A twisty whodunit frames the story of two sisters in this domestic noir thriller
Taking Alafair Burke’s twisty novel and turning it into a propulsive thriller for television was never going to be the challenge of The Better Sister. A book about two estranged sisters who experience the loss of a mutual loved one was a whodunit that both showrunners Olivia Milch and Regina Corrado felt would make for great television. But as they started to develop the story arc, there was an element of the series, brought to life by stars Jessica Biel and Elizabeth Banks, that completely transcended the murder mystery. “The banter, dynamic, dysfunction, love and hate — everything that goes on between these two sisters, it’s kind of undeniable,” says Biel. “You can’t get enough of it.”
The source material, which features only the perspective of Chloe (played by Biel), offered them a solid starting point. “[In the book] you’re getting one side of the story, and that offered us a platform to go, ‘What about the rest of the world?’” says Biel. “Let’s learn about them so we can really understand who they are.” In fact, for Banks, the murder mystery was akin to a Trojan horse that would unite characters that fundamentally needed each other. “It was a great mystery, but what we got to do was just add layer upon layer of character work,” she says. “We get to find out who [these sisters] are, what they’re bringing to it, and that was the exciting part for both of us.”
In The Better Sister, Chloe, a businesswoman with a professional and personal life that is the envy of everyone, quickly becomes juxtaposed with her older sister Nicky (played by Banks), who is a recovering alcoholic and far less interested in, or capable of, a life of structure. “When you meet these two characters, Chloe is living in a very upscale, elite, literary media world of New York City, and Nicky, who’s in a completely different world, is struggling and up against a lot of odds,” says Biel. Despite coming from the same family, the two sisters have had two totally different experiences growing up, and some prevalent mistruths have sent them down to different paths. “What I loved about it is that these two people, who do have a lot of love for each other, are going to unravel all of these lies that they were told, which brings them together,” says Biel. “It’s an amazing arc for two really interesting female characters.”
While Banks was eager to delve into her character’s issues with addiction, the professional challenges of the role were not its emotional elements. “The challenge was more physical than anything. There was fight choreography and swimming and drowning,” she says. “Going to set every day and getting to poke at my sister, played by Jessica, that was the easy part.” For Biel, the challenge lay in doling out the mystery, piece by piece. “Playing a character who has a massive secret, hiding a past, hiding from yourself, that is definitely a professionally challenging thing to do,” she says. “There are two things going on all the time. And getting to explore sisterhood — I don’t have a sister, so that for me was a joy.”
To have two actresses like Biel and Banks leading the charge is a dream for anyone staging a production. As executive producers, the two stars had the privilege of playing around with the material, and while Biel had initially explored playing Nicky, the fact that each landed in the roles they were meant to play was, according to Milch, not luck but skill. “You can’t imagine it any other way,” she says about the casting. “They’re both incredibly skilled at approaching the project from a holistic standpoint and really seeing the totality of it. And I think they both then inhabited these characters. They did so much work to prepare that there is such a natural flow to how they brought these characters to life. And seeing them together, I mean, the chemistry, you can’t make that up.”
While a show about Chloe and Nicky would be engaging enough on its own, the murder mystery that it centres on was a great vehicle to bring the dysfunctional family dynamic together. “I think the whodunit is fun, engaging and exciting, and it’s a great entry point for a lot of people,” says Milch. “As a genre, the audience knows that they want to be watching that kind of show. The mystery was, to us, as important as the emotional truth of these sisters and the mystery of their past. They were symbiotic and it was crucial that they worked together — that, as you are peeling back the layers of one, you’re peeling back the layers of the other.”
That said, both Milch and Corrado could easily imagine the two sisters in other situations that are equally compelling. “We could just watch these sisters take a road trip or read the phone book or go shopping,” says Milch. “It’s so true,” adds Corrado. “The chemistry, that’s a component you can’t predict. So it’s a real gift when it happens.”
The Better Sister, streaming on Prime Video