His & Hers Review: Netflix Thriller Exploits Real Trauma For Cheap Plot Twists

Netflix's latest mystery series starts 2026 with a troubling trend that needs to end. His & Hers, starring Tessa Thompson and Jon Bernthal, joins a growing list of streaming thrillers that weaponize genuine human suffering as narrative shortcuts. The six-episode limited series doesn't just stumble with weak plotting and mismatched tone. It commits a more serious offense by reducing infant death, sexual assault, and profound grief into disposable plot devices.

The show premiered on January 8, bringing together impressive talent for what should have been a compelling psychological mystery. Instead, it delivers a masterclass in how not to handle sensitive subject matter in entertainment.

When Trauma Becomes a Twist

The central story follows Anna Andrews, an Atlanta news anchor who retreated from public life after losing her infant daughter Charlotte to what the show calls "crib death," an unexplained tragedy. When a brutal murder shakes her small Georgia hometown of Dahlonega, she returns to investigate. There she crosses paths with Detective Jack Harper, who happens to be her estranged husband, the investigating officer, and someone who was sleeping with the victim.

Their separation stems from Charlotte's death while in the care of Anna's mother Alice. The show treats this tragedy as background texture, something to give the characters depth and motivation. But here's the problem: using infant death as a plot device trivializes an experience that shatters real families.

According to the Globe and Mail, the series "has to treat this seriously even though it is otherwise utterly unserious." The narrative grinds to a halt whenever the actors must convey genuine grief, creating jarring tonal shifts that expose the shallow foundation beneath.

The Pattern of Exploitation

His & Hers isn't alone in this approach. Roger Ebert's review notes that recent Netflix thrillers including The Beast in Me, All Her Fault, and Untamed all lean heavily on dead children as character motivation. In The Beast in Me, Claire Danes spends significant screen time portraying grief over a child killed in an accident. In Untamed, Eric Bana plays a park ranger haunted by a child's death years earlier.

Time magazine's critic identifies the core issue clearly. The show "treats the death of the couple's baby before her flight as a major revelation, even though losing a child is the catalyst for just about every marital rift you ever see in this kind of show."

It's become a crutch. An easy way to generate sympathy without doing the harder work of building three-dimensional characters through authentic development.

Sexual Assault as Shock Value

The exploitation doesn't stop with infant death. His & Hers reveals through flashbacks that teenage Anna was sexually assaulted on her 16th birthday. Her friends Rachel, Helen, and Zoe orchestrated the attack, arranging for grown men to assault the girls for money. They watched and even sang "Happy Birthday" to Anna as she was victimized, recording it on videotape.

Time's review states the obvious: "Ninety-nine times out of 100, using sexual assault as character development cheapens a horrific experience, and Oldroyd's deployment of this trope is among the cheapest I've seen in post-#MeToo TV."

This revelation exists purely to justify the show's ultimate twist. Anna's mother Alice, who discovered the assault while watching old VHS tapes, commits the murders as revenge. The sexual assault isn't explored with care or sensitivity. It's plot machinery, something to make Alice's killing spree seem understandable.

The show asks viewers to sympathize with vigilante murder while treating the original trauma as mere backstory. That's not thoughtful storytelling. It's exploitation.

The Ending's Moral Problems

What makes this worse is how the show frames the conclusion. According to High on Films, director William Oldroyd viewed his adaptation as a "love letter to maternal bonds." The finale reveals Alice committed serial murders to avenge her daughter's assault, then framed it to bring Anna and Jack back together.

Alice's confession letter explains she knew she could get away with the murders because serial killers are rarely women or senior citizens. She faked dementia to avoid suspicion. The show ends with Anna discovering this truth and, rather than reporting her mother, shares a knowing smile with her across the room. The implication is clear: Alice's actions worked.

This ending doesn't just trivialize trauma. It endorses vigilante murder as an expression of maternal love. Real survivors of sexual assault don't need their experiences weaponized to justify serial killing. Parents who've lost children don't need to see that grief transformed into a murder mystery plot engine.

When Good Shows Handle Grief Well

The contrast with quality programming is stark. Shows like This Is Us, Sorry for Your Loss, and Dead to Me explore grief as a central theme rather than a plot device. They give space for characters to experience the messy, non-linear reality of loss.

This Is Us built entire seasons around how one man's death ripples through his family. Sorry for Your Loss understands that grief isn't a neat arc with a beginning and an end. It's a process that deserves respect and nuance.

Even Six Feet Under, which literally began each episode with a death, treated mortality and mourning with depth and complexity. These shows prove that exploring trauma can be done thoughtfully when writers commit to the emotional reality rather than using it as narrative fuel.

His & Hers wants the emotional weight of genuine trauma without doing the work to earn it.

The Tonal Disaster

Roger Ebert's review captures the show's fundamental failure: "The problem with the glut of streaming thrillers is how much the writing has been pared down to almost nothing but the things that push the plot forward." He notes that when the finale arrives, "one starts to think about the stops along the way on this twisted path, ones that include the death of a baby and the rape of a teenager, and the hand-waving away of this as just 'fun escapism' gets harder to do."

The show can't decide if it's a pulpy thriller or a serious drama. It wants to be both soapy and somber, playful and profound. Time's critic identifies this as the defining problem of modern streaming thrillers: "sloppy vibe calibration."

When you mix genuine trauma with genre thrills, you need precise tonal control. Shows like BEEF manage it. His & Hers doesn't even try.

The Economic Reality Behind Careless Content

Part of this problem stems from how streaming content gets made. With belt-tightening at Netflix and other platforms, corners get cut. Scripts don't get the revision they need. Directors rush through production. The result is content that treats serious subjects carelessly because there isn't time or budget for nuance.

The Hollywood Reporter's review notes that His & Hers feels like one of those "forgettable Netflix limited series filmed in Southern tax havens and forgotten by all but television critics."

Georgia offers attractive tax incentives, which is why the show relocated from its original British setting in Alice Feeney's novel. But filming in a cost-effective location doesn't excuse shallow storytelling.

Why This Matters

When shows repeatedly use infant death, sexual assault, and profound grief as plot devices, they contribute to cultural desensitization. These aren't abstract concepts. They're experiences that devastate real people.

Parents who've lost children don't need to see their nightmare reduced to backstory. Survivors of sexual assault don't need their trauma used to justify vigilante fantasies. People navigating grief don't need to watch it treated as a reveal meant to heighten suspense.

Entertainment has a responsibility to approach real suffering with care. That doesn't mean these topics are off-limits. It means they deserve more than being deployed as shortcuts to character development or motivation.

The Final Insult

The ending of His & Hers might be its most offensive element. Anna discovers her mother committed the murders and appears to accept it. The finale jumps forward one year to show Anna and Jack reunited, expecting another baby, having adopted Jack's niece Meg. Everything seems perfect.

The implication is clear: Alice's murder spree worked. It brought the family back together. The trauma is behind them now.

This is where the show reveals its true colors. It doesn't actually care about exploring trauma. It uses trauma to engineer a specific outcome, then discards the messy reality once it's no longer useful to the plot.

Real grief doesn't resolve neatly in a year. Real trauma from sexual assault doesn't disappear because you've reunited with your estranged spouse. Real families don't achieve happiness by burying the truth about serial murders committed by a loved one.

What Writers Should Learn

If you're going to include infant death, sexual assault, or similar traumas in your story, ask yourself: Is this essential to what I'm saying, or is it a shortcut? Am I giving this the weight it deserves, or am I using it as plot machinery? Could I tell this story without exploiting real suffering?

Shows like Mare of Easttown prove you can craft compelling mysteries without reducing trauma to twists. The emotional depth in that series came from authentic character work, not from deploying suffering as shock value.

His & Hers had talented leads in Thompson and Bernthal. It had a director with pedigree from Lady Macbeth and Eileen. It had source material from a bestselling author. What it lacked was the fundamental respect for its subject matter that separates thoughtful drama from exploitative trash.

My Perspective: A Line Crossed

As someone who appreciates both pulpy thrillers and serious drama, I wanted His & Hers to work. The premise had potential. The cast deserved better material. But watching the show treat unexplained infant death and sexual assault as narrative tools rather than genuine human experiences felt like a betrayal of the medium's potential.

We can do better. We should demand better. Trauma isn't a plot device. Grief isn't a twist. Sexual assault isn't character motivation.

The next time a streaming thriller tries to generate sympathy through a dead baby or manufacture outrage through sexual violence, ask yourself if the story truly needs it or if lazy writers are taking shortcuts through other people's pain.

His & Hers proves that even talented people can make ethically questionable choices when they prioritize twists over truth. The show isn't just disappointing as entertainment. It's disappointing as an example of how not to approach serious subject matter with the care it deserves.

The Verdict

His & Hers streams on Netflix as a cautionary tale about what happens when thriller mechanics override ethical storytelling. It wastes its cast, mishandles its tone, and most critically, exploits real trauma for cheap dramatic effect.

If you're looking for a well-crafted mystery that respects its audience and its subject matter, skip this one. There are better options that don't require you to watch genuine human suffering reduced to plot points.

The show ends with Anna and Alice sharing a knowing look, suggesting acceptance and understanding. But the only thing I understood after six episodes is that some stories should never be told this carelessly.

Netflix's His & Hers isn't just bad television. It's a reminder that we need to hold entertainment to higher standards when it comes to depicting real trauma. The dead children, sexual assault survivors, and grieving families who inspired these plot points deserve more than being used as narrative shortcuts in a forgettable January thriller.