Stream It Or Skip It: ‘A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder’ On Netflix, Where A Teenager Investigates A 5-Year-Old Murder

In murder mysteries that involve someone who isn’t with law enforcement sticking their nose in and probing people with their questions, its critical to have the character asking those questions be as charming as possible. The reason is to make it believable that people would open up to the person asking those questions instead of telling them to leave them alone. A new teen mystery drama, produced by the BBC for Netflix, has an exceedingly charming character trying to get to the bottom of a 5-year-old murder case.

A GOOD GIRL’S GUIDE TO MURDER: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A street light turns on. We see a teenage girl unsteadily walking down the darkened street. What we don’t see until the camera goes behind her is that she has a massive wound on the back of her head.

The Gist: Five years later, the town of Little Kilton is still trying to recover from the murder of Andie Bell (India Lillie Davies), whose body was never found. However, her boyfriend at the time, Sal Singh (Rahul Pattni) confessed to killing her, then proceeded to commit suicide.

Seventeen year-old Pippa Fitz-Amobi (Emma Myers) seems to be living a typical carefree teenage life, though she is the definition of a good girl: She can’t even bring herself to be a decoy when her friends want to buy booze at the local convenience store.

For an advanced project at school, Pip wants to investigate Andie Bell’s death; she’s convinced that Sal didn’t do it, despite the fact that he confessed. She knew both of them, and we see a flashback of 12-year-old Pip (Kitty Anderson) witnessing a disagreement between the two the day she disappeared.

She starts asking around about the night Andie disappeared, starting with Naomi Ward (Yasmin Al-Khudhairi), the older sister of her friend Cara (Asha Banks), despite Cara expressly telling Pip not to ask her sister questions about Andie and Sal. Naomi tells Pip that Sal had an alibi, but the two of them are interrupted before Naomi can say what it is.

She also goes to talk to Sal’s brother Ravi (Zain Iqbal), bribing him with muffins, but Ravi walks away once he knows why she’s following him. The more she looks into things, and the more she examines everyone’s social media, the more she thinks that Sal didn’t do it, and she’s convinced even more after she talks to Max Hastings (Henry Ashton), another of Sal and Andie’s friends who were around the night she disappeared. After her talk with Max — which involved her waitressing dressed as a star and getting slightly drunk for the first time — she convinces Ravi to help.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder, adapted by Poppy Cogan based on Holly Jackson’s novel of the same name, isn’t quite as dark and creepy as Harlan Coben’s Shelter, but both involve teens trying to solve cold-case murders. Throw in a bit of the original Veronica Mars for good measure.

Our Take: The mystery that’s at the center of The Good Girl’s Guide To Murder is a pretty good one, given the fact that to many people in the town of Little Kilton, the case of Andie Bell is settled. But, as we’ve seen in many a mystery series, all it takes is that one person who doesn’t believe the same narrative everyone else does. In the case of this show, that person is a very perceptive and persistent teenager, and the series really rides on Emma Myers’ charm as Pip.

As we see in the first episode, Pip is probing people about a pretty sensitive subject not just because she has a project to do but she really feels that Sal didn’t kill Andie; because Sal was always kind to her, this is as much a mission as an assignment. In a situation like this, the investigating character’s probing might come off as annoying, but in Myers’ hands, Pip comes off as a person who sincerely wants to know the truth.

The rest of the voluminous cast of characters is less well-defined, including Pip’s family. We can see that Pip is going to investigate with Ravi, with Myers and Iqbal having good chemistry in the scenes they had together. We wish that the number of characters was slimmed down a bit, but have confidence that we’ll find out more about the various players as Pip and Ravi get closer to the truth.

Sex and Skin: None in the first episode.

Parting Shot: Under a photo of Andie and Sal, Pip writes “STOP WHAT?” as we see a flash of the couple kissing after an argument. Is this a scene young Pip watched from afar?

Sleeper Star: Mathew Baynton plays Elliot Ward, Naomi and Cara’s father. We have to wonder how involved he is in this story, because it’s not like we’re seeing any of the other parents in Pip’s friend group.

Most Pilot-y Line: Still dressed in her waitressing costume, Pip goes to Ravi’s house and tells his mother that she has important information for him. “From a galaxy far, far away?” asks Ravi’s mother, eyeballing Pip’s wild getup.

Our Call: STREAM IT. A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder rides on the charm of Emma Myers, but there’s also a solid mystery to get to the bottom of, which isn’t always the case in shows like this.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.