Grosse Pointe Garden Society introduces us to four members of a garden club and the melodrama they find themselves embroiled in.
Caution: this post contains SPOILERS for Grosse Pointe Garden Society Season 1, Episode 1.
The Grosse Pointe Garden Society series premiere introduces us to the main characters and the main mystery. Does the premiere work, and is this a series worth watching? We share our thoughts on the episode.
Meet the members in Grosse Pointe Garden Society
The first is Alice (AnnaSophia Robb), a high school English teacher who is struggling to break into professional writing and is also dealing with the disappearance of her beloved dog and giving a student an almost failing grade.
Second is Brett (Ben Rappaport), manager of the garden society who is in a rut following a stagnant career and a divorce from his wife after he catches her mid-affair.
The third is Catherine (Aja Naomi King), the vice-president of the club who is having an affair of her own with her realtor business partner.
Last, but certainly not least, is Birdie (Melissa Fumero). She is volunteering her time after drunkenly crashing her car into a fountain and being sentenced to a massvie amount of community service hours.
Out of the principal four, Fumero is the one that is wildly running away with the show. This is, in part, due to the fact that there is no effort made to have her appear likable. Birdie is an abrasive and difficult person, something that Fumero plays to a plum.
It's excellent counter-programming to Amy Santiago from Brooklyn Nine-Nine, which most people will still strongly associate her with coming into this show. This is also a testament to her strength as an actor because Fumero easily manages to instill the role with so much endearment and charm that the show itself dares you not to love her.
Grosse Pointe Garden Society has this wonderful blend of elements that feel comfortable and familiar but done in a way that isn't off-putting. It's exceptionally easy to watch the episode and see similarities to previous similarly toned series like Desperate Housewives, How to Get Away With Murder, and Good Girls. There is a lot of those shows being evoked here but what is being delivered is compelling enough that it makes it feel fresh.
Who has been murdered?
At the center of this, there's also an undisclosed murder happening six months into the future and in this way there is a murder mystery at the core. Instead of who is the killer, though, we are left to wonder who have these four killed? The premiere gives us no shortage of potential victims who we would not feel badly about their death.
There is Gary, Catherine's aforementioned partner who she thinks is serious about her but is making the same romantic and sexual gestures to countless other women, including Birdie. Catherine and Birdie both end up getting the last laugh for now when they expose him to the other women and his father-in-law.
Also a solid possibility is Peyton, the student that Alice gives a D to after he turns in poem using Kedrick Lamar lyrics and who strongly implies shot and killed her dog. In that same vein, there is his mother, who at first demands that Alice change the grade and then has her fired after a heated exchange where Peyton is accused of said dog murder.
Another contender is Brett's ex-wife Melissa's new husband, Connor, who largely serves to be a foil within the episode and is scheming to gain custody of Brett's children. He's an appropriately slimy character that no one would mind watching the group kill.
That is the main part of it: the show has to land on them killing someone who has it coming and feels justifiable without it being sanctionable. That leaves the audience with a specific kind of calculus as we try to figure out this main mystery.
Grosse Pointe Garden Society airs on Sundays at 10/9c on NBC.
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