HBO's 6-Hour Psychological Thriller Was Big Little Lies' Secret Successor

While Big Little Lies was a huge hit for HBO, the show’s perfect replacement was almost entirely forgotten after its 2020 debut. Based on the 2014 novel of the same name by author Lianne Moriarty, Big Little Lies was a massive hit for HBO from 2017 until 2019. The two-season run of the psychological thriller starred an ensemble cast including Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Alexander Skarsgård, Adam Scott, Shailene Woodley, Zoë Kravitz, Meryl Streep, and Laura Dern, among others.

While this lineup alone would have made the show a must-watch, the tone of Big Little Lies was what truly made the show stand out. After the success of True Detective and Hannibal, a string of psychological thriller shows like Mindhunter, The Sinner, and Sharp Objects all competed to see how dark the genre could get before it became outright horror. While all these shows were superb and deservedly acclaimed, Big Little Lies marked a major departure from their shared style.

Campy and sharp, Big Little Lies owed more to Steel Magnolias and Desperate Housewives than it did to 8MM or Se7en. The series, from Ally McBeal creator David E. Kelley, reminded viewers of the lighter end of the psychological thriller spectrum, where real-life issues like spousal abuse, drug use, and income inequality were still major plot points, but the show’s story was a little more heightened and campy and a lot less brooding and hopeless. Surprisingly, even though its 2020 replacement, The Undoing, fused these two approaches, the latter show never received its flowers.

The Undoing Was The Spiritual Successor To Big Little Lies

Focusing on a tight-knit group of upper-class suburban moms, Big Little Lies was quite literally sunnier and tonally more melodramatic and playful than the then-recent spate of Southern Gothic psychological thrillers. In contrast, The Undoing masterfully mixed the darkness of shows like Sharp Objects with the unpredictable, heightened melodrama of Big Little Lies. The 2020 show followed Nicole Kidman’s Grace Fraser, a psychologist troubled by the arrival of a mysterious woman in her life.

Based on author Jean Hanff Korelitz’s novel You Should Have Known, The Undoing starts with Matilda De Angelis’ enigmatic Elena repeatedly crossing Grace’s path before she suddenly shows up dead midway through the first episode. A disturbed Grace is horrified to find out that her husband, Hugh Grant’s oncologist Jonathan, is a suspect in Elena’s suspicious death, and Grace’s seemingly perfect life only unravels further from then on.

Tense, twisty, and original, The Undoing relies on a pair of superb central turns from its veteran stars. Eschewing the police procedural format in favor of a psychological thriller style that focuses on Grace’s perspective, The Undoing’s mystery centers on what Grant’s slippery Jonathan has been doing and how he has covered up his secret second life from his unsuspecting wife.

The Undoing Was One Of 2020's Most Underrated Forgotten Mystery Shows

While Grant has played villains a handful of times over the years, in everything from Bridget Jones’s Diary to Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, his performance in The Undoing remains a revelation. Like his turn in 2024’s religious horror Heretic, the role sees Grant switch effortlessly between well-worn charisma and a clinical evil that would chill any viewer. Meanwhile, Kidman imbues Grace with a desperation and barely disguised rage that reminds viewers of the ferocity she brought to everything from To Die For to Babygirl.

While The Undoing’s ending is one that seasoned mystery fans might be able to see coming, this doesn’t detract from just how fun the series is. While its predecessor was sometimes too sunny for its own good, undermining the show’s handling of serious topics, The Undoing takes all the thrills of Big Little Lies and gives its story a slightly darker edge as befits the serious subject matter.