TL;DR: All Her Fault is a high-octane, gut-wrenching psychological thriller anchored by Sarah Snook’s powerhouse performance. Equal parts mystery, motherhood horror, and social commentary, it’s the kind of binge that’ll have you texting your mom “just checking in” halfway through.
All Her Fault
Let’s get this out of the way: Sarah Snook doesn’t just act in All Her Fault—she detonates. Coming off her Tony-winning one-woman show The Picture of Dorian Gray (where she somehow juggled 26 characters like she was speedrunning an existential crisis), Snook crashes back into TV with the emotional force of a freight train driven by maternal panic. The result? All Her Fault on OSN+, a binge-worthy eight-episode thriller that blends the dread of Gone Girl with the guilt-driven chaos of Big Little Lies, then sprinkles it all with a pinch of Succession-style moral decay.
The premise sounds deceptively simple: a mom goes to pick up her 5-year-old son from a playdate—and he’s gone. Vanished. Ghosted by the universe. One wrong house, one disconnected number, and suddenly Sarah Snook’s Marissa Irvine is in the kind of spiraling, chest-tightening terror that every parent’s subconscious files under “do not think about ever.” From that first minute, All Her Fault hits the ground running—and never lets its characters, or us, breathe again.
Executive producer and writer Megan Gallagher (backed by the British dream team behind Downton Abbey and The Day of the Jackal) wastes no time translating Andrea Mara’s 2021 bestseller into a Chicago-set fever dream. What could’ve been just another “kidnapped kid procedural” becomes something way gnarlier—a psychological labyrinth about guilt, class, and the ever-thinning thread that holds modern families together.
Marissa’s guilt isn’t just emotional wallpaper—it’s the show’s driving fuel. She’s a high-powered finance exec trying to juggle motherhood, marriage, and a career that eats its own young. When her son Milo disappears, the world doesn’t rally around her—it circles like sharks. The media brands her an unfit mother. Conspiracy nuts accuse her of staging the kidnapping for attention. Even her husband Peter (Jake Lacy, weaponizing his White Lotus smirk) starts radiating the kind of energy that makes you want to Google “is my spouse secretly a sociopath.”
And then there’s Dakota Fanning as Jenny, a fellow mom tangled up in the mess thanks to a misplaced text that kicked off the whole nightmare. She’s brittle and brilliant, the emotional counterpoint to Snook’s escalating mania. Their reluctant alliance becomes the series’ heartbeat—two women clawing for control in a world designed to gaslight them.
If Snook is the queen, the rest of the board is stacked with heavy hitters. Jake Lacy’s Peter is the kind of husband who’d Venmo you flowers instead of buying them—his charm masks a rot you can smell even through the screen. Daniel Monks and Abby Elliott round out the dysfunctional in-law squad, bound to Peter by money, guilt, and just enough codependence to make every family dinner feel like a hostage negotiation.
Michael Peña, as Detective Alcaras, is the emotional ballast. He’s the rare TV cop who doesn’t feel like a cliché—just a man who’s seen too much and refuses to lose empathy along the way. His scenes with Snook crackle with quiet intensity; you get the sense he’s not just chasing a case, but trying to exorcise his own ghosts.
And then there’s Sophia Lillis as Carrie, the nanny-slash-suspect whose arc deserves its own subreddit. What begins as a one-note villain role slowly unravels into something devastating. Lillis peels back layers of trauma, desperation, and moral ambiguity until you’re not sure whether to fear her or forgive her. By the finale, she’s less a kidnapper and more a mirror reflecting society’s cruelty toward the broken and the poor.
All Her Fault isn’t a show you “watch”—it’s one you endure in the best way possible. Directors Minkie Spiro (Pieces of Her) and Kate Dennis (The Handmaid’s Tale) split the series evenly, and their tonal handoff is seamless. Spiro sets the emotional groundwork in the first half: cold, paranoid, claustrophobic. Dennis takes the back half and cranks it up to eleven—introducing betrayals, blackmail, and enough plot twists to make a corkboard detective lose their mind.
Yes, it’s occasionally too twisty. By episode six, you start wondering if every character secretly went to the same Evil Plans 101 night school. But the pacing is so propulsive, and Snook’s performance so raw, that even the wilder narrative turns feel earned. The final episodes go full Fincher-on-espresso, twisting the narrative into something deeply uncomfortable and brilliantly cathartic.
Technically, it’s a feast. Chicago’s slick winter skyline becomes its own character—cold, sterile, and unforgiving. The cinematography, all blue steel and reflective glass, mirrors Marissa’s unraveling psyche. Even the sound design leans in: the hum of a fridge or a text notification becomes a jump scare. It’s prestige TV horror disguised as domestic drama.
What makes All Her Fault stand out isn’t just the suspense—it’s the commentary. Beneath the missing-child panic lies a critique of the modern parental experience. The performative perfection of Instagram moms. The quiet resentment of breadwinning wives married to emotionally absent men. The class divide between the Marissas of the world and the Carries who serve them.
Gallagher’s script skewers this landscape with surgical precision. You feel every ounce of Marissa’s self-loathing when she’s told her job makes her a bad mom, every twitch of fear when she realizes how quickly public sympathy can curdle into accusation. It’s less Law & Order and more Black Mirror: PTA Edition.
By the finale, I was pacing my living room like I’d lost my own kid. All Her Fault is that rare thriller that remembers fear isn’t just about danger—it’s about doubt. The show’s greatest trick isn’t the big reveal (though trust me, you won’t see it coming); it’s the way it weaponizes empathy.
Sarah Snook delivers a career-defining turn that might just make awards season very interesting. The writing occasionally veers melodramatic, but the emotional core never wavers. And in a streaming landscape drowning in “missing kid” thrillers, All Her Fault earns its seat at the grown-ups’ table.
