So far, The Better Sister is one of those take-what-you-can-get kind of shows. Biel is an obvious selling point. Corey Stoll playing his umpteenth type-A shitheel — I mean, there’s a reason he gets these kinds of roles, because he’s really good at them. Nicky’s survival instincts, like insisting on a bigger tip-slash-bribe for Arty the doorman, cut right through the character’s clownishness. There are one or two ostentatiously arty shots that don’t really communicate anything but are fun enough to look at. Guidry and Bowen as a sort of arranged work marriage, where she’s older and gay and doesn’t like his personal grooming but they constantly flirt by making fun of one another anyway, is a fun choice for roles we’d otherwise have seen a thousand times. Cut the ancient punchlines, take Nicky out of her Billy Joel baseball tees (which doesn’t make sense anyway, she’s not even from Long Island) and make her a real person instead of a rough sketch, and those individual components may cohere into something memorable.
I reviewed episode three of The Better Sister for Decider.
Tags: decider, the better sister, TV, TV reviews