Netflix is in the business of keeping our presence on its platform: it doesn’t even really seem to care if we’re watching anymore. There’s a reason the streamer’s new mantra is “What’s Next?” — it’s less about the substance of the stories it has to offer, or their capacity to hold our attention, as it is keeping the binge model running. And it’s why, with some exceptions, one Netflix Original is indecipherable from the next. If you’ve seen one crime thriller, murder mystery, or action romp, you’ve seen most of what Netflix has to offer.
Sadly, His & Hers is not one of those aforementioned exceptions. This glossy thriller about betrayal and lies in a small Southern town has a lot of what you’d expect from any glossy thriller about betrayal and lies. Its mystery kicks off when a beautiful corpse — stabbed dozens of times and dumped on the hood of her car — is found in the middle of the woods, but the question of who murdered this woman comes second to the complications (and myriad infidelities) that her demise dredges up. His & Hers is mostly a show about steamy secrets: everyone is beautiful, everyone is horny, and everyone is a suspect. What makes this show watchable, beyond the play-by-numbers beats of steamy mystery, is Tessa Thompson and Jon Bernthal’s estranged couple caught in the center of this web, and their perverse reconciliation.
