When characters acknowledge the script’s shortcomings, it often signals trouble. This is apparent in Nicky Macintosh’s role in The Better Sister. Nicky vocally expresses frustration with her sister Chloe for not seeking legal counsel sooner, especially since detectives have turned their focus toward her son, Ethan. She also chides Chloe for referencing Jerry Springer, implying she’s stuck in the past. 

However, Chloe isn’t to blame for the show’s outdated and misguided portrayal of socioeconomic status through wardrobe choices, echoing the styles of a bygone era. Nor is she responsible for being scripted as an implausibly successful yet naive character—a dichotomy that would rarely survive reality. Despite these flaws, it’s Nicky who articulates the criticisms that viewers might share, paradoxically amplifying rather than dismissing them. 

The episode centers around the detectives Guidry and Bowen as they attempt to link Ethan to the murder of his father, Adam Macintosh. The circumstantial evidence against Ethan—like stolen items from a staged robbery found bloody in his closet and a drug-dealer friend debunking his alibi—paints a worrying picture. The tension crescendos with Jessica Biel, Elizabeth Banks, and Gloria Reuben (who portrays Ethan’s attorney, Michelle Sanders) delivering a powerful reaction. Despite a prior incident involving Ethan bringing his dad’s gun to school, chalked up as a misunderstanding, the indication is clear: Ethan remains a prime suspect.

But I get the impression secrets abound within this crew, and that Ethan is a red herring. There’s Chloe and her mysterious burner phone to consider; it sure looks like she was having an affair with Jake Rodríguez (Gabriel Sloyer), a lawyer at late husband Adam’s firm who the cops can instantly tell hated the guy’s guts. There’s her boss, Bill, and his own mysterious phone call to think of as well: He warns an unknown party that Chloe might get herself killed if she’s not careful. A brief vision of their father on Nicky’s part indicates a dark secret in the family’s past, too, though I have the sinking feeling it’s easy enough to figure out what happened, and to whom. 

And as far as the misogynistic package delivered to their home the day of the murder, the call may be coming from inside the house, so to speak. A cybersecurity expert hired by Chloe (Keone Young, part of the show’s suite of Deadwood veterans, including Kim Dickens as Guidry and Michael “Steve the Drunk” Harney as Chloe’s doorman and occasional driver) has traced some of the most virulent internet chatter about her to her own magazine’s offices.

Keeping in mind that this magazine is the platform from which Chloe is launching a progressive political career, there’s a fundamental disconnect within her character. Simultaneously, we are asked to accept that she is a) an enormously successful and wealthy businesswoman who b) knows less about asking for legal counsel when questioned by cops than anyone who’s seen a couple episodes of Law & Order, and that she c) is making a political name out of advocating for labor rights while d) also being a rich person who trusts the police completely, to the point she’s let them talk to her minor child alone. You just can’t get from here to there, you know?

This despite the fact that Biel is a compelling actor, one of those performers blessed with looks so striking they have to figure out something interesting to do with it lest it swamp their talents. (Think of half the cast of Mad Men, for example.) In Biel’s case, she uses her severe, patrician beauty and gym-toned silhouette to suggest being tightly wound, even brittle. She projects the air of a person whose house of cards is about to come tumbling down just by how she inhabits her wardrobe, her hairstyle, the screen itself. 

This all works particularly well when contrasted with the flashbacks that show her as a looser, less particular version of herself when her relationship with Adam began. And talk about a psychological cocktail there: Chloe and Adam trying to make up for Nicky’s failure by effectively recreating the relationship with a different sister swapped in. But despite this potentially fertile material, there’s simply a limit to what any actor can do with a character who’s less a person and more a contradiction in terms.

Sean T. Collins (@theseantcollins) writes about TV for Rolling Stone, Vulture, The New York Times, and anyplace that will have him, really. He and his family live on Long Island.