One of Us Is Lying (Peacock) had a pretty simple premise and gimmick, but as I've felt with a lot of shows in recent years, especially shows made for binging on streaming services, execution and a strong ending are what them worthwhile. On the surface, One of Us Is Lying is yet another high school drama run by social medialites with a murder mystery thrown in the mix. But throughout the eight episodes, not only did the writing keep me and my wife guessing who the culprit was, but the characters who had a shameful spotlight thrust onto them actually had some dimension, which, when slowly peeled away, changed our rooting interest several times.
There were five students sent to detention on the first day of the new school year: Simon, then Addy, Cooper, Bronwyn, and Nate. In the opening episode, Simon dies while in detention, and our mystery begins. Clearly one of the other four killed him, right? After all, they were the only ones in the room with him. And thus the investigation begins. The early impressions of the "Murder Club," as designated by the rest of the student body, is pretty standard - Bronwyn is the smart one, Addy is the dumb blonde socialite, Cooper is the baseball star, and Nate is the druggie who's already had run-ins with the law - so you already can come to some conclusions right away.
Sure, I rolled my eyes at the boring archetype high schoolers presented in the season premiere, too. But watching these four go through the ringer of a rise in popularity for all the wrong reasons makes them far more interesting. Their stories give the audience insights that the other characters don't have. Cooper, for example, is trying to hide a secret that seemingly would derail his dreams of pitching in the pros. Bronwyn once cheated on a chemistry test to keep her valedictorian dreams alive. Giving all of the suspects a motive is what makes a great whodunit.
The gimmick of the show is that Simon knew all of this about them. Simon runs a school blog where he dishes all the latest gossip on his fellow schoolmates. And we're talking dark secrets keep and huge mistakes students make that he puts on blast on his blog. He's actually my least favorite character for a number of reasons. Here's a guy who makes it his purpose in high school to put whomever he wants under the microscope to "knock them down a few pegs." Cancel culture at its finest, right? I'm sorry, but when people are blasting others for their mistakes - either from way in the past or one mistake someone makes that happens to get caught on camera and get taken out of context - if you are someone who happily joins in and goes with the crowd to place judgment on others without first taking a look at your own mistakes, you are a hypocrite. Because in reality, EVERYONE should be canceled for one reason or another. No one is worthy of pointing the finger like that. I'm glad the Lord has created this thing called forgiveness.
The ultimate irony that makes me dislike him even more is that Simon also did some dumb things. What's worst is how manipulative he became. Some students tried to battle him, but in the end, he always seemed to be one step ahead of everyone.
The other gimmick is the show's title, of course, which is a gimmick done poorly. The writers definitely lead you into thinking one person did it, then baiting the audience to think it's someone else in the next episode. Even some background characters are thrown into the fracas from time to time, including the teacher who was in the detention that day before stepping out for a moment. My wife and I each can claim one pretty significant correct prediction as the mystery unraveled, but even piecing that together was hard to do until the penultimate episode.
That's kind of where the show lost some steam for me. It was little too anticlimactic. You know who it is for an entire episode. It still felt nice watching the final pieces of the puzzle come together to fill in the few remaining gaps we had. But I wish the suspense kept going a little longer.
The ending throws you for a loop. Several weeks after the crazy fallout of everything - which included another murder! - we see that someone sends a text to the group saying "I know what you did." It's not over! So now we have to wonder if Simon's killer was really discovered or not. And who could possibly know about this other murder?
My wife informed me that this is exactly how the show Pretty Little Liars worked, so if you liked that show, you will like One of Us Is Lying. One of the most entertaining shows I've watched all year.