Ep. 65 The Girlfriend by Michelle Frances vs. The Girlfriend (2025)

One small lie can wreck an entire family, but the version you watch or read decides who you blame. I'm putting Michelle Francis’s 2017 psychological thriller The Girlfriend head-to-head with the 2025 Amazon TV miniseries adaptation starring Robin Wright, Laurie Davidson, and Olivia Cooke, and I'm going full spoilers because the changes are too big to dance around.

I break down how both the novel and the series use dual point of view to push sympathy back and forth between Laura and Cherry, then talk honestly about why that “see both sides” goal doesn’t always work. On the page, suspicion builds like a slow burn as Cherry starts isolating Daniel. On screen, Laura’s energy shifts fast into modern “boy mom” territory, and that re-frames everything from harmless curiosity to invasive control. I also dig into the adaptation choices that quietly change the stakes, including Laura’s career rewrite, the class dynamics behind Cherry’s lies, and the swapped set pieces that lead to Daniel’s devastating accident.

From there, I unpack the story’s most jaw-dropping beat: Laura telling Cherry that Daniel died while he’s in a coma, plus the fallout that follows in each version. I compare the revenge tactics, the escalating sabotage, and the wildly different endings, including why the TV series leaves room for a possible season two while the book closes the door with brutal finality. If you love book to screen comparisons, psychological thrillers, and messy character studies where nobody stays innocent for long, this one will give you a lot to argue about.

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Transcript

Welcome And Spoiler Warning

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Welcome to Books Vis Movies, the podcast where I set out to answer the age-old question: Is the book really always better than the movie? I'm Juvia, an actress and book lover based out of New York City, and today I'm going to be talking about The Girlfriend by Michelle Francis and its 2025 Amazon TV mini-series adaptation, The Girlfriend, starring Robin Wright, Lori Davidson, and Olivia Cook. So this is going to be a fun episode. So this technically is marketed as a psychological thriller. I guess there are thriller elements to it, and I guess it is like that's a category it falls into the best. But I don't like I wasn't necessarily suspenseful the way like most thrillers are. That's not like a bad thing. It's just, I don't know that it's technically, I mean, like, I think it's technically a thriller, but it doesn't have like it's more of like a slow burn, I guess. I don't know. But the point is, it's branded as a thriller. So because of that, you should be aware of definitely the spoilers. If you do not want the book or the film or the TV mini-series to be spoiled, now's your time to stop listening because there's just no way for me to talk about this, especially with how many changes were made. And the big one, the big change is the ending. So if you don't want a thriller to be spoiled, because I know mysteries and thrillers, a lot of some people may tolerate other spoilers, some people don't tolerate any spoilers at all. Fair. But some people can like handle other spoilers, but they really don't like mysteries and thrillers to be spoiled because they want to be able to solve it or be in fully on the ride without knowing what's gonna happen. So just want to give that disclaimer. This is one of those that you should not listen to until you've read or watched both for either. So yeah, let's go ahead and get started because this is quite interesting.

Dual POV And Who We Side With

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So the Michelle Francis, the author, set out to so there's moments in which the story is told through more of Laura's point of view, and then there's times when the story is told through Cherry's point of view, and her goal was to kind of get you to see both sides of the story so we get like her Laura's version and Cherry's version, and that way we can sympathize with both characters. I'm gonna be honest, I don't think that was successful because I was very much team Laura in the book. And then in the TV series, Robin Wright, she directed all the episodes, if I'm not mistaken, and her we also do have like we switch points of view in the series as well. And her goal was also like, let's get that way we can sympathize with both of them, and we're not really sure who to believe and who to trust. And in the TV series, I was very much team Cherry for the majority of the series, and then by the end, I was like, nope, I am team Daniel. So it's interesting how I I think the points of view were made so that we could see the point the this differing points of view were there so we see how one how each character interpreted the different events, and yet I don't think it was quite successful in either because I was firmly team one or the other, and I like the different points of view, just it I'm I I just want to point that out because it the the in original goal was to get people to be able to sympathize and relate to both and not vilify one or the other, and yet I don't know, I was still firmly I still had a preference for the two. I still had a preference anyway. So let's

Plot Setup For Book And Series

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get into it. The girlfriend by Michelle Francis was first published in 2017. Laura has it all. She has a successful career, a long marriage to a rich husband, a 23-year-old son, Daniel, who is kind, he's handsome, he's talented, and then Daniel meets Cherry. Cherry is young, she's beautiful, she's smart. She hasn't had the same opportunities as Daniel. And she wants to have Daniel's family's life. Cherry comes to the family and wants to be welcomed with open arms, but Laura's kind of suspicious that not everything is what it seems. And when tragedy strikes, an unforgivable lie is told. It is told in an act of desperation, but the fallout causes huge ripples. The girlfriend is the 2025 TV miniseries adaptation. And Laura's idyllic life is shattered when her son's new girlfriend seems not as all not quite what she seems. Laura is determined to protect him, but her actions start to spiral out of control. And throughout the run of the series, we're asking, is she justifiably cautious or just consumed by paranoia? So, yeah, as I said, both the TV series and the film are we switch back and forth through Laura's point of view and Terry's point of view so we can kind of relate to one or the other and really fully understand their motivations and all of that. And it's just interesting that I don't feel like either one necessarily succeeded in that. That doesn't mean that they were terrible by any means. I'm not saying that they weren't. I I still enjoyed reading and watching this series, but it's just interesting that I I really was firmly tame one or the other until the TV series, and I was tame neither one of them by the end. So yeah, just interesting, just interesting.

Adaptation Changes That Matter

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But anyway, so let's let's get started with what is different. So I don't know why some of these changes were made. Sometimes it's easy for me to speculate, like, oh, this is why this change was made. And then there's sometimes I'm just like, I don't, I don't know why this change was made. This is one of those. So in the book, Laura is a TV executive, like she works for like a famous news channel. I mean, not news channel, she works for a famous British channel in London, and she works on like pitching new shows, developing new shows. So she definitely works in the television industry. And in the TV series, she's actually an art gallery owner. So that's what she does. And I kind of wish that they had kept if they wanted to change, like if maybe having her work in a TV series was gonna be too meta or whatever, I don't know if that was the actual motivation. But I I wish that they had kept it as that, just because I think it matters that so as I get into it and I talk about how Laura's life starts falling apart. It matters that Laura makes a lot of money in the uh working in TV and is fully financially independent as opposed to running a very successful art gallery and making money that way. But as the TV series goes on, we see that her art gallery is not as financially secure, and so she does rely a lot on her husband to fund the financial gaps in her art gallery. And so I don't know, I just feel like it it did make a difference, especially as Laura's life starts to fall apart, that she is fully financially independent versus being even just the tiniest bit reliant on her husband's money. But that's just a tiny little nitpick. Let's get into

Boy Mom Vibes And Class Tension

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it. So, yeah, as I talk about the differences and everything, I think the other biggest difference is I don't know if I should mention so the reason I was very much team cherry almost right from the beginning of the TV series is that Laura is very much a boy mom, and all the negative connotations that are associated with being a boy mom at the moment. So there is a difference between between being a mom of a boy and a boy mom in this day and age of social media. So boy moms with all the negative comment connotations are the moms that we see on social media that are weirdly obsessed with their sons. Just like weirdly. Like they say things like, Oh, I love my daughter, but my world was not complete until I had my son. And they don't mean in the sense of like our family was complete and once we had our second child, who so happened to be a boy. It's like, no, my world was not complete until my boy, who was who is superior to my daughter. That kind of vibe. Boy moms are also weird. Look, like I said, they are weirdly obsessed with their sons. Like, I'm my son's very first love. And if you think you're gonna replace me, you have something else coming at you. Like they have that very much that negative attitude, um, and just hate anyone who their son brings home. And like, no matter who she is, she's never gonna be good enough. Or she better not think that she will replace his mother in his heart because his mother was there first. Like that kind of really creepy, it's kind of gross. It's kind of gross. There's also been like pictures of these boy moms clinging to their teenage sons or adult sons in a way that's like usually like if I were to show you a picture and get tell you to guess the relationship, you would probably say boyfriend and girlfriend the way she's clinging onto him. And then it's like, no, that's his mom. It's so it's a little weird. Like, yeah, just being a mom of a boy is not a bad thing, but being a boy mom and does have a lot of negative connotations to it. So you can you can probably just Google like weird boy mom attitudes or creepy boy mom attitudes, and you'll find lots of examples. Those that's just like a really, really simplified version, but it's it's really like these moms are just obsessed with their sons in a way that's almost not healthy, I don't think. Like I said, there's a difference between loving your son and having whatever that attitude is. So, not all moms of boys are boy moms. So just want to throw that out there. And so Laura very much gives boy mom vibes, like she instantly dislikes Cherry. In the book, it she starts to grow suspicious of Cherry a little bit later. Like she welcomes Cherry into her life, she into her and her son's life. She's she's very welcoming, she's very accommodating, she's very like she wants to get to know Cherry. Cherry's the one that's not opening up to her, and she's so desperate to know who Cherry is as a person that she starts doing things that she shouldn't. But that's because despite opening her her life up to Cherry, Cherry's not reciprocating. So yeah. Um, but in the TV series, it's it's immediate, and it's that very much like, and and they try to explain it off as like, oh, I caught Cherry lying about this, or this doesn't make sense, or like everything Cherry says, Laura is immediately suspicious of it in the TV series. It's not like, oh, she happened to say this, but I like further on down the line, she said something that contradicted, contradicted it, and now I'm suspicious. It's more of like, oh, so you went to this fancy private school, let me immediately Google and see if that's true. That's that's a little weird. I'm not saying, like in this day and age, I'm aware that we can easily Google all this information, but Cherry isn't giving Laura any reason to doubt or suspect her or anything like that. And I don't know. I don't know that I would immediately I'm not a mom, so I know I'm probably gonna get a lot of comments from moms being like, well, you don't get it. Like maybe that's what moms do nowadays. They they do what a lot of us do when we're first we Google people, you know? So maybe I don't know, but this one just came off as very like, I immediately think everything you're saying is a lie, so I'm gonna fact check everything as opposed to like, oh, that's interesting. And then further on down, if it's like, wait, that that doesn't match up what you said earlier. So which one's the truth kind of thing? I don't know. Because I think about like my parents, and I don't know, I don't feel like they would whatever. The the the it's no, we're not talking about my parents at the moment, but yeah, I don't know. So it's it's like it was instances like that that just kind of made me be like, why do you hate this girl so much for no other reason than and then once you do find out why Cherry is lying in the TV series, it's because Daniel, she and Daniel are of very different status. She is lower class, and Daniel is definitely from the upper class. So she is Cherry is initially lying to make a good impression. And I'm not saying it's okay to lie or that she should have lied, but it's like if I I feel like if I was upper status and his girlfriend was saying these white lies and I discovered that they were white lies, I'd be like, why? Like, I'm sorry if we made you feel like you had to lie to impress us or whatever. I don't care that you're of a different status, unless like I start to see gold digger signs, which is book cherry, if I'm being honest, then then I'd understand. But like, I don't know. But like Laura immediately just hates Cherry. And I feel like she and I I feel like the TV series tries to justify it as like she's just overprotective because she lost her daughter. So yes, Daniel does did have an older sister named Rose, who died at the age of two. And so the TV series I think tries to to explain her over-protective nature as like she's just over-protective because of her daughter's death, and she doesn't like now she's so over-protective of Daniel that to like because she doesn't want him to die, obviously. But I don't know, I did not get over-protective because my daughter died, and I'm trying to protect my son from the world. I got negative boy mom vibes, and there's just so many vibes like moments like that where I just felt like you're weirdly obsessed with your son. Like, stop. Like, no wonder he's kind of desperate to get away from you. But anyway, let's move on from that. Yeah, that's that's I s and I'll get more into why by the end I was Team Daniel and not team either one of them, but I was very much on Cherry's side for like the first four episodes. It's only a six episode mini-series, so like throughout the majority, I was Team Cherry. There were a few things that I was like, but I I that didn't well, that it got clarified in the last two episodes, and the last two episodes are what made me Team Daniel. And I was like, you need both, like none of neither one of these

Trips And The Accident Comparison

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women should be in your life. But anyway, so Cherry in the TV series and the book used to have a boyfriend named Leo. Now Leo in the book very much broke up with her because she was of Leo's also very much upper class, and so he broke up with her once it was once she was like, She's not of my status, like this never gonna work. So, like, I'm gonna break up with her. So he breaks up with her and she does mention him a few times, but that's it. Like, she's she's just like, I'm not gonna let what happened to Leo happen. What happened between me and Leo happened between me and Daniel. So I'm gonna like, I'm gonna make sure that like I secure Daniel now. So that's it. That's it. Like he's just mentioned like that in the book. He plays a much bigger role in the TV series, and he's so he and Cherry kind of had a bad breakup. And it's one of those things that gets revealed that Cherry is herself a little bit, I don't know, I don't know what to call it. Like not, I don't want to say narcissistic, antisocial, maybe. You know, one of those people that just cares about themselves, and if like they hurt you, or if you hurt them, like they want to hurt you back and they don't care how they do it, and they feel no remorse for what they did. I don't remember exactly what that falls into. So Cherry is that, whatever that diagnosis is, without me diagnosing her, but like she gives off those vibes. So he plays a much Leo Cherry's ex plays a much bigger role. Not like that much bigger, but he plays a bigger role in that he gets married to his new girlfriend and Cherry sabotages the wedding because she feels justified in doing so. Um, and he's he confronts her and is like, you need to like stop being so obsessed with me, stop stalking me. And she wasn't, she really wasn't at um at the start of the TV series before then there were issues there. But um, so when she I don't condone that she did it, um, I don't, I don't know, just move on. But um I sensed a little like I don't condone what she did again, but it felt a little bit more justified at that point than some of the other stuff Laura was doing at at this point. But anyway, so in the book, the family has a vacation home in France, and in the TV series, their vacation home is in Spain. Probably just cheaper to film in Spain, honestly. But and but yeah, so they go on holiday in France and Spain, respectively. And in the book, again, Daniel and Cherry just started dating. Laura's very like, I want to get to know you, like, come with us. We're going on vacation, we're going to our vacation house in France. Like, feel free to stay with, like, you can stay with us for the weekend or whatever. So originally Cherry is supposed to stay with them for just the weekend, and then Daniel and his mom were gonna stay longer, and then Cherry calls her job and is like, my grandma died, so I have to stay longer. And so she gets she like stays on much longer at this um vacationing with them than she does, than she was supposed to. And during this time, she finds ways to isolate Daniel. So anytime Laura's like, let's do this, Cherry's like, I don't know, Daniel. I don't really want to do that. And Daniel's very much like in his romantic puppy love face. So everything Cherry wants to do, he wants to do. So he doesn't really bite his his uh cherry on it. It's like, I think we're gonna do this, mom. So like Cherry finds ways like that to isolate Daniel from his mother. So that's red flag number one in the book. In the TV series, they go to Daniel's the one that invites Cherry to Spain, and Laura's like, I guess, like I really don't like her. And again, she keeps finding ways to not like her and just hate her. There's like again, like I really at this point did not understand why Laura hated Cherry so much in the TV series. Like that her hatred toward her was just so unjustified, and it and yeah, it it was just like, what is what is wrong with you, Laura? What is wrong with you? So anyway, so she does discover things on the trip that are like a little suspicious, but I don't know, it still felt more like to answer the question is like, is she justifiably cautious or consumed by paranoia? I felt like she was just paranoid at this point, and mind you, I know we were saying like Cherry's point of view, but I think Cherry's point of view also just added, I don't know, like, I don't know. I still just feel like Laura in the TV series hated Cherry for no reason. Laura in the book, little by little, starts building up evidence, or I guess evidence that starts making her really suspicious of Cherry. And so Laura in the book is a lot more justified in her once she does reach a point where it's like, I don't like Cherry, it's justified because again, Cherry's isolating her son or trying just finding ways to keep them separate. So, yeah, so Laura at this in the book at this point is so desperate to get to know Cherry because she doesn't know anything about this new girlfriend that at that point she snoops, which is wrong, but she does snoop in in Cherry's belongings because she's like, Who is this girl? Like, I know nothing about her other than she keeps finding ways to like separate me and Daniel. So this is like this trip to France is an annual family, and by family, I just mean Laura and Daniel. Daniel's dad is not a huge presence in the book, like he is there, but he's he does not play as important a role as he does in the TV series. But even then, I don't really need to talk about Howard all that much. But yeah, so anyway, once they get back from the holiday and everything, Daniel's birthday is approaching in the TV series, and he and his mom have a tradition that they go out to see something on the West End, a show on the West End, and then they have dinner, and that's how they celebrate his birthday every year. And so she's fully expecting that to happen. But Cherry is like, Oh, I'm sorry, this was meant to be a surprise, but I already got his tickets to go rock climbing for your birthday. And Daniel's like, Okay, that's awesome. And so they go rock climbing for his birthday. In the book, it's Laura's birthday. So she's talking about like, oh, my birthday weekend's coming up. We're gonna do what we always do for my birthday. And Cherry's like, oh, I this, I'm sorry, like this was supposed to be a surprise, but I already got his tickets to go whitewater rafting during that weekend. But I didn't, I didn't, I didn't realize it was your birthday, Laura. Like, I'm so sorry. If you want me to cancel the tickets, I will. And Laura's like, no, it's fine. It's just we already surprised him with it. And so again, she starts to get a little bit suspicious because it's like you conveniently have tickets on my birthday weekend. Cherry in the book does not have a surprise, like she kind of just blurts that out again. She's trying to isolate Daniel. So when the birthday, his mom's birthday plans come out, she like puts herself in debt to like buy tickets at this point. It's just for this surprise trip that she didn't actually have planned. But yeah. Um, at least the the TV, Cherry also doesn't necessarily, she doesn't have a trip planned either. She also doesn't go into debt about it, but she she it's a little bit more justified at least because it's like it's Daniel's birthday that she's taken away from his mom as opposed to like his mom's birthday. But and again, at this point, Cherry is doing it because Laura, she doesn't want to spend time with Laura because Laura's mean to her. So again, it's a little bit more justified why she wants to, and even then, she it's not like she she wants to spend time with Daniel alone on his birthday. In the book, it's very much like I'm you're not gonna have a relationship with your like I am making sure that you love me so that I do not lose this lifestyle. So yeah, she's which is why she's very much a gold digger in the book. And I think I don't know, I because like I said, I know Michelle Francis was like, I tried to show both points of view so you understand the motivations of both. And it's like I understand that she grew up poor, she didn't grow up in poverty though, and I can understand, especially after having a rich boyfriend like Leo, I'm getting a taste of the finer things in life, not wanting to go back to her. I I can understand wanting to move on up to becoming upper class. But Cherry in Charry in the book is just a lot more ambitious in terms of I'm gonna get myself out of my lower class, I'm gonna find a way to make the money so that I'm no longer lower class. Cherry is just in the book, is just relying on marrying Rich. So she's very it's like, I don't think you really so yeah, it's like you don't really love Daniel for Daniel, you love him for his money. So yeah, anyway, so in the TV series, the birthday surprise trip for Daniel is a trip to go rock climbing, and the surprise trip in the book on Laura's birthday is a white water trip. The Daniel goes, Daniel has an accident on this trip in both. So while rock climbing, he loses his grip, and Terry is an amateur rock climber, she's never gone rock climbing before, so she like not everything is secured the way it should be either. So when he loses his grip, there's he doesn't have the backup you have. I don't know what it's called. I'm not a rock climber, but you know that there's like backups to make sure you don't like fall off the mountain and die. So this fails, and so he he doesn't fall off the mountain and die, but he does fall several feet onto the ledge where Cherry is. So Daniel's rock climbing, he's gonna get to the next level, and then he's gonna help Cherry up. Um, so they are about halfway up the mountain, but Cherry's on a ledge waiting for Daniel so that they can continue up to the top. It fails and he falls several feet onto that ledge and he goes into a coma. Understandably, that's quite a fall. In the book, they go whitewater rafting, and so they just go over. I didn't I've never been whitewater rafting either, but like I guess it actually goes by pretty fast. So, like the instructor is like, who wants to do it again? And they do it again and again and again. And then at one during the he's like, All right, this is the last trip on their and on their way down. Cherry, like the the white waters start to get even more intense. And so Cherry, they need to start. Cherry gets her oar and she's like fighting against the wave, and at one point she like pulls back so hard on the oar. Daniel's sitting behind her that she hits Daniel in the head and it knocks him out. And he falls off the boat and he falls off the raft, and so they need to rescue him. So he's so that's what sends him into a coma in the book. Now I don't know much about white water rafting, and I'm not saying that he can't be knocked out. I'm going to assume that he gets into a coma more because of the water damage. I don't know how else to say it, but like the water he probably like that got into his system more so than the hit on the head. Just because I can't imagine Cherry. I mean, Cherry does knock him out, so she did hit him hard enough. I don't know, it just didn't really make sense. Like falling off several feet onto a ledge, a rock hard ledge. Like, yes, even if you're wearing protective gear, that's probably gonna do some damage. But like considering you wear helmets to go whitewater rafting, I I don't know. I just I didn't that I don't feel like she could have I think if I remember correctly, like his helmet might have moved a little bit out of place and she stuck him, struck him right in the middle of the forehead because there was like a mark there. So I guess it does make sense. I don't know, but I was like, she hit him on the head and he's wearing a helmet, but I do remember the mark on his forehead. So I guess like his helmet slipped out of place. Whatever. The point is he gets injured rock climbing versus whitewater rafting. So the way that Cherry and Daniel meet is Cherry works at a real estate office, and this is a very, very high-end real estate office. Like the part of London she works in, it's like million-dollar apartments, not homes, apartments. So this is a very luxury. This is a very luxury high-end real estate job. So Daniel, he's comes from a very well-off family. He's studying to be a doctor, so he comes in looking for a place, and so that's how he meets Cherry because she's his real estate agent. And so he ends up moving in. So Cherry does help him find an apartment. He moves in and he asks Cherry to move in with him, much to Laura's chagrin. She's not happy about that at all. So she moves in with him. In the book, he does get his apartment, but the accident happens before he can move in. So Cherry never has the opportunity to move in with him in

The Lie About Daniel Dying

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the book. And here is the unforgivable lie that I alluded to. So Daniel has this accident, and the doctors tell Laura and her husband that the prognosis is not looking good. And so when Cherry calls to check on Daniel, Laura says he died. She tells Cherry that Daniel died. Her excuse is I was fully expecting him to die. Because after they were just told, like, he's probably gonna die, it's not looking good. And then she tells Cherry that he died. And then after that, Daniel starts showing signs of coming out of his coma. So yeah. So what Laura did was not good. Not good at all. But she does. She that's what she says. And I will say one thing that so in the TV series, after Daniel has this rock climbing accident, Laura and her husband are both mad at Cherry because they're like, they kind of blame her for it. Laura does think that Cherry did something on purpose. Howard is more just like, this is my son. Howard is more just like, because of you, I'm about to lose my other child, thanks, Cherry. So he's more mad at her in like a grief-stricken sense. So they both, he's Daniel is at a hospital. I don't remember where they are. It's somewhere else in England that they went to go rock climbing. So he's in a hospital there, and both Daniel, I mean, both Howard and Laura tell Cherry to go back to London and they forbid her from visiting. And in the book, they actually give Cherry the opportunity to visit. So she's allowed to visit Daniel, I think, only on Tuesdays and Thursdays, something like that. Cherry's like completely forbidden from visiting him at all in the TV series. And that is one thing that just didn't make sense to me that like the book Laura, I mean, the book Cherry, who's actually a gold digger, was more likely to visit Daniel than TV show Cherry. She kind of just resigned herself to like the family's wishes. And I don't know, I can understand that she does feel guilty for the accident and she knows that his parents are mad at her. But I don't know, I don't know. I feel like if I would have like tried to see him, I feel, even if they didn't want me to, I feel like I sort of like, but she does call every day and ask how he's doing, and she begs them to let her see them until Laura lies and says that Daniel died. After Daniel comes out of the coma, the TV series Laura does feel guilty about lying to Cherry. And so she goes to visit Cherry at her and Daniel's apartment, and she sees that like Cherry has completely tidied up the place and that Daniel's credit card has been used. And so she takes that as like, oh, she's still she's still just a gold digger, even though TV show Cherry is not. But she takes that, and then during Cherry's point of view, we see that she's tidying up because she's so helpless, she's not allowed to see Daniel. That and then she's told that he dies, so she's like, I'm gonna make this easy. Like, she knows she can't stay at this apartment now that he's dead. So she's like, I'm gonna make it easier on the family by cleaning up a little bit. And she uses his credit card. Well, Cherry in the TV series is more financially well off and more not financially well off. Well, yeah, she is more financially well off. She's also more responsible with her money. She still doesn't have Daniel money, so she uses his credit card to buy him a shirt for to wear when he gets buried. So she's it's not like she's using his credit card for still you didn't shouldn't use his credit card, but she's using it thinking about Daniel. And then that's when when um when Cherry's about to be like, look at this shirt I bought for Daniel for his funeral. When is the funeral, by the way? Laura just says, Oh, we already had the funeral and we didn't invite you. You missed it bye. And so this obviously makes Cherry very upset and sad. Um, in the book, Laura doesn't, she's just glad at this point that Cherry is out of Daniel's life. So she doesn't like she she feels guilty about lying to Cherry, but she doesn't, she never intends on telling Cherry the truth. She's kind of just hoping that Daniel will move on. He'll recover, he'll move on, he'll forget about Cherry, and now she's out of his life, which is what Laura wants. And so the real estate office where Cherry worked was like really close to her house where she lives with where she lives with Daniel and and her husband. So she gets cherry fired, so that there's no way that Cherry and Daniel run will run into each other accidentally since they're in the same area. TV Laura also gets cherry-fired for that reason. Once, but again, she initially goes to tell Cherry the truth. And then once she's like, Oh, Cherry's just the goal digger, I'm not gonna let them get back together now. That's when she gets cherry-fired. But like book Laura is a lot more like she's out of my life. I don't, I don't, I'm not proud of what I did, but that's it. And TV Laura does feel a little bit more remorse and is gonna set things right, and then she changes her mind. And this is when it really starts. I mean, it was already very different, actually, the book and the TV series. But I feel like this is when after Daniel dies that it gets really, really different.

Fallout Careers Marriage And Revenge

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So Carrie is overcome with grief in the in the TV series. Um, Laura and Howard kick her out of the apartment um in a very brutal way. Like one day she just can't get into the apartment and she realizes, like, wow, okay, I guess I've been evicted. And so she has to move back in with her mom in like one of the poorer neighborhoods in London. I don't know if it's like the poorest, but it's one of the poor neighborhoods in London. And Book Cherry does as well. But like I said, Book Cherry never had the opportunity to move in with Daniel, but after she loses her job, she has to move out of her apartment. She was she lived in an apartment by herself. Without her job, she can't afford it anymore. So she has to move back in with her mom in the poor London neighborhood. And Cherry in the TV series is is definitely more overcome with grief. And Cherry in the book is more angry about like, I can't believe Daniel died. Also, it she goes on as Daniel's recovering. I mean, as Daniel's still in a coma, sorry, as Daniel's still in a coma in the hospital, Cherry goes on vacation to Mexico. And then when she comes back, it's when they tell her, Oh, Daniel died. Which, I don't know, that just confirmed, like, oh, you gold digger, like you can't even like visit your boyfriend or whatever. Like, you have to go on vacation to like get your mind off things. I don't know, that just didn't make sense. At least TV Cherry didn't necessarily make sense to me of how quickly she just accepted the family's demands. Because I feel like I would put up more of a fight. Maybe I'm just saying that, but I feel like I would put up more of a fight to make sure that I could see Orlando. Thankfully, his family loves me, so I don't have to worry about that. But if they didn't, I feel like I would have put up more of a fight, but at least she is checking in constantly and is genuinely worried about him. So this is what I mean about Cherry being more ambitious in the TV series. So Cherry more ambitious in the sense of like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna get myself out of this, out of my current status, but if if I have to by myself, having a rich boyfriend would be nice, but I can do it by myself if I have to. So before the accident when Howard and Laura were getting to know Cherry, you know, he asked her like what she did for a living. She said she worked in real estate because her goal in life was to open her own real estate business and and focus on affordable housing. And Howard is very impressed by that. And he's like, I have a friend who like this is what he focuses on. Like, if you're ever interested in like working for him or anything like that, just here's his information. And like Cherry completely forgets about this until you know she's back in with her mom, she's going through her things, and then she comes across the business card of this connection that Howard had made, or that this connection that Howard referred her to. So she goes to um, so she calls up this man and she sets in up an interview with him. He's very impressed, he hires her, and they happen since he knows Howard, he's friends with Howard, so he knows Laura and Daniel. And so it it just happens to come up in conversation, like, oh, you know, ever since Daniel died, blah, blah, blah. And the guy's like, Daniel, Daniel didn't die. What are you talking about? And she's like, What? And he's like, Yeah, no, he didn't die. In fact, he's uh having lunch with his mom right now, and there's like a restaurant in the same building where Cherry just had her interview. So she goes to this restaurant, sees that Daniel is very much alive, and then confronts, and that's how she finds out the truth. At this point, she doesn't realize that Laura's lied to her to um, she thinks that Daniel might have been in on it. So she confronts Daniel and Laura at the restaurant and is like, if you wanted to break up with me, like you could have just broken up. You didn't have to tell me that you died. You didn't have to have your mom tell me that you died, and he's like, What are you talking about? And then that's when Laura's like, I told her that you died. And um, because this whole time Daniel's been asking for Cherry, and his mom just keeps being like, Oh, I guess, I don't know, honey, like I guess she ghosted you. So this is when Laura, I mean, this is when Cherry and Daniel realize that Laura lied to both of them, and they take some time apart, but then they get back, like some time to process everything, and then they get back together. Cherry is determined to then screw up Laura's life. In the book, Cherry, it wasn't really clear to me how Cherry ended up finding out that Daniel was still alive, but she goes to Laura's place of work and is like, I know he's still alive. And then she goes, um, and so Laura's like, oh my gosh, I gotta tell Daniel what I did. But she doesn't, before she gets a chance to do that, Cherry shows up at Laura and Daniel's house and puts on this whole act of like fainting in front of Daniel and being like, I thought you were dead. And Daniel's like, Why would you think that? And Cherry's like, Because your mom told me you were dead. And Daniel's like, What? And yeah, so master manipulator Cherry in the book does this whole show, and again, she continues to find ways to isolate Daniel from his mother. And the in the TV series, Daniel, Cherry confronting Daniel and Laura at the restaurant is what pushes Cherry and Daniel back together because they find out that Laura lied to both of them. So in the TV series, Howard very much loves Laura and wants their relationship to continue. After he finds out what Laura did, and Laura, like after Daniel finds out that Laura lied to him and Cherry, and he finds out what the lie was, he's like, What the hell is wrong with you? And so he stops responding to his mom. And so he he um he stops talking to his mom. And so Laura's obviously distressed, even though this is her own doing. And so she misses like a very important meeting at work. So the next art gallery show, because she missed that meeting, like drops out, and so she gets in touch with her old friend slash ex-lover Lilith, who she's like, please, I need to showcase your art at my gallery because this other person dropped out, and because they're ex-lovers, Howard's not comfortable with her getting back in touch with Lilith. And Howard also finds out about the lie, so he breaks up with Laura at that point. So Howard in the TV series is very much in love with his wife and wants and wants to make their marriage work. In the book, he they're married, but they haven't had a relationship in a while. Like he's been cheating on her for years with this other woman. And Howard in the TV series is shown with another woman, but we end up finding out that Laura was the one that was like, I want to open up our marriage. And then she says, I don't want to have an open marriage anymore. And Howard's like, Thank God, I never wanted that. I always wanted just you. And then he breaks up with her. Very good reasons. I'm I understand why he broke up with her. But in the book, like, they don't they don't have a relationship anymore. He's just, they're married, but they don't have a relationship anymore. So um, Howard at this, like, once he finds out about everything, he's just like, I don't know, I have my mistress, I'm happy with her, um, you're never gonna see me again. So he doesn't really care about the divines of his marriage. Howard in the TV show does. So at this point, this is when I after after this is when I started to be Team Daniel in the TV series, because I was like, he neither one of these women deserve to be in his life, honestly. I don't care that one of them is his mother. Like, she's weird, like she has a weird obsession with her son. Like, this is not normal. I I I don't know. I didn't get I got like, you know, the vibes. So I was so since Laura ruined things for Cherry, again, Cherry now wants revenge against Laura, and Laura feels no remorse I mean, Cherry feels no remorse for any of her actions. Like she's um all she wants is to hurt Laura and sabotage her and ruin her life the way Laura ruined hers. And she doesn't care how it happens. So this is when we start to see fully, fully see the red flags in Cherry, and it's kind of like Team Daniel, Team Daniel, cut both of these women

Cherry Escalates And Laura Investigates

SPEAKER_00 40:50

out of your lives. You just be you'd be much happier without either one of them. But Cherry goes to confront Laura at the art gallery, and this is just in the TV series. This does not happen. Like in the book, Cherry's just a gold digger. Cherry's just a gold digger. So in the TV series, like Cherry goes to confront Laura and she like smacks herself with a champagne glass on the head because they're talking privately, and then she just after she hits herself on the head, she screams and is like, Laura hit me, Laura hit me. Um, and so like Laura's reputation just continues to take a hit. And so Laura continues to do some more digging into Cherry in the TV series, and we find out that um Cherry always claimed that her father was dead. We end up finding out that her father is not dead. Her father is stuck in like like a nursing home, but not not a nursing home. I'm just gonna call it a nursing home, but it's not it's not a nursing home. Like he suffered a traumatic brain injury, and so he needs to be under constant care because of it. So he lives in this home for adults that need that kind of constant care. So not necessarily a nursing home, but like he has his own room and there's nurses uh putting for seven on the clock and everything. Um, so she figures out that Cherry's father's still alive and that Cherry more than likely had something to do with the TBI he has. Again, Cherry did not like her father, and so because he hurt her, she hurt him and feels no remorse for it. But in the book, her father is very much dead. He really did die. So this I'm this change was just made to show Cherry's psychopathy, I guess. Um, but no, in the in the book, he's he's very much dead. Cherry doesn't have it, doesn't have a father, a living father. Um, so yeah, so the Cherry's sabotage in the book is more so to isolate Daniel even more and make sure that she locks him down. While in the TV series, she is actively finding ways to screw up Laura's life. So, like I said, she smashed the champagne glass on her head, she vandalizes the art, Lilith's art, which the only stipulation that Lilith had for um allowing her art to be displayed at Laura's art gallery was that Laura protect it with her life. And so once Cherry vandalizes it, Laura's relationship with Lilith is severed. And and yeah, so in in the book, uh Cherry just keeps finding ways like Daniel. Um, obviously he he is mad at his mom, which makes sense. Like I would be very upset if my mom lied and was telling people that I died um when I didn't, especially just to keep someone away. So Daniel is upset with his mom, but he does start, he loves his mom and they're very close and they have a good relationship. So he does start. Um, the more she's like, please let me explain what happened. I just want to talk to you. I what I did was wrong, but I had my reasons. He starts softening up to the idea of talking to her and seeing her and forming that relationship again. And Cherry keeps like she'll delete voicemails from Laura, she'll delete text messages from Laura. So Daniel never sees his mom trying to get in touch with him. So yeah, so so Cherry's sabotage in the book is a lot more about isolating Daniel more. Than anything else. So again, as Laura is in the TV series, she is digging into Cherry's past and everything, she ends up confronting Cherry's mother. And Cherry's mother is like, what you have to know about Cherry is that when she wants something, there's nothing's gonna stop her from getting what she wants. She will do anything. And Laura is secretly recording this. And so this is what she tries to tell Daniel like. So she she invites Daniel over. Okay, this is the part that really did not make sense to me. Again, crazy boy mom vibes. I don't know. Okay. She finally convinces Daniel to go visit her at home. To go to go visit her so that she can tell Daniel, like, this is what I was protecting you from. Understandable, yes. What is not normal for a mom to do is drug her own child. So she drugs Daniel so that he can't leave her house. And she's like, you need to listen to this recording that I took of Cherry's mother. Which, like, even if you're forcing your son to listen to it while he's drugged, how much do you think he's gonna remember? And so why? Okay, so yeah. So she drugs him so she can force him to listen to this recording. Because that's the only way he'll listen to it, I guess. Because he at this point he's very like, no, like, screw you, mom, like screw you. And it's like, can't you just like have it playing as he walks in? I don't know. Like, there's better ways to go up, and if he's not trusting cue, it's justified because you lied about his death and lied to him and said that his girlfriend never asked about him. So, yeah. Okay, so she drugs him because that's totally normal. But it's like, why would you think drugging him is the answer? Like, how much of this recording is he gonna is he gonna remember when he wakes up in the morning? All he's gonna remember is my mom drugged me. I don't understand what your plan is here. So, anyway, Daniel does in the book does start growing suspicious of Cherry all by himself just because he starts thinking about things and is like, well, she does seem to to not want me to talk to my mom. If my mom is my mom had to have had a reason to lie about my like because their relationship is a normal mother-son relationship, he does start to see the red flags himself about Cherry, and so he starts having second thoughts, and then this is further justified once he runs into Cherry's mom. So Cherry's mom goes to see him, and like Cherry mentions something to her when she went to pick up the last of her things at her mom's apartment, and her mom's like, Oh, so she goes, she goes to see if what Cherry told her was true. So after Cherry tells her this, she goes, she goes to Daniel and is like, I don't want it to be true. I didn't want it to be true, but now I see that like like my daughter's a gold digger. She doesn't say that phrasing, but she essentially says, like, my daughter's a gold digger and all she wants is your money. Or she just wants to be with you, like she's so ashamed of where she comes from. And so Daniel at this point is like, all my mom's suspicions were right. And again, because they have a normal mother-son relationship, Daniel has no reason to doubt Laura the way he does in the TV series. Their weird obsession with him. So Daniel does start second-guessing um his relationship with Cherry. And no, actually, I think Daniel calls Cherry's mom. And whatever, it doesn't matter. The point is, Cherry's mom tells him, like, she doesn't want me, she she wants her money. And so once Cherry figures this out, Cherry, Cherry is the one to drug Daniel. Makes more sense for the girlfriend to be the one drugging her boyfriend than for a mom to drug her son. I still okay, whatever. So Cherry drugs Daniel because she's like, I need to get rid of this woman, aka Daniel's mom. Or else she's gonna keep, she's gonna keep putting ideas in his head. He's already talked to my mom. I'll deal with my mom later. But he's already talked to my mom. She's getting his mom is getting too into his head. So I need to like put an end to her to make sure Daniel is mine and mine alone and mine alone forever. So she drugs Daniel, and Daniel and Laura had set up a meeting time that night. So the plan was for Daniel to go over to visit Laura without Cherry. And so Laura, so Cherry drugs Daniel so that he can't go and visit his mom. So she drugs him so he knocks out so she can take care of Laura. And then when he wakes up in the morning, she wakes up in bed with him, and they just so happen to receive the news that there was an awful accident and his mom is dead. But he'll have no idea because he was so tired he just knocked out and fell asleep. Um, this does not happen. I mean, this does not go according to plan. Daniel is kind of he's he does knock out for a little bit, and then it starts, he realizes he's a doctor. So he's like, I've been drugged, and then he can't find Cherry, and then he's like, My mom's not safe. So he like, as best as he can, all drugged up, he goes to his mom's house. So there's been construction going on at Laura's mom's house. So Cherry's plan is to just push Laura into the construction zone and make it seem like it was an accident, like she fell in there and died. And then she's gonna go back to the house. And it was there was no record of her ever being there. No one ever saw Cherry there. So it's just gonna be a tragic accident that in the middle of the night Laura fell into the hole and died.

Two Endings And A Possible Season Two

SPEAKER_00 49:24

So this is where another so the the ending is very, very different. In the TV show, after she drugs her son, Daniel, uh, Cherry shows up, they have a confrontation, they start fighting with each other, and they end up in the pool and they're fighting with each other. Laura is drowning Cherry, she almost succeeds, but then Daniel in his drug state shows up and ends up drowning his mother, and then he's kind of shocked about like, oh my gosh, like I killed my mother. And it's one of those things where Orlando pointed that he used to be an EMT, so he knows this, but he was basically saying, like, she just drowned, like she's she's not dead yet, if that makes sense. Like, you have a certain window to perform CPR and someone get the water out of someone when they've drowned before they're officially like dead. So it's like if Daniel Daniel as a doctor would know that his mom is knocked out, she drowned, yes, but she's he can still bring her back to life. So the fact that he doesn't, it's like you want her to stay dead. So in the in the book, Cherry's the one that ends up getting. So it's implied that Daniel is the one that pushed her, but the official report or the official statement that Daniel gives to the police is that as Cherry tried to push his mom in, his mom moved out of the way. Cherry lost her balance and fell in the hole all by herself. And Laura chooses to believe that. But it is heavily implied that Daniel's the one that does the pushing. So yeah, in the book, Cherry dies in the TV series Laura dies. And it's heavily implied that Laura's the one that dies because um, by keeping Cherry alive, she she gets married. Daniel and Cherry get married, they're expecting a child. This is all one year later, and then Moses, who is Laura's cat, is like playing with something under the radiator, and it's Laura's phone. So Daniel pulls it out, he charges it, he turns it on, and he finds the recording of Cherry's mom being like, Once my daughter wants something, she'll stop at nothing to get it. And Daniel's kind of like second guessing his marriage to Cherry. And so it's heavily implied that there might be a second season with now Daniel and Cherry being married and the consequences of that. So that's probably why Laura was the one that gets killed in the TV series, so that there's an opening for a second series, second season, but it's very much tied up with as pretty a bow as you can in a psychological thriller. So it's very, it's very finite. It's very final, final in the book.

Pets Violence Choices And Final Ratings

SPEAKER_00 51:54

So yeah, there was a few other things that I didn't talk about that I really didn't like, and that is that in the in the TV series, Moses, again, Moses is Laura's cat. Moses goes missing for in the first episode, and then he doesn't return, I think, until the last episode or the second to last episode. And we don't know what happened to Moses. During one of the flashback flashbacks, um, towards the once we start to see that we shouldn't be team Cherry either, we see Cherry let Moses out. Like he's in the bathroom, Cherry goes to the bathroom, Moses is in the bathroom with her, she lets him out through the bathroom window, and he goes missing for however many months. So I didn't like that, but I liked what happened in the book even less. So, in the book, once Cherry and Daniel are officially living together and she's trying, I know I did say most of her sabotage is to continue isolating Daniel. There is one bit of sabotage that she does to screw up Laura's life, and that is she buys two puppies, one for her and Daniel, and one which she justifies as like as a mercy killing. Yeah, she kills one of the puppies. Did not like that. She kills one of the puppies and mails it to one of the actresses that's set to star in Laura's new TV series and says, from Laura. I don't whatever. I don't I don't know why the actress would believe that Laura would send her a dead puppy. I don't know. Weirder things have happened. Uh uh, whatever. So yeah, so I did not like that. It's like, can we stop messing with kids and animals in our quest for revenge? I I I I don't I know that like, where is it gonna hurt the most to get revenge on someone? I understand that, but like in media, in media, can we focus on just getting revenge on the people who did the character wrong? Like, there's no need to involve children or their parents pets. They're completely innocent parties. Don't do it in real life either, obviously. I don't know. I just it really bugs me when people, when people take revenge on someone they're mad at via someone's pets or someone's children. That drives me nuts. Like, I don't whatever beef I have with someone is between me and them. I'm not gonna take it out on their innocent little animals or their innocent little children like that. But I I have a conscience, I guess. But anyway, so I did not like that. I'm glad they got rid of the dead puppy perspective. And I'm glad that Moses was okay in the TV series. I didn't like that Cherry let him out and he went missing. Again, stop messing with people's pets and children in your quest for revenge, but at least Moses was okay. Anyway, I rated the TV series three and a half stars, and I rated the book three stars. I think I appreciated the performances, like Olivia Cook's performance, she was great. Robin Wright was great as well. I just disagreed with some of the directorial choices, namely making her a weird boy mom that I just could not side with Laura ever. I just could not, I could not. And in the TV series, I was fully team Laura in the book, but in the TV series, I just even when we started to see like the psychopathic side of Cherry, it's like I'm I'm team neither, I'm team Daniel. Daniel, find someone better than both of these women. So the winner is the TV series. Yeah, I think if I'm gonna be honest in terms of psychological thriller, I was a little bit more on the edge of my seat with the book, but I'm not down for the dead puppy. Moses was okay in the TV series, so while I don't approve of Cherry letting Moses out, he's okay. He's okay, he survived. But I just feel like there was more, yeah, I don't know. I don't hate that there's there's gonna be a second season necessarily, but I do wish that we had kept the original ending. And I mean, with the mom like Laura in the TV series, no woman's gonna be good enough. So I feel like there still could have been a second series with Laura alive. But anyway, that is it for this week's episode of Books versus Movies.

Winner Next Read And Sign Off

SPEAKER_00 55:52

If you liked what you heard, leave it a rating and a review. Tell all your friends about it. And next time I will be talking about The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett and its 2020 adaptation secret garden. See you next time. Bye.