Item: No Good Deed
Rating: 7
Author: Alex Maidy

Last Updated on December 15, 2024

Plot: When Lydia and Paul decide to move on from their empty nest to forge a new life, they list their gorgeous 1920s Spanish-style villa located in one the most desirable neighborhoods in Los Angeles — and the real estate frenzy begins. Multiple families all race to buy what they believe to be their dream house, convinced it will fix all of their very different problems. But as Lydia and Paul know all too well, sometimes the home of your dreams can be a true nightmare. As they struggle to hide the dark and dangerous secrets that linger inside their longtime home, Paul and Lydia begin to realize that the only way they’ll escape the past is to finally face it.

Review: Anyone who has bought a house or even tried to knows that real estate can be brutal. While bidding on a home rarely results in murder, there is plenty of backstabbing that can occur between buyers vying for their dream home. No Good Deed, the new series from Dead To Me creator Liz Feldman, takes the concept of a beautiful home on the market and those trying to purchase it and fills it with twists, cliffhangers, and secrets right out of an Agatha Christie book. Led by Lisa Kudrow and Ray Romano and boasting an ensemble of recognizable talent, No Good Deed is a quick binge that is fun, engaging, and surprisingly emotional as it gives us a look at one family trying to unburden themselves from their family home and the secrets it holds.

No Good Deed’s first episode starts with an open house at the home of Paul (Ray Romano) and Lydia Morgan (Lisa Kudrow). Sequestered in a locked upstairs bedroom, the Morgans watch the potential buyers walking through Paul’s childhood home. They are looking for the perfect people to care for the building that has housed their family for generations. They pay close attention to who stops by, including Leslie (Abbi Jacobson) and Sarah (Poppy Liu), a couple struggling with IVF treatments. There are also newlyweds Carla (Teyonah Paris) and Dennis (O-T Fagbenle), who are pregnant with their first child and have Dennis’ mother, Denise (Anna Marie Horsford), in tow. Neighbors Margo Starling (Linda Cardellini) and her husband, actor JD (Luke Wilson), also pop in. All of these candidates love the house and want to make it their own, but each has a past or future connection to the Morgans that will drive the central mystery at the series’ core. That mystery becomes apparent before the end of the first episode, but I won’t spoil it here.

Just so you know, like Dead To Me, No Good Deed delves into some hefty emotional territory. Lydia, a former concert pianist dealing with a diagnosis that makes playing piano nearly impossible, and Paul have a strong marriage that has a rift thrown into it for the last three years. Both Kudrow and Romano make a believable couple, and their chemistry drives this series forward. Whether they are playful with each other or at odds, both actors balance this series’s dramatic and comedic elements well. All the couples in the story work well, especially Poppy Liu and Abbi Jacobson, who have an effortless nature to their characters, a lawyer and a doctor, making their screen time pleasant to watch. Teyonah Parris and O-T Fagbenle play Carla and Dennis, who only knew each other briefly before getting pregnant and married. They are a couple still getting to know one another, but it never feels forced. On the other end, Luke Wilson and Linda Cardellini have a more confrontational dynamic, as JD and Margo are not in a good place in their marriage. Everyone works well within their roles and with their screen partners, which helps give this series a natural element.

Adding to the mix is Mikey (Denis Leary), Paul’s brother, who recently was paroled from prison. Leary is a welcome addition to any series, and here, he makes great use of his supporting role, which becomes integral in the first episode. Each half-hour chapter of the eight-episode series rolls by quickly, with the show’s middle chapters being the strongest. The dialogue is smart and funny, with so many reveals in each episode that it sometimes becomes difficult to keep track of who is on what side at any given time. While each buyer crosses paths with the Morgans in different ways, the story’s complexity remains one of the strongest elements of No Good Deed. Some flashbacks fill the blanks, and convenient information pops up at the right time. This is a television show and a work of entertainment, so the logic behind some of the twists strains credulity, but that is part of the fun of a story like this. Thankfully, every actor is game to have fun with it, especially Dead To Me star Linda Cardellini, who gets to do some of the most robust scene-chewing in the entire cast.

Liz Feldman has a strength in creating believable female characters and even more believable couples. She also tends towards snappy dialogue peppered with creative insults and a great use of profanity. No Good Deed is fun and engaging when the characters are talking, even if the story sometimes shifts to serve the eventual endgame. The series starts quickly with director Silver Tree (Fatal Attraction, You) helming six of the eight chapters, with Feldman on the other two. Feldman also wrote the first episode and co-wrote the finale with Kelly Hutchinson, Cara DiPaolo, Zora Bikangaga, Crystal Jenkins, and Bruce Eric Kaplan scripting the rest. Will Ferrell returns as executive producer through his Gloria Sanchez banner. Only Murders in the Building composer Siddhartha Khosla contributes an appropriately zany score highlighting the fun that No Good Deed aims for. Yes, this is a murder mystery, but it is fun and funny. Feldman has proven she knows how to take dark material and mine it for humor; this series is no exception.

No Good Deed opens quickly and does not slow down, as the full series never loses momentum. Where the series shines is once we have met all of the characters. By the third episode, there is no slowing down. Every episode throws another red herring or shocking announcement at the viewer, careening towards the big reveal of who has committed the central crime. Many mysteries fail to stick the landing, but No Good Deed culminates in a satisfying ending, even if it is a bit quaint and resolved with less bravado than I had expected. The series is not designed to be a big flashy whodunit despite how intense things get between episodes three and six. I finished No Good Deed feeling like the story Liz Feldman set out to tell has been told, but it also feels like there could be more to the story for some of these characters if not all of them. A light, breezy, fun series with a tinge of emotional weight, No Good Deed is a satisfying watch.

No Good Deed premieres on December 12th on Netflix.