- Network: Netflix
- Series Premiere Date: Dec 12, 2024
Critic Reviews
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“Dead to Me” creator Liz Feldman has once again delivered a whip-smart and heartfelt comedy for Netflix. This time, the series follows married couple Lydia (Lisa Kudrow) and Paul Morgan (Ray Romano) as they attempt to sell their luxurious Los Feliz home. While the concept appears slight, what unfolds is anything but. .... She has mastered an expansive ensemble series. Each couple that desires the Los Feliz house feels as fleshed out as Lydia and Paul, and just as entertaining.
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What gives No Good Deed extra oomph is the ongoing murder mystery that unravels slowly over the eight episodes. The action flashes back and forth through time and the suspects are many. The ultimate culprit is a great plot twist that I, for one, did not see coming. And, thanks to Kudrow and Romano, the finale hits hard emotionally.
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The series excels as both a whodunit and a deeper examination of marriage and relationships, and how much our partnerships can tolerate lies and trauma. Thoughtful and witty scripts, a magnetic cast and a lot of gags make the series work, adding up a lot of little bits to a great whole.
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Aesthetic distractions notwithstanding, “No Good Deed” succeeds as both an aspirational open house and a thoughtful gaze inside the emotional walls of a home, especially the memories, funny and forlorn, that hold everything in place.
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No Good Deed sparkles with terrific performances. The cast are the very best wallpaper available: together they cover up almost all of the cracks.
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“Deed” feels shallow and nonspecific in comparison to, say, “White Lotus,” and its mystery is not all that hard to crack. But there’s something alluring about watching the Spill Your Guts Fairy visit each character, the various rituals of shame, blame and contrition.
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“No Good Deed” churns through plot at top speed, to the point where it occasionally drags, because eventually a new mystery can’t satisfy as much as some answers would. But even then, it’s a pretty enjoyable ride.
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No Good Deed is probably easiest to enjoy between episodes three and six. The bold-faced twists are entertainingly ludicrous, the dialogue crackles and there’s enough unspoken anxiety and resignation in Kudrow and Romano’s performance to keep everything grounded.
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If there's one place where No Good Deed stumbles, it's in giving equal weight to Lydia and Paul's grieving processes, even when they differ. Despite this, No Good Deed is a prime example of an ensemble piece done right.
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Netflix’s eight-episode black comedy series doesn’t grab you with the audaciousness of “Dead to Me” and it doesn’t always realize the full potential of its characters, but does it ever have one killer cast and an intriguing premise that takes a good twist near the end.
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Great cast, funny lines, but "Deed" loses momentum after a strong start.
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With the show’s energy diverted to so many characters, its final big reveal just blends in to all the rest of the chaos going on. As we enter the season of excess, No Good Deed is no turkey – but it is certainly overstuffed.
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What we’re hoping is that the one good story out of the four in No Good Deed can carry the series’ first season, at least until the others improve. The show’s excellent ensemble deserves that kind of patience.
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“No Good Deed” features such a solid setup — and such a stacked cast, led by Ray Romano and Lisa Kudrow as a couple looking to sell their Los Angeles villa — that its overreliance on twists can be counterproductive. In the parlance of its central industry, once the eight-episode season settles into its story, one can appreciate the good bones beneath all the unnecessary fixtures.
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While No Good Deed is no Dead to Me, its curiosity gap is tantalising enough, and there isn't a bauble in sight if you're looking for a frivolous, undemanding non-festive watch over the holidays.
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It doesn’t exactly go for the subtle approach, preferring to hammer the puzzle pieces together with a clumsy fist. It may be so light as to make me wonder whether the idea or the punny title came first, but it is enjoyable, nevertheless.
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There are hijinks and it has the kind of insistently plinky score that says, “This is lighthearted!” But it also wants to take grief and guilt seriously. Tonally, it’s too disjointed to nail either style or find a way for them to work together. It is also yet another movie-length premise stretched into an eight-episode series.
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The violence and central mystery (which we will not spoil) fueling “No Good Deed” seem inorganic throughout. Although the show mostly delivers on its comedic promise, it never sells the “dark” aspect.
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The series has the quality of being written on the whole from the outside in, its characters created to accommodate a plot, rather than plot emerging from the characters.
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No Good Deed has flashes of success when it dwells on how Paul and Lydia are coping. But the show gets distracted often with brief flashbacks and meandering twists.
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Piles a raft of implausible elements on top of a preposterous premise to create a condemnable edifice of bad jokes, lame mysteries, and strained performances.
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Despite an all-star cast and a promising premise, Netflix’s No Good Deed falls victim to thin characterization and an inconsistent tone.
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Despite a few fun performances (Rogers nails his loopy one-liners) from a cast of charming comedy veterans, it’s impossible to get invested in the fates of people we only know as pawns in Feldman’s messy chess game. A season-long series of flashbacks to a fateful night in the house feels cheaper with each episode.