--- title: 'Imperfect Women' Is Just Another Generic Domestic Thriller: TV Review description: The Apple TV+ drama casts Kerry Washington, Elisabeth Moss, and Kate Mara as longtime besties but has nothing insightful to say about female friendship. canonical: https://time.com/article/2026/03/18/imperfect-women-review/ author: Judy Berman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2026-03-18T12:00:03.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-19T07:44:50.885Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: 'Imperfect Women' Is Just Another Generic Domestic Thriller og:description: The Apple TV+ drama casts Kerry Washington, Elisabeth Moss, and Kate Mara as longtime besties but has nothing insightful to say about female friendship. og:url: https://time.com/article/2026/03/18/imperfect-women-review/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3758b9c81c149964/69b8602b059d8fd2b6b43935/Imperfect_Women_Photo_010402.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Imperfect_Women_Photo_010402.jpg og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 'Imperfect Women' Is Just Another Generic Domestic Thriller twitter:description: The Apple TV+ drama casts Kerry Washington, Elisabeth Moss, and Kate Mara as longtime besties but has nothing insightful to say about female friendship. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3758b9c81c149964/69b8602b059d8fd2b6b43935/Imperfect_Women_Photo_010402.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # _Imperfect Women_ Is a Generic Domestic Thriller Masquerading as an Exploration of Female Friendship > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account.  by [Judy Berman](https://time.com/author/judy-berman/)  ## Judy Berman TV Critic Mar 18, 2026 12:00 PM UTC  From left: Elisabeth Moss, Kerry Washington, and Kate Mara in Imperfect Women From left: Elisabeth Moss, Kerry Washington, and Kate Mara in Imperfect WomenApple TV  by [Judy Berman](https://time.com/author/judy-berman/)  ## Judy Berman TV Critic Mar 18, 2026 12:00 PM UTC A competition to determine TV’s most generic [domestic thriller](https://time.com/7357214/housemaid-hunting-wives-domestic-thriller-trend/) would have dozens of compelling entrants, but if I had to pick a winner, it would be _Imperfect Women_. Like so many of its predecessors, the Apple TV series begins with a murder. The victim is a rich, beautiful, lostwoman. The cast is led by famous female actors: [Kerry Washington](https://time.com/collections/women-of-the-year/6150547/kerry-washington-2/), [Elisabeth Moss](https://time.com/4734904/margaret-atwood-elisabeth-moss-handmaids-tale/), [Kate Mara](https://time.com/5907497/a-teacher-review-fx-hulu/). Themes include class anxiety, infidelity, buried trauma, jealousy among friends, male entitlement and fragility. Every character has secrets. And the show is based on a novel of the same name, by executive producer Araminta Hall. Premiering March 18, it has everything you’d expect from this overly abundant genre but nothing that truly sets it apart. Creator Annie Weisman ([_Physical_](https://time.com/6073788/physical-review-girlboss/)) makes a point of centering the bond between three women who have supported each other for 25 years. “It feels cheap to call it a friendship,” Washington intones in narration that prefaces the premiere, layered over shots where she’s dancing blissfully with Moss and Mara, their circle of bodies bathed in angelic light. “It was something else. Like a kinship from deep in our souls.” Unfortunately, the show never quite captures the transcendence it keeps talking up. Nor does it have anything new to say on the perennial topic of female friendship. The stars of _Imperfect Women_ all seem trapped in separate stories. This is, to some extent, the result of a three-part season in which each woman takes her turn as narrator. Yet it’s also a function of simultaneously disparate and familiar tones; each actor’s role draws heavily on the most memorable characters she’s played in the past. In an echo of [_House of Cards_](https://time.com/7979/so-about-that-big-thing-that-happened-in-house-of-cards/), Mara’s Nancy is a femme fatale—impetuous, sexy, haunted. Though she’s been married to Robert (Joel Kinnaman), a scion of the ultra-wealthy Hennessey clan, for long enough to raise 17-year-old Cora (Audrey Zahn), Nancy grew up amid poverty and abuse in a stereotypical trailer park and remains an outsider in her husband’s family. Less than 15 minutes into the premiere, she’s dead. When we hear her side of the story, it’s from beyond the grave. Earlier on the night of her murder, she’s out for a celebratory dinner with her two besties. A daughter of privilege, Eleanor (Washington) runs a humanitarian nonprofit and is having a halfhearted dalliance with an employee (Rome Flynn). If that sketch isn’t enough to put you in mind of Washington’s [_Scandal_](https://time.com/5245048/scandal-series-finale/)lead, the D.C. fixer Olivia Pope, dialogue that maximizes emphatic repetition and words like _optics_ certainly will. Moss splits the difference between [_Mad Men_’s Peggy Olson](https://time.com/18645/peggy-olson-mad-men-feminism/) and [June from _The Handmaid’s Tale_](https://time.com/4732788/handmaids-tale-review/) as Mary, a housewife and mother of three whose timid exterior belies a steely, frustrated intelligence. Each performance is solid in isolation. But, maybe because every character needs to conceal so much in order for the show’s many requisite bombshells to land, they never come together with enough electricity to make us feel the love these women have for each other. We barely see all three in the same room before the murder. And while we gather that Mary and Eleanor are mesmerized by Nancy, it’s hard to tell what, besides her pain, makes her so special. Along with its shallow invocation of the power of female friendship, _Imperfect Women_ nods toward uncontroversial takeaways about gender, race, class, heterosexual love, rifts between parents and children without offering novel insight. Fortified with episodic cliffhangers and a glamorous L.A. setting, _Imperfect Women_ might make a satisfactory binge for domestic-thriller devotees. Just don’t expect authentic kinship, let alone depth or soul. 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