A Good Girls Guide to Murder (2024) - Review

Aug 19, 2024

3 min read

A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder follows Pip (Emma Myers), a teenager, as she investigates the five-year-old murder of a local girl. The case was closed when the girl’s boyfriend at the time seemingly confessed even though a body was never found. Pip believes there is more to the story and sets out to find the truth as part of a school project.

Honestly, I should have paid more attention to the description of this show rather than just the title. I thought it had more to do with a ‘good’ girl who finds herself needing to commit murder, creating a guide for doing so successfully (and come one, doesn’t the title lead to that). I would be interested in seeing that show. But that’s not what I got here. I’m definitely not the target audience, and as such, maybe that’s why I never fully get engaged with it. That’s not to say that it is bad. It just wasn’t quite for me. But there are many good things about it.

For starters, I did like most of the performances. Most of the cast doesn’t have a whole lot to do, and here isn’t a ton of character development other than Pip, but everyone is believable. The show relies on Pip to do all the heavy lifting, and fortunately Emma Myers is up to the task. She does an excellent job of portraying Pip as having enough determination to take on this mystery, while still imbuing her with normal teenager struggles. Without her performance, nothing works.

I also enjoyed the production design and especially the cinematography. The series does an excellent job of conveying the small-town atmosphere that is at once inviting, while still hinting at a darker underbelly. And the many overhead shots of cars driving down one lane roads through the trees gives a sense of isolation and makes it believable that a girl could go missing and never be found.

While the show does have an engaging plot, it comes up a bit short as a whodunnit. Almost everyone in town has something to hide, and a reason to lie, whether connected to the murder or not. As Pip investigates, she comes across clues almost accidentally. Pip tends to be lucky more than anything, and there are perhaps a few too many coincidences. Her investigation is shoddy at best, and while that is believable for a teenager trying to investigate a murder, not so much for a teenager to solve a murder. And truly, this all felt like a case the police, small town or not, should have been able to solve.

The show also tries to inject some social commentary into the episodes, and that fails almost completely. The show is not shy about stating justice is hard to come by for some, but it never wants to explore that idea. Any time the issue is raised it is dismissed quickly as if it was never more than an afterthought. I can understand why a show like this doesn’t want to go too far down that path, but if you’re going to start, you need to commit to it.

For it’s six-episode run, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder was decent enough to keep me watching. I do feel like there are some pacing issues, and perhaps it may have made a better movie than a series. Still, I’m not sorry I watched it. And I can certainly see why some would enjoy it. Personally, I thought it was good but not something I would revisit or even necessarily be interested in seeing another season. But that’s me.