His & Hers Review: Netflix’s Adaptation of Alice Feeney's Novel is a Riveting Whodunit Tale

Every crime thriller faces an existential question: will the climactic reveal of the perpetrator elevate the story's intensity with a mind-riddling twist no one saw coming? That’s the inevitable test that looms over Netflix’s countryside crime thriller, His & Hers, which opens with a gruesome murder that snowballs into a chaotic mess in the suburbs of Dahlonega.

Adapted from Alice Feeney’s best-selling book of the same name, and directed by William Oldroyd and Anja Marquardt, the twisty thriller sets the bar high for 2026 TV standards. His & Hers is a riveting watch, deploying plot twists and narrative deception that keep viewers guessing at every pivotal turn.

Star actors Tessa Thompson (Anna Andrews) and Josh Bernthal (Jack Harper) serve as the streamer’s marquee attractions, anchoring the crime thriller with performances that live up to expectations. Together, they convincingly portray an estranged couple still reeling from a shared loss, one the town’s murder forces back to the surface.

Thompson and Bernthal Spice Up this Unsettling Countryside Thriller

Right off the bat, His & Hers opens with the story’s central victim, Rachel Hopkins (Jamie Tisdale), who is stabbed gruesomely and left out to die in the rain. Her death is accompanied by an unnerving dialogue that suggests the story is built around a titular standoff: my word against yours — His & Hers. “His” in this story is Jack Harper (Josh Bernthal), a brittle middle-aged detective at the Lumpkin County Sheriff's Office, in charge of solving the murder of Rachel Hopkins.

A keen-eyed reporter visibly rattles Jack within the first half of the opening episode, and it turns out they are connected: the reporter is Jack’s estranged wife, Anna Andrews (Tessa Thompson), who fits the “hers” persona. Anna returns to Dahlonega from Atlanta after a year-long self-imposed exile, with one goal — to revive her reporting career at WSK by covering the death of Rachel Hopkins.

As the investigation continues, it escalates the marital feud between Anna and Jack into an intricate dynamic. Circumstances surrounding the murder can potentially ruin Jack’s career, and Anna’s sensationalist coverage of the murder is the perfect career jolt she needs. Neither genuinely prioritizes the unravelling of the perpetrator’s identity; they are primarily concerned with their interests, which sets them up as quintessential suspects for the murder of Rachel.

His & Hers Flawlessly Features the Necessary Components for an Outstanding Crime Thriller

​​​​​His & Hers is intentionally layered, and connecting the dots towards the much-anticipated reveal is rewarding and blatantly shocking. The lead protagonists’ animosity, ironically intensified by shared grief over the loss of a child, raises the stakes in this convoluted whodunit tale. Like two sides of the same coin, the story argues that two contradictory truths on a single issue can coexist, exposing the tangled nature of hurt and blame in a fractured relationship. True to its “two sides to a story” mantra, His & Hers underscores how justification and grievance can exist simultaneously, deepening the emotional complexity of the central conflict.

Thompson deftly plays an emotionally frail yet determined Anna, who, despite the tragedies of her marriage, chooses to press on even if it uncovers a ghastly secret linked to a childhood friendship that would alter the course of her life forever. Bernthal’s performance in His & Hers underlines his versatility as an actor. He plays a hurting, pointedly unprofessional, and volatile Jack who violates ethical law-enforcement standards in the interest of self-preservation. Rachel’s husband, Clyde Duffie (Chris Bauer), takes the brunt of Jack’s actions as a prime suspect with intricate connections to his wife’s demise.

The show hinges on a dastardly event that occurs on Anna’s 16th birthday. As the series unfolds, present-day scenes are intercut with Anna’s high-school memories, reframing the murder clues as they surface. Rachel, Helen Wang (Poppy Liu), Zoe (Marin Ireland), Catherine Kelly(Astrid Rotenberry) and Anna are linked by an ominous event that permanently alters their friendship, and the crime thriller chooses the right moment to unveil its impact.

Netflix’s adaptation of Alice Feeney’s book shares the same propulsive tension as the original bestselling novel. However, the book's London-Blackdown setting is replaced by an Atlanta-Dahlonega parallel, and the BBC is substituted for Atlanta’s WSK. Despite these cosmetic changes, the Netflix thriller retains the novel's narrative fervour. With a killer on the loose in a minimally populated Dahlonega, unmasking the culprit’s identity is equally important to the countryside residents and viewers.

When the mystery finally unravels, it reveals a sickening evil that recontextualizes everything that came before. Furthermore, it thoroughly fleshes out the savant killer's complex psyche and intentions, cloaked by the story’s unreliable narrator. As one of the first TV shows premiering on Netflix this year, His & Hers raises expectations for the streamer’s 2026 catalogue, as it’s an enthralling adaptation of Feeney’s thriller masterpiece.