The synopsis for His & Hers is: His & Hers is a thriller that follows the investigation into a series of murders in a small town, told from the alternating perspectives of an estranged couple, news reporter Anna Andrews (Tessa Thompson) and Detective Jack Harper (Jon Bernthal).
One of my pet peeves is when people review things that they clearly were never going to like. When film critics who love high art pan a Jason Statham movie for being what one expects out of a Jason Statham movie, my response is, “Who is this review for? The scant few people who might think THIS TIME Jason Statham’s Beat ‘Em Ups might reach high art?”
I bring this up because, as much as I love Whodunnits, “His & Hers” basically hits everything I don’t want to watch so I feel like I’m not in a place to make a recommendation or real review of the show. One problem with going in blind on a show is that you miss the obvious red flags that you aren’t going to like it.
For starters, with so much going on in this world, the last thing I want to watch is a show with a bunch of people leading depressing, dreary lives. And, good lord, is everyone in this show dreary. Anna and Jack are estranged after losing their daughter. Anna comes home to find that her mother is dealing with alzheimer’s or dementia. Jack is staying with his sister and having to raise his niece because his sister is a drunk and doesn’t know who fathered her daughter.
And maybe it’s all of this dreariness but everyone in the show also seems like a bit of an asshole with a potential dash of psychopath. The one person who seemed somewhat OK is Priya, an Indian woman who seems to be recently hired to the local police department. Jack calls her “Boston” to really hammer home the fact that she’s not from around there. That’s pretty much all we ever learn about her. In the end, she’s more plot device than character.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Netflix greenlit this show right after watching HBO’s Mare of Easttown but the problem is HBO makes prestige drama and Netflix makes (mostly) pulpy trash. I think you can get away with dreary jackasses when you’re really digging into characters and hitting some deeper themes. Dreary pulp is exactly what I don’t want - a depressing show that doesn’t make sense in the end. I wasn’t wild about how “Sirens” ended but at least the journey was an enjoyable watch. And the goofiness of the ending didn’t feel so out of place in a world that already felt a bit unreal.
“His & Hers” felt like Netflix was trying to make an HBO style show, realized they couldn’t pull it off, so then the last two episodes they quickly switched to Ryan Murphy over-the-top approach. I can’t stress enough just how stupid the last two episodes of “His & Hers” are. There are some implausible moments in the first four episodes but the last two feel like they were written to be spoofed on SNL.
Beyond the general issues I had with the show, there weren’t really any other saving graces for me. Tessa Thompson and Jon Bernthal had no real chemistry and their one Emmy-bait scene when they finally talk about what happened to their relationship was just one trauma cliche after another. And, honestly, after watching them be dreary jackasses and potential murderers for four episodes, I quite frankly didn’t give a shit about their relationship. You really need to buy into the concept of “I love the leads in a show because they are the leads” to hold out any hope that these two crazy kids can make it work in the end.
If I was going to give a Recommended Expectation aka Recxpectation for this one, I’d say: Expect a dreary, depressing version of a trashy summer read adapted by Netflix, a company that (mostly) specializes in pricy straight-to-DVD level entertainment.
