The Good Daughter review – the best thing about this legal thriller? Brendan Gleeson’s sad toilet fart

For a drama that is meant to explore female trauma, Rose Byrne and Meghann Fahy are given very little to do as small-town lawyers. It is Gleeson who steals the show as their broken father who earns the name Shatticus Finch “Why is ma laaahf filled with contrary feee-males ?” grum

For a drama that is meant to explore female trauma, Rose Byrne and Meghann Fahy are given very little to do as small-town lawyers. It is Gleeson who steals the show as their broken father who earns the name Shatticus Finch “Why is ma laaahf filled with contrary feee-males ?” grumbles dilapidated defence lawyer Rusty Quinn (Brendan Gleeson), his deep south vowels stretching like grilled cheese across his cluttered desk. Poor Rusty.

As the father of two headstrong lawyer daughters, this sunken beanbag of fading masculinity is forced daily to endure the contrariness of feee-males who are forever challengin’ the status quo. “This is all bullshit,” snaps elder daughter Sam (Rose Byrne), by way of illustration. “You’re a dipshit,” adds Charlie (Meghann Fahy), thoughtfully.

They sure don’t make his laaahf easy! But the sisters love ol’ Rusty, or at least do their best to tolerate his excruciating aphorisms (“Never kick a fresh turd on a hot day,” etc), and when a school shooting forces them to confront a long-buried family tragedy, the Quinns pull together. They need each other.

Dammit, the whole town needs them. After all, shouts Charlie, “We’re the only lawyers that don’t roll over for the local cops!” Thus begins The Good Daughter, a steaming hillock of “smalltown secrets” bunkum that fulfils precisely the same purpose as a Harlan Coben adaptation. The Good Daughter is on Sky Atlantic and Now Continue reading...