Peacock Original One Of Us Is Lying Is A Fantastic Genre Defying Series That Is A Must See

Mark McKenna as Simon Kelleher, the modern-day social misfit that will introduce a whole new audience to the work of director John Hughes.

Starring Annalisa Cochrane, Marianly Tejada, Chibuikem Uche , and Cooper van Grootel One Of Us Is Lying is a murder mystery dressed up as a The Breakfast Club nod, and it works. Based on the #1 New York Times bestselling YA book of the same name written by Karen M. McManus, the show revolves around five exceedingly different (a jock, a brainiac, a popular girl, you get it) seniors at Bayview High whose lives become forever entangled when all five receive detention for the same afternoon for reasons that are highly suspect. The social outcast of the detainees falls ill during their mutual detention and eventually dies, leaving the other four as suspects in both the eyes of the law and the student body. Here’s where we leave the John Hughes nods behind and dive deep into what being a young adult is like in the 2020’s and it’s…heavy.

Chibuikem Uche , Annalisa Cochrane, Marianly Tejada, and Cooper van Grootel  Photo courtesy of Deadline

While preparing for exams, playing for coaches, applying for colleges, and just trying to stay off the radar of authorities, the four students have enough to worry about. Throw in a bullying outsider (Simon) who decides to create his own gossip site to out fellow students and their secrets, and it only became a matter of time before something bad would happen between Simon and the other students, but no one wanted to kill him. In fact, Simon had so much dirt on people, he was almost untouchable. Almost. But even after Simon’s untimely death, the outings kept coming, the secrets kept flowing, and this is where the genius of the show lies.

The storyline stays flexible, weaving together individual moments of angst, anger, fear, happiness, and emotional/physical breakthroughs with ease while keeping the storyline moving. When you think you know who did it, no matter what “it” is, you’re wrong and totally ok with it because the tension is slowly but evenly building throughout the series, not peaking and dropping during each episode. The series is well shot and well written with interesting characters and intriguing dialog and is definitely bing-worthy. Episodes 1-3 drop on October 7th with episodes 4-6 dropping October 14th and episodes 7-8 dropping October 21rst.

Older audiences will categorically appreciate the Gen X era mentions while younger audiences will certainly appreciate and or relate to the struggles of being a Gen Z human, except without the murder part.

One Of Us Is Lying can be streamed right here starting October 7th, 2021.

Teaser trailer can be seen here

Photo courtesy of Karen M McMJohnanus’s Twitter