my similarities, but then we're following Anna's storyline, and it seemed like that was focused more on like melodrama.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and I wouldn't kiss your boss. Like that's just the no, especially if the genders were flipped. I feel like he she would have never gotten her job back.
SPEAKER_01:I did, I did like the lipstick on it. Yeah, no heads funny.
SPEAKER_00:That was like more of a comic book version of the show. But yeah, so she's so she's working on getting her career back, but it feels like both of them are just trying in one way or another to point the finger anywhere but at themselves. But hers feels more like she's trying to point the finger at him. Yeah, well, uh for right now. He's like, Why are you doing this to me? And she's like, I'm she promised not to give away who the body was. And then in the next scene, yeah, he's watching TV with his sister. People have compared this to Gone Girl, and I'd assume because of that relationship between the brother and sister. Um Zoe. Yeah, Zoe. And and on the TV screen, she pops up there, Anna does, and she's like, Yeah, it was uh Rachel.
SPEAKER_01:That's why I'm saying, and from what I remember in the book, I do know that he tells her not to say the name, but I can't remember if she actually did what she did at the end of the first episode. I don't think she did. That's why I'm saying, especially like with Tessa Thompson looking out the back door as they're having sex, it seems like the TV series is really trying to make you not like her, at least at the beginning of it.
SPEAKER_00:I still liked her more than John Barenthal, who I still felt like was the one who was avoiding the because I felt like he was obfuscating, and especially the way he traded Priya, just a good case for her. Like she kept on being like, boss, I got this good lead. And he was like, Shut up.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and again, he's he's nicer to Priya in the book. He also seemed John Barenthal seemed to be playing kind of like the character he usually does with like we own this city where he's a cop there. No, I disagree.
SPEAKER_00:I feel like in We Own the City, he can be intimidating and he can be like, but he's doing it for the right reasons. This it felt like he was playing that smoke character to me, where he's like clearly not as smart as he thinks he is. Um, and yeah, it It was funny when he was having to listen to his wife have sex through the door, but I guess it makes more sense now that she knew that he was having sex with the victim.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Right. So they were both cheating on each other. I don't know why for the TV series they didn't just make them divorce though. Cause that's all that's what it is in the book. And I feel like it would be strange better.
SPEAKER_00:I kept on reading as strange.
SPEAKER_01:No, I know it doesn't necessarily mean divorce. They are to well, I mean they are together. They never refer to each other as ex-husband, ex-wife. They always say husband and wife.
SPEAKER_00:Do you want to see more of this? Do you feel like they're adapting it correctly?
SPEAKER_01:Here's the thing. So I think that it follows the book very, very closely. I'd say 85%. I like how they cut down on the flashbacks. It relies on its two stars. I'm assuming we're going to see more Tessa Thompson, but John Bernathol, I thought, did a great job. And the mystery is still inviting to me, just like the book was. But the direction that they're choosing with Anna, the pacing being still off, and I thought that the book uh pacing was off also, and the tone feeling so jumbled, I'm going to give it a five out of ten and probably not watch the rest of it.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, I think that this is a show. You can fairly call it flawed for the reasons you've given, but I think it's fun to talk about. Like I there's no way you don't have an opinion after watching something like that, and then the way it ends, at least just trying to come to grips with it. So I really enjoyed this discussion. I feel like that alone and the fact that it's only six episodes rather than the Harlan Coben series, which was eight episodes and felt like it was going to be more of a slog to get through. That reason I would give it a higher score, probably, than a five out of ten. But as far as what other reviews have given it, it seems like AV Club is in your camp. It seems like Roger Ebert is in your camp, Hollywood Reporter and Time. They all don't really they gave it negative reviews. However, Variety loved it. IGN loved it. The Guardian did not like it.
SPEAKER_01:For such a bleak story, and I know it's only going to be six episodes and they were all released. I guess I find I doubt that's going to be entertaining enough or fun enough to watch because again, it gets so dark that I imagine that.
SPEAKER_00:They did say when they cast John Barenthal, who Tessa Thompson was a big part of getting in line to cast, uh uh that it became more steamy. Steamy? Yeah, like romantic. Interesting. That's like romance is not a part of the book. Well, so far we've seen what, like three graphic sex scenes? Um, so, or at least it feels like that. Do you think that Donald Glover is going to make an appearance? I don't think so. No. Why would Donald Glover make an appearance? Oh, no. Okay. That connection. All right. Well, thanks for listening. We'll see you in the next episode. Hope you enjoyed this one. Bye. Bye. Uh uh think about it Walking Dead, Georgia. Yeah. Yeah. So he's used to it. He knows that area. All right. Bye. Bye.