Apples Never Fall, an edgy limited series about a woman who goes missing under curious circumstances, debuted on Peacock March 14. Liane Moriarty wrote the novel that inspired the series, and Annette Bening plays Joy, the woman who disappears.
Joy and Stan, played by Sam Neill, had a prominent tennis academy in West Palm Beach. They sell it and ease into retirement.
Then things go awfully wrong. A young woman knocks on their door, distraught. Savannah mentions an abusive boyfriend, and the couple invites her in. She ends up staying indefinitely, arousing the suspicion of the couple’s adult children, and then Joy disappears.
Jake Lacy, Alison Brie, Conor Merrigan-Turner and Essie Randles play the kids. There are seven episodes.
Melanie Marnich is the showrunner and executive producer. She spoke about adapting the novel at the TCA Winter Press Tour in Pasadena, California. “Liane’s book is amazing,” she said. “It’s so rich and some of the most important things that we took from — that I took from that — are the themes, obviously the story, the emotional reality and story of these kids, the family and the mystery of Joy Delaney.”
Moriarty’s books also include Big Little Lies and Nine Perfect Strangers, both of which were adapted to television.
Bening also praised the author. “She writes such juicy stories and juicy parts,” she said.
There’s lots of tennis in the series, and the matches get quite heated. Marnich said, “When you're a family of deeply competitive people raised by deeply competitive people, it's in the blood, it's in the DNA and, to me, that amps up all the mystery.”
She called the game “a dynamic, sexy, wonderful sport.”
Brie didn’t pick up tennis skills while shooting. “I took lessons but I'm not very good,” she said. “Never played before this. Never figured it out. They said, you know what, you don't play very much in the show, and we can put a ball in digitally. Why don’t you just learn choreography? And I said yes.”
Lacy, who has also appeared in The White Lotus, Mrs. America and Fosse/Verdon, was asked why he ends up on so many limited series. He said what he likes about Apples is that “there's both an exploration of character and narrative but also that it's compressed. It drives me a little nuts as a viewer when someone's like it's 10 parts. Stick with it until the fourth one, it really gets cooking. You're like, I got to watch essentially the length of The Godfather before we get to the story? Like, get it together. What are you doing? It's not worth it, you know?”
He called Apples “a tight, deep seven episodes.”
Reviews have been mixed. USA Today said: “It's an enticing mystery made all the more compelling by the performances of the talented cast, particularly stalwarts Bening and Neill. But while the series starts strong and captures your interest for five of its seven episodes, by the finale all the exhilaration of domestic mystery collapses. It's more disappointing than angering.”
The New York Times said, “The show hits its steady simmer with tense competence and with some good lines.”
