Fans of Karin Slaughter’s novels know they combine procedural drama with deeply personal stories and the intricacies of how small-town Georgia operates.
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Georgia → know → stories
The new Peacock series, The Good Daughter, has all of that plus two very watchable leads.
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series → have → that
A teenager runs up a dirt road with a relay baton.
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teenager → run → baton
She tries to hand it off to her younger sister and the younger girl drops it.
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girl → try → it
As teenagers, Charlotte “Charlie” Quinn (Drew Cheek) and her older sister Sam (Audrey Grace Marshall) had to deal with the fallout of their father, Rusty (Brendan Gleeson), a defense attorney, keeping the dregs of the small Georgia town where they live out of prison.
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they → have → prison
Their mother, Gamma (Olivia Williams), was the one who tried to keep Rusty’s arrogance in check while boosting her daughters.
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who → try → daughters
When two masked teens bust into their house, demanding to see Rusty, Gamma ends up getting killed as she tries to protect her daughters.
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she → bust → daughters
Sam IDs them as the Culpepper brothers.
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Sam → id → brothers
Decades later, Charlie (Meghann Fahy) still lives in that town, and works alongside Rusty as a defense attorney.
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Charlie → live → attorney
She’s estranged from Sam (Rose Byrne), who’s also a lawyer, and she’s separated from her husband, ADA Ben Bernard (Michael Dorman).
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she → ’ → husband
Charlie wakes up one morning to find that she accidentally switched phones with the man she slept with, a high school teacher named Mason “Huck” Huckabee (Jake McDorman).
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she → wake → man
As she’s at the school returning the phone, a shooting occurs; 18-year-old Kelly Wilson (Shayna Benardo) kills a freshman as well as a teacher named Douglas Pinkman (Kovar McClure); Huck manages to deescalate the situation before the overzealous cops shoot Kelly, who was already disarmed.
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who → ’ → Kelly
For Charlie, the shooting brings back the trauma of her mother’s death and the aftermath.
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shooting → bring → death
Rusty takes Kelly on as a client, and Charlie is questioned by the less-than-ethical DA and sheriff, who happen to be brothers.
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who → take → DA
She has her dad’s assistant Lenore (Harper Steele) drive her to see Kelly’s mom and warn her not to talk to anyone.
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assistant → have → anyone
Rusty ends up getting attacked by what he says is an “angry fella.”
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he → end → ?
What Shows Will It Remind You Of?
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It → remind → You
Created by Karin Slaughter and based on her novel of the same name, The Good Daughter has a similar feel to Will Trent, another series based on Slaughter’s novels.
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Daughter → create → novels
While we see mostly adult Charlie’s point of view in the first episode of The Good Daughter — Byrne as Sam appears right at the end of the episode — it’s not a stretch to figure out where the show is going.
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show → see → episode
Charlie and Sam have spent their whole lives dealing with their mom’s death, which was likely related to Rusty’s work, and as they come together to figure out the school shooting and who attacked their father, they have to come to terms with how they each dealt with the unimaginable trauma of watching their mother get shot to death.
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mother → spend → death
Charlie doubled down and ended up doing the same work as Rusty, while Sam decided to go no contact and start anew.
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Sam → double → contact
How the sisters deal with those differences should be interesting to watch, even as we go back and forth from the present day to the aftermath of their mom’s death.
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we → deal → death
It’s the deeply personal aspects of this story that will hold viewers’ interest, as it does on the aforementioned Will Trent, as will how the likely corrupt small-town law enforcement clashes with GBI agent Delia Wolford (Angela Davis).
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enforcement → ’ → Wolford
We’re fascinated that Brendan Gleeson, who usually plays an Irish or British crime lord of some sort, plays a Southern gentleman and defender of people who most people think are guilty as hell.
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people → ’re → hell
After swimming laps, Sam answers Charlie’s call about their father being in the hospital.
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father → swim → hospital
We’re looking forward to the combination of The Good Daughter‘s stars, Byrne and Fahy, dealing with their past, their family relationships and the school shooting case.
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We → look → past
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie.
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he → write → himself
His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
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writing → appear → Times
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