Starring Michelle Monahan in a dizzying dual role, “Echoes” features identical twins, Leni and Gina, who have spent years perfecting the weirdest act of sisterhood imaginable: going off together on their birthdays every year, then trade places to spend the next 12 months each living the life of the others.
When one of them goes missing, however, it opens a door not only to potentially expose the ruse, but raises thorny questions about their past, which trickles down in a series of flashbacks – including their mother’s death and a deadly fire — and catches the attention of the local sheriff (Karen Robinson), the only character who seems to be having fun.
As is so often the case with such lofty concepts, however, the series feels increasingly tortured over time, to the point where the alternating who-sister-did-what beats don’t necessarily become difficult to follow but rather tests your patience. to be motivated to try. That’s despite Monahan’s latest addition to the long list of actors who have led both sides of a conversation with a stuntman.
Netflix makes a lot of money out of these kinds of mysteries, but for all its contortionist-worthy twists, “Echoes” starts to look like a seductive dip and doesn’t quite make it out of the shallow end of that gene pool. .
“Bad Sisters,” meanwhile, is a much more complex construct, but boils down to a simple question: who and what killed the horrific husband of one of five unusually close sisters, all of whom have reason to believe him. despise regardless of whether they hate the way he treats their brother?
Created by and co-starring Sharon Horgan (“Catastrophe”) as the eldest of the group, the series also features Eva Birthistle, Sarah Greene and Eve Hewson as a plot quartet.
Darkly funny, the show is set in different time frames, with the final part involving a pair of insurance agents (Brian Gleeson, Daryl McCormack) convinced that foul play was involved in John Paul’s death. Unfortunately for them, John Paul is such a committed jerk that the sisters aren’t the only ones who have reason to want to see him out of sight.
There’s an almost Rasputin-like quality to the sisters’ initially ill-fated endeavors, Eva noting at one point – when someone offers to stage a work-related accident – ”What are we going to do, the paper cut him to death?”
For all that, “Bad Sisters” offers a bigger payoff than “Echoes” and sounds less far-fetched, which goes a long way to justifying the investment. In streaming, as with family, these are the kinds of ties that bind.
“Echoes” and “Bad Sisters” premiere August 19 on Netflix and Apple TV+, respectively. Disclosure: My wife works for a unit of Apple.