The Last Thing He Told Me

The series stumbles around for a few episodes while it establishes the Hitchcockian ambience (circa “Vertigo” and “The Birds”) and puts in place the clues to Owen’s past that will pay off in later revelations. (The seven episodes run from just 37 to 45 minutes, and the pace is generally brisk.) But it quickly gels into a better-than-average whodunit and a superior family drama, one whose denouement hits you with surprising force.

“The Last Thing He Told Me” is handsomely shot by an all-female team of directors, and each episode builds to one of the novel’s more gobsmacking cliffhangers. Add in Garner’s intuitive performance, and the show makes for a perfectly entertaining experience — albeit one that settles for replicating the novel rather than expanding it.

In the end, there’s nothing offensively wrong with this show: It’s got some solid performances, picturesque sets, and zips briskly through episodes that max out at around 40 minutes each (the dream in the era of Peak TV!) But it’s also probably not what you thought you were going to get either. And while that’s not bad, per se, it’s still pretty disappointing.

The series has established itself as at best middle-of-the-road fare, delivering yet another reminder that in TV drama as well as newsmagazines, the first order of business is asking a whole lot of questions before saying “I do.”

The Last Thing He Told Me seems perfectly fine with being adequate and nothing more or less. Garner and Rice deliver in the two leading roles, but overall the writing is often holding the series back from achieving its true potential.

It’s one of those shows that has us hovering towards the “meh” end of the review spectrum. There was nothing inherently wrong with the first episode, but nothing really drew us in, either.

The series finale is overblown and yet anti-climactic, and the last scene is nearly laughable, likely ensuring “The Last Thing He Told Me” is destined to be easily dismissed and quickly forgotten.

In terms of reasonably entertaining intrigue that doesn’t involve guns being waved in everyone’s faces, “The Last Thing He Told Me” gets the job done. And there’s a good chance you’ll have your laundry folded by the end.

Won’t add up to a satisfying whole for everyone, but fans of Laura Dave’s bestselling source novel ought to be pleased.

There is a lot to be said for competence in this arena. The Last Thing He Told Me might not always understand how to keep its own momentum going—in fact, it often has long stretches of extremely middling excursions. ... The Last Thing He Told Me doesn’t overstay its welcome like similar offerings, boasting only seven episodes, most of which are under 40 minutes. It gets the job done, and it does it effectively.

The drama may never get fully engrossing, but it’s perfectly watchable throughout — especially since much of the early action unfolds in a Sausalito floating home so pristine and pretty, Hannah and Bailey might as well be freaking out from within an Architectural Digest home tour. Under this tasteful gloss, however, is a pervasive sense of blandness — in the characters, their relationships and even, somehow, in the story’s unpredictable turns.

What we’re going to learn about everyone is parceled out in fragments of flashback that don’t do much for the pacing of a series that is ostensibly a thriller but spends much more time musing about relationships and the troubled histories of its principals. ... The performances lean toward the excessively earnest and breathless.

An enviable aesthetic can only takes a show so far, and the visual magic quickly wears thin. Similarly, there are only so many times one can hear Hannah getting warned that she’s in imminent danger before it starts to ring hollow. Even when foot chases happen, they lack an undercurrent of terror.

Garner manages to reveal some fear and confusion behind Hannah’s eyes, and that helps to make her more human. But generally speaking, the people in this miniseries are one-dimensional.

It’s a treat seeing the ever-appealing Garner back in resourceful investigative mode. ... Otherwise this is a dour watch, alas, soggy with unearned family sentiment. Still, you wouldn’t say no to that houseboat.

It's all about the writing, in this case, and the utter lack of depth, or inner life, or suggestion that anything of particular interest might be happening here.

“The Last Thing He Told Me” doesn’t bother to be escapist fun. It’s plodding to the extreme, wasting the talents of almost everyone involved—the one exception being that I would watch Aguilera in a cop show.