Television's most chaotic women are complicated, deceptive and captivating. Welcome to Messy Girl Summer.
Haven't you heard? Summer is coming and it needs a name. I'd like to officially nominate "Messy Girl Summer" as 2025's seasonal theme.
Some of the buzziest television shows out now — The Better Sister, Sirens — or on their way — Ginny & Georgia, We Were Liars — all have one thing in common: female characters that are complex, complicated and, for the most part, ones that we can't help but root for.
In Prime Video's murder mystery The Better Sister, Jessica Biel plays Chloe, a high-profile media executive who reunites with her estranged sister Nicky (Elizabeth Banks) after Chloe's husband, a powerful attorney, is brutally killed. As the murder investigation unfolds, the siblings must confront painful family secrets that drove them apart to uncover the truth behind his death.
Biel's character is pegged as the "good" one who, from the outside, is the picture-perfect wife, mother and successful entrepreneur. Nicky, a recovering addict, is more rough around the edges, as she had to put her life back together after losing custody of her son.
When I interviewed Biel and Banks ahead of the series' May 29 premiere, I told them about the TV trend I've been noticing. We all agreed there's a reason these multifaceted female characters resonate with viewers.
"Elizabeth has been speaking about it so eloquently, the women that we're playing — society culturally likes to bash them down. [Chloe] is really driven, professional, successful, tough [and] could be considered a hard boss. People don't like women to be like that," Biel said.
As for Banks's Nicky, Biel said people "don't like women to be 'bad moms.' These two different female archetypes that we're looking at here, there's so much more to them, as there is [to] every human and every woman. We are 360-degree beings. We're not just one thing."
Throughout the first part of the limited series, that's especially at play with the dueling "good" and "bad" labels society wants to place on these characters ... and on women in general.
"When you get to show all these sides of a person — their successful side, their vulnerable side, their raw side, their lying side, their truthful side — it's just giving you a canvas to paint a real picture of an authentic person and that's what we were able to do here," Biel continued. "So yeah, both of these characters really fall into that messy girl ... or just a human girl."
Actress Lorraine Toussaint, who plays Catherine, Chloe's close friend and confidant, told Yahoo that she hopes "this is a Messy Girl TV Summer because I'm a messy girl."
"Hell yeah, let's celebrate the messy girls," she said. "I think girls are messy. Girls are complicated. And girls are interesting. .... Left to our own devices, it's actually way more dangerous, way more vulgar, way more interesting, way sexier. When women get together, I think most men would be really shocked — and correctly afraid — to be at the center of that level of estrogen. So, bring it on, baby."
Banks is all in on the trend, but had one clarifying question: "Who else are we competing against? Are we winning?"
So far, it's a crowded field.
Netflix's Sirens is a strong contender. Julianne Moore, Meghann Fahy and Milly Alcock star in this dark comedy about Devon (Fahy), who confronts her sister Simone (Alcock) over an eerily close relationship with her enigmatic billionaire boss (Moore). The show, which premiered May 22, has garnered 18.2 million views on the streamer, putting it at the top of Netflix's English-language TV shows for two weeks in a row.
But can it hold its dominance? On June 5, fan-favorite Ginny & Georgia returns for a third season on Netflix. The series continues to explore the relationship between the free-spirited Georgia Miller and her teenage daughter as she navigates high school.
Brianne Howey, who plays Georgia, calls the young matriarch "larger than life," but also "exhausting." Teasing the third season on the Podcrushed podcast, she said, "there's one or two things this season Georgia does that are really hard to get behind." Sounds messy.
What these shows also share is that they center around families, and who doesn't have family drama?
Meet the Sinclairs, who are the focal point of We Were Liars, out on Prime Video June 18, which aims to enter the chat too. The show, which is based on the popular 2014 book, has three generations of the wealthy family's secrets to unpack as drama ensues at their private summer utopia.
Dan Green, the director of the master of entertainment industry management program at Carnegie Mellon University, believes viewers crave authentic characters — complicated and all — over "one-dimensional female archetypes."
"Life is complicated and messy… so are the characters we view on TV," he told Yahoo Entertainment. "The Messy Girl vibe, which is popular, reflects what society is experiencing."
Still, the concept of these multifaceted female characters on television is nothing new.
"I think it's helpful to see these shows as part of a longer trajectory of changes in gender norms and storytelling that can be traced back to the advent of 'cinematic television' in the early 2000s," Claire Sisco King, chair of cinema and media arts at Vanderbilt University, added to Yahoo Entertainment.
Crediting The Sopranos as the first in the canon, she cited other shows like Dead to Me (2019), The Flight Attendant (2020) and Orange Is the New Black (2013) as other examples of TV series that showcase "messy leading women."
However, there is clearly an influx of programs that fit the bill, thanks to streaming services. King noted a departure from the sitcom model right now, "which typically favors episodic narratives and uncomplicated characters."
"I agree [these new shows] center on women who are complicated or even 'messy' characters. Some of the common themes include secrets, deception, and even violence," she explained. "These series emphasize the complexity and contradictory nature of human subjectivity, often inviting audiences to root for anti-heroes. In other words, what feels like a new trend in television might actually illustrate the routinization of these patterns.'
Green agrees, adding that "audiences are no longer comforted by perfect characters who have their lives summed up within 60 or 90 minutes."
"Audiences yearn for characters they can relate to and see themselves in similar situations," he explained. "Authenticity is the name of the game, and these characters ring more true than those that reveal a character's identity based on the car they're driving or the job they have... writers are creating more nuanced characters that address mental health issues, identity, and financial struggles, reflecting the challenges faced by young women (and men) every day."
For anyone who binged The Better Sister, which sits atop Prime Video's TV chart, it's clear that Biel and Banks might be in the lead for most complex sisters on streaming.
"We want to be at the top of the messy pile," Banks said.
"Top of the mess," Biel agreed.
"We like to compete. I would like you to send the medal to my home. And you can give a trophy to Jess and we will wear it proudly all summer long," Banks joked.
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