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Can you imagine waking up to the news that your closest friend — who was with you just a few hours earlier — has died? We are quick to push such possibilities, not so distant, out of our minds. Fiction lets us live those possibilities for a fleeting moment and brings a strange ache, then relief. Because we are not the ones who woke up to that news, who experienced the loss. The worst is when grief is pushed into the background in the face of a difficult reality like murder.
The mind begins weighing possibilities. Was there an enemy, someone who wanted to harm her? Was there something odd in her behavior that gave her away? And most importantly, what was right in front of my eyes that I failed to see? The weight of not being able to prevent the death of someone you loved lies in these questions and in the burden of conscience. The thought that you couldn’t truly know even your closest person destroys you. To solve the murder, you must probe the secrets — you must stay inside the pain. In moments like these, perfection becomes one enormous lie.
Imperfect Women focuses on exactly this — on Eleanor and Mary’s efforts to solve the murder after their loss. Adapted from Araminta Hall‘s novel of the same name, Imperfect Women was brought to television by Annie Weisman. A team of seven writers penned the script, and four different directors stepped behind the camera for the 8-episode production. The lead roles were shared by such standout performers as Elisabeth Moss, Kerry Washington, and Kate Mara.
This piece may contain spoilers for Imperfect Women.
The Obsession That Rattles the Ivory Tower
In any trio of friends, the formation of closer pairs within the group is inevitable. So it is with the friendship Eleanor, Nancy, and Mary began in their university years. Despite being friends for nearly twenty years, Nancy (Kate Mara) and Eleanor (Kerry Washington) seem closer to each other. Nancy shares with Eleanor that she’s seeing someone else — that she’s cheating on her husband. She even asks Eleanor to be with her the night before her death, when she goes to leave for the person she’s seeing. Eleanor turns down this request.
Nancy’s husband Robert (Joel Kinnaman) calls Eleanor in the early hours of the morning, asking whether she knows where Nancy is. Eleanor tells him she’ll come over, and when she arrives, she tells him Nancy is seeing someone else. Shortly after, the police come and tell them they’ve found Nancy’s dead body. This mysterious coincidence, appearing in the very first moments of the show, makes us suspicious of Eleanor. It soon becomes apparent that although she was the first to see Robert, she had been a spectator to their relationship. Her secret yearning for him over the years becomes visible in the way she appears every time he calls after the murder. The closeness she shows to Nancy’s daughter Cora (Audrey Zahn) merges with her interest in Robert — reinforcing the impression that she is driven by self-interest.
Eleanor’s brother Donovan (Leslie Odom Jr.) makes accurate observations in every scene he appears in. When two white people wish to be in a relationship, the only barrier is one of class. History has witnessed many examples of that barrier being crossed. This is what makes possible the marriage of Robert — from a very wealthy and prominent family — to Nancy, also white but from a lower class. Eleanor, by contrast, grows up as a wealthy Black woman. She has shackles similar to Robert’s, yet she also enjoys the comfort that wealth brings.
Despite the class barrier having dissolved, what Donovan has seen clearly from the very beginning is the racism of Robert’s family. Even if they came from equal socioeconomic classes, the racism Eleanor would face would exceed the discrimination Nancy would face for being from a lower class. Thus Donovan keeps Eleanor and Robert apart from the start. Yet Eleanor’s only vulnerability — the one capable of rattling her ivory tower — is her obsessive love for Robert.
A Life Lived on Pins and Needles
When we reach Episode 4 of Imperfect Women, Eleanor’s ambitious scenes give way to the past and to Nancy’s perspective. Episodes 4 and 5 — written by Haily Hall and Allison Abner — are directed by Lesli Linka Glatter, familiar from series like Mad Men and Pretty Little Liars. The narrative, taken over from Eleanor, shifts direction as we see what Nancy lived through — a woman who has known from the start that she was never perfect. Abused by her stepfather in childhood, Nancy is subjected to her mother’s hatred. Because her capacity for pain is high, she transforms into a skilled ballerina. But after an accident, she is forced to give up ballet.
Her friends show compassion; they embrace her with her delicate appearance and fragile past. Robert, meanwhile, becomes the refuge she had hoped would be her safe harbor. The desire she felt for the forbidden is tamed through him. Her constitution — accustomed to abuse and existing under threat — reaches another level through the deliberate exclusions of Robert’s family. She does the work her husband defines as charity and tries to carve out an existence for herself. She wants to design, plan, project, and give direction. Yet she becomes someone respected only for her money. And not even the money is hers.
Like everyone who feels they are becoming gradually parasitic, she wants to return to the most familiar place — to the darkness of the past. Neither her friends nor her husband can hear her cries for help. Davide (Theo Bongani Ndyalvani) — who at first appears to us as a murder suspect — asks Eleanor and Mary, “How could you not see Nancy’s unhappiness when even I could see it?” This is what shakes and brings the two characters most to their senses. And yet the fire inside Nancy, watched as it smoldered, leads to mistakes born of desperation that cannot be undone.
The Lies We Tell Ourselves
Eleanor knows only the name of the person Nancy was seeing. It is Mary (Elisabeth Moss) who discovers who this person named David, whom she met through work, actually is. The revelation at the end of Episode 3 — pointing to whom — surfaces in Nancy’s episodes. In the final three episodes, it acquires meaning through what Mary recounts. Among the three, Mary stands out as the most domestic — loyal to her home, her husband, and her children.
We listen to the story of this intelligent, gifted woman who loves to write as a voice that characterizes her. The voice travels back years, to the period when she met her husband. The veil of mystery surrounding the forbidden love previously hinted at dissolves. She tells us that she was in a relationship and married her husband while she was still his student, while he was still married. Her husband Howard leaves his wife after Mary becomes pregnant. The key to this new life they build together is the stories Mary tells herself. Like most of us, she deceives herself. She believes she is faithful and flawless — devoted to her husband’s family, whom she admires. Because the easiest way to keep things together is not to change reality but to shape our perception of it.
The pills she drank in university for energy, she continues to use in adult life. Under the effect of the pills, the veil before her eyes grows easier to thicken. As Mary’s reliability wanes, she uses more and more pills. The pills become a threat to the life she has built around her children, and ultimately cause her to be trapped in a place she must escape.
In the meantime, Eleanor’s selfish and hasty decisions damage her friendship with Mary — yet in the final episode their solidarity saves their lives. Because once someone’s mask has fallen, they have nothing left to lose. They easily cause harm and draw self-justification from it. The confrontation in which Mary exacts the pain of what she has been through allows her to put down years of burden all at once. The conversation she has with Eleanor reveals that all three of them fear the same thing: If I say everything as it is, will I still be loved? Must I be a perfect mother, boss, or spouse in order to be loved and accepted? Isn’t friendship, after all, the decision to stay by someone’s side in spite of their mistakes, their flaws, and their shortcomings?
Familiar, Average, and Safe
Imperfect Women looks at a pattern that is foreign to none of us. It holds a magnifying glass to the unique mistakes of three women on a plane where the men surrounding us make decisions in our place and shape our lives. While it’s easy to judge Eleanor for falling in love with her closest friend’s husband, seeing that all three of them make the same mistake restores the balance. After moments when we think they’re approaching one another with envy or jealousy, the genuine grief and concern that catches the eye is what holds them together. While reminding us that friendships may not be perfect, it doesn’t neglect from time to time to play on the audience’s nerves.
While it is known that Elisabeth Moss and Kerry Washington are open to a second season, it’s not yet known whether the show will be renewed. In my view, a solid script is needed to continue the story that drags in the last three episodes in particular. Yet I’m not willing to let the time spent getting to know the characters go to waste. That’s why I’m inclined to keep watching if it continues.
I think the faith in Elisabeth Moss‘s eyes in the final scene in particular points toward a narrative that could develop between her and the character of Robert. Between Mary — who is the only one who has never explicitly cursed at Robert — and Robert, I see a partnership based on dependency rather than love. Mary’s pills and Robert’s attachment to drink. I find the idea of watching characters who grow closer through their imperfect sides interesting.
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