We Were an Average Show

Warning: Contains Spoilers

Imagine a world where too much money and power are the main source of your problems. We Were Liars introduces this world by inviting its audience into the privileged lives of the Sinclair family.

The Amazon Prime limited series is based on the 2014 Good Reads Best Young Adult Fiction novel with the same title, written by E. Lockhart. The novel follows protagonist (or irredeemable heroine in some viewers opinion) Cadence Sinclair as she pieces together the tragic incident that occurred in ‘Summer 16’.

Overall, reviews for the show were very average. It scored 60% on Rotton Tomato’s ‘Tomatometer’ and received a 6.7 IMDb rating. The show did a lot of things well, but there was also a lot that could’ve been done better.

The story sets place on Beechwood Island, owned by patriarch of the family Harris Sinclair. The island bears 4 mansions one belonging to Harris, the other three to his daughters.

From the get-go we learn that something bad happened to Cadence in ‘Summer 16’. She’s found passed out on the shore and through her narration we are led to believe that someone did this to her. The show then goes back in time to detail the events of Summer 16.

The first half of the series explores tensions between Harris’ three daughters and allow us to get to know ‘the liars’. These are Cadence, her cousins Mirren (Esther McGregor) and Johnny (Joseph Zada), and their friend Gat (Shubham Maheshwari) who is Cadences love interest.  

Once the story reaches the point of the accident, we still don’t know what happened. We see Cadence waking up in hospital, she is suffering from selective amnesia about the incident. She later returns to Beechwood Island. Here is when the story slowly unfolds, through Cadences memories we learn what really happened.

Sick of ‘the moms’ fighting over their inheritance, Cadence has the idea to burn her grandfather’s mansion to the ground. The liars agree and plan the time and location they will meet after. Cadence is delayed meeting with the rest of the liars and in a cruel twist of fate, Gat, Johnny, and Mirren believing Cadence is inside try and find her, this leads to the trio succumbing to the flames.

Let’s get into what was done well, and what was not.

The casting of the liars, execution of the twist, and the demonstration of privilege were what I found did well. The casting team really did an amazing job, Emily Alyn Lind really captured the essence of Cadence Sinclair. The casting was also great through the chemistry between the main four actors. The twist came very unexpectedly; it was executed very well. Once the twist is revealed however, you realise you misinterpreted everything.

What the show did best was definitely the demonstration of privilege. It demonstrates the privilege that comes from wealth, Cadence was not punished because her grandfather wanted to protect not Cadence, but the family image. Of course, this privilege was also demonstrated through the generational wealth and the private island, but nothing screams privilege like paying to get away with arson and murder.

Now let’s discuss what wasn’t done well. It felt like the show was dragged out, the first half of the show could have been more concise. It felt boring at times with most of the first episodes being filler with just a little bit of necessary plot points squeezed in. Though a 6-episode series probably wouldn’t have boded well, it would’ve felt less dragged out.

While the casting was done well for the liars, it wasn’t done as well with the moms. The issue I found was not with the acting, but with their ages. Especially with Candice King who played Bess Sinclair and especially with Hollywood magic the 38-year-old looks like she’s in her early 30s. This is not a great casting decision considering she only looks about 10 years younger than the four main characters.

Finally, something else that just didn’t work for me was Cadence and Gats romantic relationship. The chemistry was there between the actors, but I just didn’t care to root for the characters being together, it just felt boring and predictable. I honestly was preferring the brief romance Cadences cousin, Mirren has with the water taxi boy, Ebon (Dempsey Bryk). A show with a well-executed romance between two main characters should not have me preferring that of a brief fling between a less main character and a glorified extra.

The bad really outweighed the good for me.

And honestly because of this, I found the show to just be average. But let’s not get it twisted, I did enjoy the show and found the ending to be gut wrenching but that doesn’t mean that the show was actually good.