The Girlfriend

The series is a wild, thrilling ride from its opening scene until its unsettling conclusion.

This refusal to take itself too seriously helps to insulate some of The Girlfriend‘s craziest turns. You don’t have to pretend there’s anything “realistic” or “relatable” about the ways these people are behaving, or that there’s some greater lesson to be found here. You just have to be in the mood for something a little bit silly, and a little bit nasty.

The Girlfriend has a lot going for it. Sanderson and Cooke have a sizzling chemistry and work brilliantly as a screen couple. Wright adds a touch of class to a fundamentally silly tale, as does Waleed Zuaiter as her urbane husband.

It’s breathless stuff, with a hyper-realistic feel that makes it more compelling than sinister. And while there’s a smattering of class commentary and occasional attempts at deeper meaning, this is a drama that should be enjoyed for what is: a rollercoaster of fun and games.

Into this affluent family with its … interesting dynamic comes Cherry (Olivia Cooke, whose delicately ambiguous performance makes the whole thing sing).

Ava Max’s “Sweet But Psycho” blasting over the final episode’s credits made me audibly groan. But The Girlfriend is otherwise sexy and slick. It’s a perfectly easy watch that’s sure to get people talking – and taking sides.

On the one hand, the more time spent focusing on the two leads, the better. On the other, there comes a point where he doesn’t quite seem worth all the fighting, in the emotional or physical sense. But Wright and Cooke both understand the assignment, and the payoff to the rivalry feels worth the build-up. Not a deep story, but a fun one.

Despite the thrilling conclusion, The Girlfriend is at its strongest when it forces us to admit that while we might side with one woman at one moment, we will never have the full picture until we get a look through the other character's eyes, and that can only be accomplished with Cherry and Laura facing off against each other.

“Girlfriend” is hardly high art, but it is an outright gas.

“The Girlfriend” is, at the end, escapist trash. But it’s glossy and richly satisfying trash, right up until the perfectly devilish epilogue.

We’re still not sure if The Girlfriend is going to be a taut, gripping thriller or just make us roll our eyes so much that they get tired. But the first episode shows enough promise, and makes viewers ask enough questions about both of its main characters, to keep us watching.

A glossy drama whose prestige sheen covers an unapologetically trashy center, it’s indulgent and ridiculous in all the ways that make the popular women behaving badly genre of television enjoyable.

The increasingly outlandish actions of our leads do keep things light, lean, and moving swiftly along, a plus when the mystery has largely been removed from the narrative. And while most thrill seekers might disapprove of the lack of startling twists and turns throughout the show’s six installments, The Girlfriend finds ripe drama in the interpersonal, offering up fruitful things to say about perspective, prejudice, and possessiveness.

The extent of Cherry’s apparent psychosis is a mystery, but she’s also made to seem sympathetic, and not in a pity-the-poor-madwoman fashion. Laura is awful, even in her own version of events, which is part of the confusion in “The Girlfriend.” There’s no one to root for. But we’re not sure why.

“The Girlfriend” is a struggle to get through, despite its relatively low episode count.

There's a limit to how long Olivia Cooke and Robin Wright can entertain with their tremendous acting chops — and they're truly terrific — before the truth inevitably comes to the surface. .... When the finale arrives, you feel like you've been cheated and set up for a climax that fails to deliver on any level. The final note the show ends on feels as if it was ripped from some of the worst psychological thrillers from the '90s.

The fraught hot girl/mother-in-law relationship deserves better than this wannabe cheek. It’s a shame, watching what could have been the cleverest stalker picture in ages, converted into a five-and-a-half-hour sprawl.