Bad Sisters Season 2 Premiere Recap: Oops!… She Did It Again? Plus, Grade It!
Courtesy of Apple TV+
In hindsight, it figures that Bad Sisters’ Roger couldn’t possibly bear up under the weight of such a massive secret.
So when the Apple TV+ series returns for Season 2 (the first two episodes dropped today; this recap covers Episode 1), Grace really shouldn’t be all that surprised that her neighbor/admirer is having second thoughts about being an accessor to her former husband’s murder.
Look at the man, Grace! Is this the face of someone who can carry a burden like that to his grave? Especially when the women he did it all for is marrying another bloke?
Courtesy of Apple TV+
It is not. But that’s a matter for a few minutes from now. First, read on for the highlights of “Good Sisters.”
WHO’S IN THE TRUNK? | Right at the top of the episode, all of the Garvey sisters except Grace are in a car driving at night on a high road overlooking the ocean. Eva’s behind the wheel, Bibi’s in the passenger seat and Becka and Ursula are sitting in the back. When Eva brings the car to a stop and then accidentally almost reverses them off the cliff, they scream. “It’s not my car!” Eva says by way of apology.
They’re all wary as they open the trunk, which seems to have a body (alive? dead? Who knows?) inside. The trunk then pops open much wider, and they all freak out and run.
Courtesy of Apple TV+
JOHN-PAUL’S BAGGAGE SURFACES | The story then goes back to a much less grim time: It’s two years after John Paul’s death, and Grace has moved on with a lovely guy named Ian (played by Killing Eve’s Owen McDonnell). They’re about to get married, Eva has stopped drinking — things are rosy. The Garvey sisters’ biggest annoyance comes in the form of Angelica (Killing Eve’s Fiona Shaw), Roger’s holier-than-thou sister who seems put out by Grace’s new happiness. That said,
it seems like maybe, just maybe, the specter of that jackhole John Paul has been exorcised Grace’s her new life.
UNTIL! While work is being done on John Paul’s childhood home, some landscapers find the suitcase JP dumped in the backyard pond. When they open it, they find the dismembered remains of George, John Paul’s father. This discovery sets off a new murder investigation, headed by Det. Loftus from Season 1 and his new, very green partner Det. Houlihan (Sex Education’s Thaddea Graham).
Courtesy of Apple TV+
HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN… FOR A LITTLE WHILE | But before that waterlogged suitcase from Hell can mess up anything, Grace and Ian are married in a joyful ceremony in Eva’s backyard. We get updates on all the sisters. Bibi and her wife want to have another baby. Eva has a menopause coach named Eileen. Becka has a strapping new boyfriend named Callum (A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ Peter Claffey). Ursula and her husband have split, and while things are amicable, it’s still awkward when he attends with his new girlfriend. Ian gives a nice speech. A drunken Becka throws up in a potted plant. Y’know, everything’s back to normal.
Except Roger, who’s at the soiree with Angelica, cuts in while Grace and Ian are dancing. When he has Grace alone, he can’t stop talking about how his life has stood still even though hers has changed dramatically. “Do you think about what we did?” he wonders, because he carries it with him every day. Grace apologizes. From across the room, Eva picks up on the weird vibes and does her sisterly duty by interrupting: It’s time for Grace to throw the bouquet!
When she does, Eva’s just about to get it when Angelica — who I’m getting the feeling is NOT a good egg — hip-checks her out of the way, sending her tumbling to the ground. Roger, feeling a lot of feelings, watches from where he’s left alone on the dancefloor.
‘IAN’S GONE’ | Soon after, the discovery of George’s remains has the neighborhood buzzing. Detectives show up at Grace’s and ask about her former father-in-law; she replies that she hasn’t seen him in ages. Det. Loftus pokes around, asking about the insurance claim (aka the device that set off Season 1), and Grace lies that JP killed himself and she withdrew the claim to save her daughter, Blanaid, the pain.
It’s all too much for poor Roger, who stops by Grace’s house and says his conscience is about to destroy him. “I’m thinking of going to the police,” he admits. “I need to unburden myself.” She panics and begs him to “hold fast,” clinging to him as she says, “It was our secret. It can still be ours.” Ian, puzzled, watches from the door.
Grace knows that her tenuous grip on peace and normalcy — not to mention a life outside of prison — is slipping. So after Roger leaves, she goes inside and tells her new husband everything. How John Paul raped Eva. How he abused his own wife. He hugs her, and then she finally says it through her tears: “I killed him. I killed my husband.”
Her confession, as well as the knowledge that Roger is considering going to the cops, seems to change something for Ian. He said he needs air, and she frantically begs him not to walk out on her, even beating on his back with her fists as he walks toward the door.
The next morning, an upset Blanaid runs to Eva’s: “Ian’s gone. Mom’s still crying.” Back at her house, Grace lies in bed by herself, looking very weird/unsettled/potentially twice-over-murderous?
Now it’s your turn. Grade the premiere via the poll below, then hit the comments with your thoughts!
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Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 1’s Limited Budget Led To Some Inventive Filming Choices
BY JOE ROBERTS NOV. 27, 2025 9:12 AM EST
20th Television
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If you’ve ever rewatched “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” Season 1 and thought, “Huh, this looks a little cheap,” you’re more on target than a stake lodged in a bloodsucker’s heart.
In the book, “Slayers and Vampires: The Complete Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of Buffy and Angel,” creator Joss Whedon is quoted as saying, “We were very much on a tight budget. It’s really kind of sad, actually.” That said, what the production team was able to pull off with its limited means was impressive.
The “Buffy” crew made extensive use of a converted lumber warehouse in Santa Monica to build multiple sets for the show. In Season 1, that warehouse — which was not a professional soundstage — provided a home for several interior and exterior sets, but it wasn’t the easiest place to shoot. Director of photography Raymond Stella described the less-than-ideal facilities in “Slayers and Vampires,” recalling, “We didn’t have any [lighting] grids to work off of […] It made it challenging. We made it work, but we had our limitations, so it kind of tended to make it look a little low-budgety if you weren’t careful.”
Buffy had to work wonders without any real sound stages
20th Television
“Buffy” got off to a rough start, with Joss Whedon and his crew originally producing an unaired pilot that didn’t impress anyone at The WB. The only reason audiences ever got a Season 1 of “Buffy” was because the soap opera “Savannah” was canceled mid-season, and the network needed a replacement. As such, you can imagine The WB wasn’t shelling out millions per episode of “Buffy,” which left Joss Whedon and his crew in a tough situation.
Instead of being given space on the Warner Bros. lot, the show was handed their Santa Monica warehouses and had to make the best of it. Still, Season 1 contains some of the best “Buffy” episodes, thanks in part to some truly inventive use of the Santa Monica facilities.
Fun fact about the show’s first season: Whenever you see Buffy and her friends inside at school, they’re in the same spot. As Whedon explained, “This hall you’ll see a lot of in the first 12 episodes. It is the entire school. We only had the one hall, so we use it over and over again.”
Buffy actually expanded its warehouse sets as it went on
20th Television
The crew also shot on location in Season 1. The exterior Sunnydale High School scenes, for example, were all shot at Torrance High School in California. Scenes at Buffy’s house were also shot on location at an actual house in the city. The slayer’s bedroom was the only interior set from the house that was built in Santa Monica during Season 1.
As the seasons progressed, the crew eventually built more house sets. The same was true of the Sunnydale cemetery. During the first season, scenes in that location were mostly shot at the real-life Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery. Later, however, the crew built a cemetery on the Santa Monica warehouse’s lot. By Season 3, production designers had begun to construct an entire downtown Sunnydale strip on the grounds of the warehouse; this area became known as Maple Court.
“Buffy the Vampire Slayer” would go on to become a cult hit, though allegations that Joss Whedon ran a “toxic” set on both that series and its spin-off, “Angel,” would later cast a pall of the fantasy series’ legacy.
Read More: https://www.tvline.com/2035390/buffy-the-vampire-slayer-season-1-limited-budget-warehouse-soundstage/
