Back for an unexpected second season, Bad Sisters pushes the Garvey girls to the brink as another murder threatens to expose their crime
When it premiered in 2022, Bad Sisters was seemingly a one-and-done thriller, based on a Belgian miniseries with a finite ending. When actor-writer Sharon Horgan — who’d adapted and starred in the series — confronted the prospect of a second season, the idea was met with little optimism, even by those involved. “The story was tied up — although there were a few little loose strands, which was very clever of Sharon,” says Eva Birthistle, who plays middle sister Ursula Garvey. “But when we finished, we didn’t know for a year that there was going to be a second series. That’s a long year hoping and praying.”
Thankfully, viewers had fallen hard for the Garvey sisters — Eva (Horgan), Grace (Anne-Marie Duff), Ursula, Bibi (Sarah Greene) and Becka (Eve Hewson) — and demanded more. “There was something very infectious about being around them,” says Horgan. “[The series] was rooted in family and protecting each other and having a villain that everyone could love to hate. I think post-COVID, everyone was pretty angry, and sort sick of being told what to do by mediocre white men — well, actually, terrible people — so they used Bad Sisters as a kind of catharsis.”
For Horgan, the big question was, with Grace’s loathsome husband, John Paul (Claes Bang) now out of the picture, what possible reason would the series have to return? “Imagining the continuation came easily enough,” says Horgan. “I felt like the real version of that story is that you don’t just bounce back. I love the visual of Grace jumping into the sea, but the reality is ongoing trauma, guilt and shame and how that would impact on someone as good and vulnerable as Grace. She’s got to look at her daughter, every day, whose father she killed. So, I found that I really wanted to write about all that. The difficulty was the route we took to tell that story. I wanted it to still very much have the DNA of Bad Sisters, but at the same time feel different.”
Well, two years after the end of last season, the sisters are back, and once again in a state of panic. “It kicks off with us in a car with something in the booth,” reveals Birthistle. “It’s got that wonderful opener. You go, ‘Oh God, what is happening?’” The specifics of that you won’t know for a while, because we immediately flash back to a happier time. “The first season started with a funeral. This one starts with a wedding. We are with the sisters, and everyone’s moved on — but have they?” teases Horgan.
In true Bad Sisters form, there is a new propulsive mystery, somewhat flailing investigators trying to catch the Garveys, and personal struggles that heighten the odds of everything falling apart. This all seems hard to believe, considering how well everyone appears to have moved on. “We find Eva in a good place, really,” says Horgan. “I wanted to show her being happy in her choices, looking after herself. She doesn’t continuously have a glass of wine in her hand like she did in season one. She’s content to be the matriarch and to make the best of what she’s got in a positive way.”
Grace, as well, appears to have recovered from the trauma of her past. “She’s with someone who just seems like the opposite of John Paul, like, a beautiful, good man that the family seems to love, that [her daughter] Blánaid [Saise Quinn] is connected to,” says Horgan. “We absolutely set up that she hasn’t just snapped back, but she’s opened her heart to someone and wants to be loved.” Their sisters are also on a much healthier path. “There’s optimism across the board,” continues Horgan. “Becka’s got this lovely gentle boyfriend. Ursula is not in a great place, but at least she’s not living a lie anymore. Bibi’s trying for a baby. But you scratch the surface, even a tiny bit, and you see Ursula’s popping pills, Bibi’s scared about going again, Becka is clearly drinking too much. So, I hope that it feels like it’s all there for the taking.”
And, as much as they think John Paul’s death is behind them, it turns out the Garvey sisters are not the only ones aware of what happened to Grace’s husband. “There is one other person who knows about it, which is Roger [Michael Smiley]. Grace never told us that,” says Birthistle. “That’s something that starts to rock our world, because we feel in a very vulnerable place again.”
Death and chaos may be a given on this show, but, like the fans that demanded more, Horgan loves the Garvey sisters so much that she won’t subject them to unnecessary hardship only for her own pleasure, making a third season a big question mark. “You’re dealing with a family of women that a terrible thing happened to, and then season two was the after-effects of that terrible thing. Season three would have to be another terrible thing. Do you know what I mean?” she says. “The audience got on board with us because they believed it, because there was a lot of truth in there. I would hate to [mess] with that, where it just becomes franchising. But I’m still thinking. I’m open.”
Bad Sisters, streaming Wednesday, November 20 on Apple TV+