All Her Fault Has The Most Shocking Twist I’ve Seen This Year
Every mother’s worst nightmare turns into a twisting fable.
As a longtime TV fanatic, I like to think I have a good grasp on predicting where stories go. I saw the big Helly twist in Severance coming from a mile away, predicted who the real villain in Gen V Season 2 was, and even pieced together what the Good Place was in The Good Place.
So when I started Peacock’s new series All Her Fault, I thought I knew what I was in for: a Big Little Lies-esque domestic thriller that begins with affluent moms freaking out about their children and ends with murder. That turned out to be mostly true, but what I wasn’t expecting was the truly bonkers plot, the constant twists, and one of the most satisfying endings in television history.
All Her Fault begins with a classic Lifetime movie premise: Marissa Irvine (Sarah Snook) goes to pick up her son Milo from a playdate, but not only can she not find him, the woman who answers the door has no idea who her son is at all. What follows is a series of panicked phone calls to everyone she can think of: the mom she assumed lived in the house, her husband, even the head of the PTA.
But as Milo’s disappearance goes from what must just be a miscommunication to what appears like a purposeful kidnapping, secrets about Marissa, her husband Peter (Jake Lacy), his family, and Milo’s nanny Ana Garcia (Kartiah Vergara) start to reveal themselves. In the center of it all is Jenny Kaminski (Dakota Fanning), who is trying to support Marissa while knowing that the last person to see Milo was her nanny, Carrie Finch (Sophia Lillis.)
Nannies and the mothers who hire them are a major part of All Her Fault.
When I got to the natural conclusion of this series, I thought it was a perfectly passable miniseries. It was then I noticed there was a whole other episode still remaining, and it’s the episode that changes everything. From the get-go, you’re told to demonize Carrie and laud Marissa and Peter, but in the show’s finale, that is turned completely on its head and nobody — not even Marissa — knows who to trust. It takes a lot to shock me, but by the time I learned the real connection between Marissa and Carrie, the series quickly became one of the best shows I’ve seen this year.
All Her Fault is more than just a “I just want my kid back” story. It’s an examination of working motherhood, the guilt parents face for asking for help, and the unspoken work that goes into being a wife and mother, even when you’re the provider for your family. It’s like if M. Night Shyamalan directed a season of White Lotus, and I wish there were a dozen other shows like it.
