Joanna Lumley and Michelle Keegan go head to head in Harlen Coben’s latest Netflix adaptation, Fool Me Once.
**Warning: Contains full spoilers for Netflix’s Fool Me Once.**
Netflix’s Harlen Coben adaptations might all be set in some idealised version of Northern England where everyone has an immaculate lawn and kitchen straight out of Architectural Digest, but they all still possess the melodrama, ridiculously convoluted narratives and detachment from reality of a glossy night-time American soap opera. And the latest, Fool Me Once, is no exception.
With the rivalry between disgraced military pilot Maya Stern (Michelle Keegan) and her passive-aggressive mother-in-law Judith Burkett (Joanna Lumley) channelling the shoulder-padded, diva squabbles between Dynasty legends Alexis and Krystle Carrington, you spend much of the eight increasingly preposterous episodes waiting for them to drown each other in a lily pond.
Keegan and Lumley lean fully into the campness whenever their characters interact, which is unsurprising given both parties have form when it comes to on-screen showdowns. Keegan made enemies of Kirsty Soames, Anna Windass and Carla Connor during her turbulent stint as barmaid Tina McIntyre in Coronation Street. And in Absolutely Fabulous, Lumley’s Patsy Stone spent just as much time bickering with lifelong frenemy Edina Monsoon as she did chain smoking. So, it’s little wonder that the pair throwing daggers at each other is the only part of the far-fetched murder mystery that could be described as TV gold.
Initially, Maya and Judith’s relationship is more frosty than fractious. They’re perfectly cordial with each other while grieving over their husband and son Joe (Richard Armitage), respectively, in the opening funeral scene. But before long, Judith is constantly phoning up her daughter-in-law, either to stick her nose in her business or throw some epic shade.
“I know you’re not used to being a full-time mum,” she remarks during a request to see granddaughter Lily (Thea Taylor-Morgan), preying on the maternal guilt Maya feels about her time in combat. It’s one of many putdowns Lumley delivers with just enough ambiguity to leave you wondering whether her offensiveness is intentional.
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But by the end of the episode, they’re at full-blown loggerheads after Maya makes the first of many hasty beelines for the Burketts’ manor.
“I did often wonder if there was a voice in his ear saying, ‘Is she good enough, this bit of rough?’,” the widower retorts after her love of Joe is called into dispute. “‘Was she really good enough for my special boy?’”
Judith’s visible disdain suggests Maya wasn’t simply paranoid.
But it’s a showdown in the third episode that really kicks things into overdrive.
“Don’t ever tell me to f**k off in my home,” Judith warns Maya following a foul-mouthed response to her lack of cooperation. “Because quite frankly, you can f**k off.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, the idea of a 77-year-old national treasure, and one who’s recently become renowned for cosy travelogues, dropping the F-bomb in her cut-glass accent has already spawned numerous memes.
Exemplifying the show’s tonal whiplashes, the pair quickly get back to a state of civility, even if Judith can’t resist making a few digs about her daughter-in-law’s dress sense, and as the drama hurtles toward its preposterous finale, it even looks as though there’s some genuine affection between the two. But their truce is cut brutally short.
In the climactic scene, Judith returns home to find a gun-toting Maya perched on a chair in the dark like a moustache-twirling Bond villain. It’s revealed that Joe’s mother knew her son had killed Maya’s sister Claire (Natalie Anderson) after she threatened to leak secrets that would ruin the Burketts’ pharmaceutical empire.
“When an enemy attacks, you have the right to defend yourself,” justifies Judith. “You should know that better than anyone,” she adds, a cutting reference to the military disaster that prompted Maya discharge.
“She was my sister, you evil f**k”, spits Maya, ignoring Judith’s earlier request to tone down her language. Any possibility of reconciliation is long gone, but who wants that anyway?
Keegan and Lumley sell the heck out screenwriter Danny Brocklehurst’s entertainingly wicked back and forth, with the former now firmly establishing herself in the same club as fellow Corrie graduates Sarah Lancashire, Katherine Kelly and Suranne Jones. And it’s her character who gets the last laugh, albeit at the cost of her own life.
After rejecting Judith’s idea to make the late Joe a sacrificial lamb and take the flak for all of the company’s wrongdoings, she is fatally shot by snivelling brother-in-law Neil (James Northcote). But as foreshadowed by one of her final zingers (“Oh trust me, the world’s finding out”), she’s secretly live-streamed all the confessions and crimes, condemning her nemesis and the rest of the Burketts to lengthy prison sentences.
Some viewers may believe that Coben should be similarly punished for foisting yet another preposterous potboiler on the unsuspecting public, but at least this one had a gloriously absurd clash to the death.
All eight episodes of Fool Me Once are now available to stream on Netflix – check out our Drama hub for all the latest news. If you’re looking for something else to watch tonight, check out our TV Guide.
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