Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Why Women Kill’ On CBS All Access, Where Marc Cherry Has Wives Being Desperate Across Six Decades

Marc Cherry has been writing for TV since the early ’90s, when he was a producer on The Golden Girls. But he’s made the biggest impact on TV since 2004, when Desperate Housewives premiered and became one of network TV’s last watercooler shows. Between that show and Lifetime’s Devious Maids, his formula has been set: empowered women, telenovela-style twists and turns, and lots of mystery. His new CBS All Access series, Why Women Kill, has all of those elements. Does it work?

WHY WOMEN KILL: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: “The Husbands.” We see three husbands, all dressed in white, describe how they met their wives. They also collectively say that things were good until they discovered the husbands’ secrets. “Then all hell broke loose.”

The Gist: Why Women Kill concentrates on one house in Pasadena over three time periods, and what happens after the couples that live in that house in each time period are torn apart when the wife finds out something big that the husband has been hiding.

In 1962, the Stantons, Beth Ann (Ginnifer Goodwin) and Robert (Sam Jaeger), move in; he’s a rocket scientist based in Glendale, and she, well… her job is to serve Robert. She’s your typical ’60s housewife, and seems to take her subservient role with a smile, especially since their ability to have children is compromised. They meet their neighbors, Leo (Adam Ferrara) and Sheila (Alicia Coppola) Mosconi; Leo recognizes Robert, and eventually, Beth Ann finds out accidentally that Leo saw Robert kissing a Glendale diner waitress named April. When Beth Ann drives to the diner and confirms it for herself, she tries to confront April (Sadie Calvano), she chickens out, but decides to use what she knows to her advantage, telling Robert that she wants a lot more out of life than to just serve him.

In 1984, Simone (Lucy Liu) is a veteran socialite who loves jewelry, designer clothes, and throwing expensive parties in her Pasadena home. Her third husband Karl (Jack Davenport) is completely supportive of Simone’s penchant for self-aggrandizing (there are multiple portraits of her in their house). But during yet another party at the house, a mysterious envelope arrives, showing Karl kissing a man. She immediately tells him to pack up and move out, but instead he ODs, and she has to cover that up with her nosy neighbors. The next morning, though, she’s severely tempted by Tommy (Leo Howard), the son of her friend Naomi (Kate Finneran). But he’s still 17… for at the next two days.

In 2019, a thoroughly modern couple move in: Taylor (Kirby Howell-Baptiste) is an activist and high-powered lawyer, and Eli (Reid Scott) is a screenwriter who has had success in the past, but is finding it hard to find work or creative inspiration now. They both work, the place is a mess, they Netflix and chill every night. Oh, and they have an open marriage. It feels that Taylor’s side is more open than Eli’s, though, just by choice — Eli agreed to the open relationship because that’s what Taylor wanted. When Taylor brings one of her hook-ups, the gorgeous Jade (Alexandra Daddario) to the house after Jade gets scared by a stalkerish ex, Eli at first objects because it breaks some of their ground rules. Then he sees Jade and agrees, and becomes even more tempted when Jade tells him that the biggest movie he wrote is her all-time favorite.

Our Take: Why Women Kill has pretty much all the earmarks of a Marc Cherry show that you’ve come to expect since Desperate Housewives debuted 15 (!) years ago. Empowered women, fast and funny dialogue, and situations that seem to zig when you think they’ll zag. He’s also been very good at teasing out what a show is about and what its central mystery is for as long as viewers can handle … then stretching it out for a season or two after that. That’s what we fear might happen with Why Women Kill, despite fine performances and a premise that seems to deconstruct the DH formula and reconstruct it over six decades.

The idea is that all three of these women are going to deal with their husbands’ infidelity in one way or another, but the husbands might not be the ones these women “kill.” The idea that these women are going to kill their husbands seems just too easy for Cherry, and it becomes readily apparent that these women will more likely make their husbands miserable and perhaps make them terrified for their lives. When “The Wives” get their white-clad monologue at the end of the episode, it’s clear that “Why women kill” can refer to the fact that a former friend outed Simone’s husband, or the “other woman” or in Taylor’s case, “The man who did her wrong.” It feels like a show where the Occam’s razor solution to the title is going to be stretched past the point of believability, leaving viewers impatient and annoyed.

The stories, at least for now, are pretty imbalanced. Goodwin is reserved as the ready-to-please Beth Ann, happy to pour her husband another cup of coffee after he taps on the cup like he’s calling over a waitress; her story has the most potential to go bloody and haywire. Liu, always excellent, is purposely over-the-top as the status-conscious Simone, who feels like Cherry’s attempt to wrap Krystal and Alexis Carrington into one character as a tribute to Dynasty and the other ’80s primetime soaps he likely loved. The modern story seems to be more Reid’s vehicle than Howell-Baptiste’s, considering he makes most of the jokes and is featured in more of the scenes. We’re not even sure what he’s going to do to stoke the flames of Taylor’s anger by the end of the first episode; our money is on him sleeping with Jade and keeping it secret from Taylor, who likely likes Jade more than she lets on, or at least pushing for a threesome, as his buddy tries to get him to do. But for now, it seems like the modern story has much less dramatic potential than the other two do and is just there to show that, yes, Marc Cherry can write to today’s audiences.

Sex and Skin: Surprisingly, not a whole heck of a lot, given it’s a streaming series. We see Jade go swimming in her underwear. There’s some light smooching here and there. But that’s it.

Parting Shot: At the end of “The Wives” monologue, they say “For the woman who kills, only one thing really matters… Does she get away with it?”

Sleeper Star: We definitely enjoyed Ferrara and Coppola as the Mosconis, two people from Brooklyn who don’t seem to buy into the early ’60s idea that the woman should serve the man.

Most Pilot-y Line: Jade thanks Taylor and Eli for their hospitality by cleaning up and making breakfast. She asks Eli if he likes bacon. “Well, I’m Jewish, so…. yeah!” he replies. Believe us, we laughed hard at the line out of sheer recognition. And Reid delivers it perfectly But it’s a setup-punchline joke that feels out of place on a show like this.

Our Call: STREAM IT, but prepare to be frustrated. Like other Cherry shows, the performances in Why Women Kill will keep you watching, but the story has the potential to fly off the rails in a hurry.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

Stream Why Women Kill on CBS All Access